Matt Rowell has been one of West Coast\u2019s biggest torturers in recent times, but the Brownlow medallist is unlikely to get a chance to take down the Eagles in the WA club\u2019s season opener next month.<\/p>\n
Rowell suffered a broken finger while playing for Victoria in last weekend\u2019s AFL Origin clash at Optus Stadium, with the star midfielder set to go under the knife.<\/p>\n
\u201cScans have shown a fracture in Matt\u2019s left hand. After consulting with specialists (on Tuesday) morning, the decision was made for Matt to undergo surgery this week,\u201d Gold Coast\u2019s head physio Andrew Weller said.<\/p>\n
It means the 24-year-old will miss Gold Coast\u2019s Opening Round fixture against Geelong on March 6, and while the club will nail down a timeline for his rehabilitation post-surgery, it appears unlikely he\u2019ll face West Coast in their clash at People First Stadium the following week.<\/p>\n
Rowell has a stunning record against the Eagles since bursting onto the scene against them with a best-on-ground performance in just his second AFL game in 2020.<\/p>\n
He has amassed 11 of a possible 12 Brownlow votes against West Coast in the clubs\u2019 past four meetings, including a three-vote effort in his most recent game against the WA side in their 2025 season opener with 30 touches and 10 clearances.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The injury will halt Rowell\u2019s current consecutive games streak of 104 – the seventh-longest active run among players competition-wide – and will mark his first absence since mid-2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Rowell has been one of West Coast\u2019s biggest torturers in recent times, but the Brownlow medallist is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85,7067],"class_list":["post-485079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-west-coast-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}