Collingwood captain Darcy Moore suffered a hamstring injury in the first half against West Coast on Saturday, and the way he was being used when it happened has already become the focus of the fallout. Moore went down at a boundary throw-in while spending time in the ruck, in his fourth appearance of the season.
The injury comes after a season already broken up by soft-tissue problems and a concussion, leaving Collingwood with another setback for one of its most important players. Moore last played a bit-part ruck role in 2017, making Saturday’s decision to send him back into that job an immediate talking point once he went down.
Former player and analyst David King said the issue would not fade quickly. “I think it’ll be a story — should he be playing ruck?” he said, adding: “We haven’t seen him in the ruck — I can’t remember seeing him in the ruck for some time.”
Mick Malthouse was even more direct, saying Moore is not the player to be thrown around the ground in that role. “He is not equipped, coming off hamstrings and soft-tissue injuries, to be running around the ground in a different (ruck) role,” he said. “Because you need to explode to the next one, if it goes out of bounds on the other side you need to get there... he’s a victim of them not thinking through it.”
Cam Mooney backed that view with a blunt analogy. “As the great Denis Pagan always used to say, you don’t use a Ferrari to plough a field,” he said. “Not sure why Darcy was in there so that’s going to be a talking point during the week.”
Jason Dunstall stopped short of linking the injury directly to the role, but said the timing still looked unfortunate. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it happened because he was in the ruck,” he said. “It’s just unusual for a man that has struggled with injury. It’s a shame. It’s a shame for Darcy Moore.”
For Collingwood, the immediate concern is the hamstring itself, but the wider question is why Moore was asked to do work in the ruck at a point in the season when he had only just returned to regular football. Saturday’s setback has not only put his own availability in doubt; it has also invited scrutiny of a role decision that now looks increasingly hard to defend.
