Josh Green, who was originally listed as the Lions’ substitute, promptly handed the green vest over to emergency Claye Beams who had already played half a game with the Reserves earlier in the day.
Swans Coach John Longmire was also seen issuing new instructions to one of his players who had obviously originally been given the task of minding Black for the evening.
Lions Senior Coach Michael Voss said the circumstances in which his team lost Black were “disappointing”.
“(Black’s withdrawal) was probably a little bit later than we would have liked,” Voss said.
“There was no query on his fitness all week. He just pulled up fairly sore in the warm-up, so rather than just continue and have what happened (in Round 9 against North Melbourne), we took the conservative option and pulled him out of the team. We had to make the call pretty quickly.”
“But we had a player ready to go, so it was just a point of stepping him in and going from there.”
Voss said that Black’s injury was the same one that forced him out of the side for the team’s matches against West Coast and Hawthorn.
“It was his knee. It’s the same issue he had about 4-5 weeks ago,” Voss said.
“It’s going to be a little bit week-to-week with how it goes.”
