Essendon coach Brad Scott is coming to terms with another long-term injury to a star player that threatens to derail the Bombers' 2026 season before this one even finishes.
Prolific ballwinner Nic Martin has "almost certainly" ruptured the ACL in his right knee after landing awkwardly in Essendon's 6.10 (46) to 4.13 (37) loss against Richmond on Saturday night.
Martin, who finished second in Essendon's best-and-fairest last year behind captain Zach Merrett, will miss a large chunk of next year.
If scans confirm the worst case scenario, Martin will become the fourth Bombers player to injure their ACL this season, joining Nick Bryan, Lewis Hayes and Tom Edwards.
He becomes the ninth first-choice Essendon player currently sidelined, alongside Bryan, Sam Draper, Darcy Parish, Jye Caldwell, Kyle Langford, Ben McKay, Harry Jones, and Zach Reid.
"It's not just the players that aren't there, it's the players that come in," Scott said.
"They've never played together, and it ends up looking ... a complete lack of synergy and connection.
"Rookie players making rookie errors, which is understandable.
"Nic Martin's almost certainly done his ACL so that just sends a shiver down everyone's spine at quarter-time when that word sort of ripples out.
"These 12 months, injuries that are mounting up, it's going to be a real challenge to keep everyone's morale up, but that's the job of our leaders.
"Martin's a unique player and really important to the way that we play.
"I think teams can adapt and cover one or two, but when you're talking about half of the team, you've just got to accept that the synergy's not going to be there."
After slumping to a sixth-straight loss, Essendon (6-10) have just five days to prepare to host rampaging GWS at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night.
The Giants dominated premiership contenders Geelong on Saturday, just hours before Essendon's "comedy of errors" contest against Richmond.
After booting 3.0 in the first quarter, the Bombers incredibly added only 1.13 for the rest of the match to go down against a team who were tipped by some pundits pre-season not to win a game.
Despite missing a host of key players, Scott opted to drop forwards Archie Perkins and Jade Gresham to face the Tigers.
"Perk's a really capable, competitive, contested type player, and he's just been a bit hesitant over the last month or so" Scott said.
"Doing him no favours, just pushing him out.
"We tried positional changes, a few different things for him, but he just needed a reset to go back and compete at VFL level before he comes back in."
Perkins collected 21 possesions in Essendon's VFL loss against Box Hill on Saturday, while Gresham didn't play.