The stunning career of dual-Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe is threatening to end with a whimper after scans confirmed he suffered a moderate-grade hamstring strain playing in the WAFL last weekend.

While Fyfe, 32, won’t need surgery he could miss a prolonged period of football in what looms as possibly the final year of his brilliant career.

Fyfe managed 22 AFL games in 2024, having played just 16 across the previous two seasons, and no more than 16 in the two before that as injuries piled up.

Having battled a knee injury in the pre-season, which has limited his capacity to train and forced a comeback to the senior side through the Peel Thunder, Fremantle football boss, Joe Brierty expressed his disappointment for Fyfe.

“It’s obviously frustrating for Nat as he had been progressing well following his knee injury sustained during the pre-season,” Brierty said.

“We know the calibre of the person and player that he is, and we know Nat will dedicate himself to his recovery with the support of our performance health team.”

Fyfe suffered the injury in the first quarter of Saturday’s match while working his way back into football after undergoing a knee arthroscopy in January.

Thursday will be D-Day for two of Melbourne’s biggest stars after Kysaiah Pickett and Steven May were restricted by injury at training on Tuesday.

Pickett rolled his ankle and May damaged his plantar fascia in Melbourne’s fifth consecutive loss on Saturday night.

Pickett came away from the main group and completed slow run-throughs along the boundary by himself.

May took an even lesser part in training and was visibly sore as he walked in and out of the rooms.

Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin expects the pair to put their hand up for selection on Thursday but “won’t take a risk” with the more serious case in May.

“Kozzie just rolled a little bit of an ankle on the weekend, but, you know, it’s Tuesday, first session, he’ll train fully Thursday and be right to go,” he said.

“Steven had an incident with his plantar fascia, in a lot of ways it’s a positive incident because it’s a tear that helps the recovery.

“He’s actually feeling a lot better in terms of his plantar fascia today than he did last week, we’re hopeful he’ll get up Thursday and be right for the weekend.

“In some ways, an incident which is pretty painful at the time, can be real positive moving forward.

“We’re expecting him to be able to train, obviously (we’ll) assess him on Thursday, make sure he’s right to go, we won’t take a risk with him but everything indicates he'll be right.”

ESSENDON will also need to find a second ruckman to help Sam Draper after confirmation Nick Bryan’s season was over after suffering an ACL injury in his team’s win over Melbourne during Gather Round.

The 23-year-old suffered the injury in the first quarter of the Dons’ 39-point win over Melbourne on Saturday night and scans on Monday morning confirmed the club’s initial concerns of an ACL injury.

“This is obviously a disappointing setback for Nick, who had been in good form for us,” GM AFL Daniel McPherson said

“While it’s frustrating for him given how hard he’s worked to earn consistent opportunities at senior level, we have no doubt that Nick will attack his rehab just as strongly and put himself in a great position to return in good shape next season.

“From a team perspective, we’ll wrap our arms around Nick and support him through this period.”