St Kilda key defender Matt Maguire has succumbed to his second serious foot injury in two seasons and will miss the rest of the 2008 season - continuing his and the Saints' wretched run with injury.
Scans on Monday revealed Maguire, the Saints' first choice centre-half-back when fit, has a fractured fourth metatarsal - the bones that connect the toes to the ankle.
It is an injury more normally associated with soccer players with England stars David Beckham, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney all having suffered the injury in recent seasons.
In soccer it is normally caused by contact between players' feet as they attempt to win the ball but in AFL it is more likely to be a stress-related injury.
St Kilda football manager Matthew Drain said Maguire complained of soreness after the game.
"He has had some soreness during the game, he didn’t know how bad that was so it’s only post-game that it has been identified that he has fractured his fourth metatarsal," Drain said.
Maguire told Channel Ten it would be a long time before he was able to play again.
"She's not great, it's just very disappointing," he said.
It is the same foot that Maguire broke last year but a different bone.
Maguire was playing just his fourth game of the season when the injury occurred against Richmond on Saturday night, having had a delayed start to the season as he recovered from an injury-plagued 2007 season.
After breaking his leg in round 18, 2006 against West Coast - Maguire made it back for the start of last season but then broke his foot in the opening game and did not play again until round 14.
And now the 23-year-old, who is stranded on 99 games, is facing another long stint on the sidelines.
It is the second crushing blow for the Saints following the narrow win over Richmond - which lifted the pre-season champions into fifth place - after skipper Nick Riewoldt was ruled out for the next month after straining his medial ligament in a tackle from Richmond's Luke McGuane.
The Saints, who face a Friday night blockbuster against Collingwood immediately after this week's break for the AFL Hall of Fame match, have also lost veteran full-back Max Hudghton.
Hudghton, a late withdrawal against the Tigers, has been plagued by soft tissue injuries in recent years and will miss the next two weeks with another hamstring strain.
The Saints also lost Xavier Clarke to a hamstring injury on Saturday night, which could sideline him for three matches, while veteran ruckman Steven King will miss at least another match with the hamstring problems that have sidelined him for the past two matches.
And much-improved defender Sam Gilbert is still facing at least another four weeks on the sidelines with a shoulder injury as the Saints' casualty list begins to mount.