Dale Morris suffers broken leg in win over Collingwood set to miss two months

THE Western Bulldogs have suffered an early season blow with premiership defender Dale Morris expected to be sidelined for up to two months.

Dale Morris sends a scare through the Bulldogs camp late in the game. Picture: Michael Klein

THE Western Bulldogs have suffered an early season blow with premiership defender Dale Morris expected to be sidelined for up to two months with a broken leg.

Morris, 34, suffered the leg injury in the dying seconds of Friday night’s win over Collingwood.

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He was on crutches in the rooms after the game and again yesterday when he went in for scans.

Those scans revealed a crack in his leg and it is understood he has a spiral fracture, which will sideline him for between six and eight weeks.

Dale Morris injured himself late in the win over Collingwood.

It means the Bulldogs will have to confront the team they beat in last year’s Grand Final Sydney - and Lance Franklin - without two of their premiership backmen, given Morris’ absence and Joel Hamling’s move to Fremantle.

The Swans will be desperate to kickstart their 2017 campaign after their shock loss to Port Adelaide on Saturday, a game in which Franklin kicked four goals.

Morris is one of the game’s most resilient footballers, overcoming a number of injury obstacles and the Dogs hope he can return in six weeks as a best-case scenario.

It was revealed after last year’s Grand Final that he played throughout the finals series with a fractured vertebrae, but he was involved in one of the most significant moments of the game.

He fought his way back from a horrific broken tibia in his lower leg in 2011, and has been one of the most respected defenders in the competition for a number of years now.