A broken right foot will see North Melbourne vice captain Drew Petrie miss at least six weeks after scans revealed he snapped the fifth metatarsal at training on Tuesday.
The 27 year old was to miss the first two matches anyway due to suspension but will now have a screw inserted in his foot ensuring he will miss the first six.
North Melbourne coach Brad Scott was confident that the Roos could cover the injured Petrie, even though he was a major forward target.
“The loss of Drew will hurt us from round three until he’s available again but we think we’ve got a very flexible forward line,” Scott said today.
“We can go quite tall or quite small and we’ve got the Aaron Edwards and Corey Jones types who are in between. We’ve got a lot of options.
“I think we’ve got some talent up there, there’s no doubt about that.”