Hawthorn won’t make any excuses despite injuries to stars including Luke Hodge

HAWTHORN skipper Luke Hodge will miss up to six weeks after he had surgery on a broken forearm.

AFL - Round 1 - Geelong v Hawthorn at MCG , Geelong's Patrick Dangerfield gets tackled by Hawthorn's Jordan Lewis. 28th March 2016. Picture: Colleen Petch.

HAWTHORN captain Luke Hodge will miss 4-6 weeks after having surgery to repair his broken forearm.

Scans today confirmed the fractured ulna bone in Hodge’s right arm.

“Our worst fears were realised, I suppose, the xrays showed a fracture on his ulna,” Hawthorn general manager of football operations Chris Fagan told the club’s website.

“We think it will take somewhere between 4-6 weeks at this stage ... we’ll know more once he’s had the operation and we’ll know how it all went.”

Hodge suffered his injury in a collision with Geelong’s Mitch Duncan during the last quarter of the Easter Monday clash.

Duncan was reported for the incident, but the match review panel on Tuesday threw out the charge.

“After viewing all available footage and speaking to the umpire who laid the report on the day, it was their view that contact was made between Duncan’s shoulder and Hodge’s arm,” the panel said.

Hodge, 31, is the fourth injury casualty from last year’s premiership side this year.

He joins star forward Jarryd Roughead (knee) and midfield duo Liam Shiels (wrist) — who Fagan said was a chance to return this week — and Bradley Hill (wrist) on the sidelines.

Vice-captain Jordan Lewis insisted the setbacks weren’t any worse than others that the team has dealt with in recent years.

“People are trying to look for excuses on why we will fall, whether it’s injuries, form, age,” Lewis said.

Luke Hodge cradles his injured arm after his side’s loss to Geelong. Picture: George Salpigtidis

“As players and competitors, we don’t worry about that. We worry about who we’re playing this week and who is on the track, not why we can lose today.

“It’s all about why we can win. Players will come in, we expect them to play well and we expect to win.

“It’s Round 1 so you can’t expect to be at your absolute peak.”

Lewis expects the Hawks and West Coast to be smarting in their own way come Sunday’s game at the MCG.

The Hawks from Monday’s loss and the Eagles looking for some payback for last year’s Grand Final loss.

“You use that anger that has built up after a loss to try and build the performance,” he said.

“I would imagine (West Coast will use the pain of losing the Grand Final). Any loss that we have throughout the year, when we come up against that side (again), we want to redeem ourselves. That’s certainly the way I think they would be approaching it, so we need to be really on our game this week.

“We can use the loss we had on the weekend as motivation and they might use the loss in the Grand Final as motivation. I think it’s going to be a really good contest.”

Originally published as Hawthorn won’t make any excuses despite injuries to stars including Luke Hodge