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Wil Powell's horrific leg injury threatened to derail Gold Coast before they rallied to post a 43-point AFL win over Adelaide.
Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew has urged his players to celebrate the 43-point AFL win over Adelaide despite the distress caused by Wil Powell's horrific leg injury.
Powell was sent to hospital with what appeared to be a broken right leg and looks set to miss the rest of the season as the Suns push for a maiden finals berth.
The popular 22-year-old joins key forward Ben King and midfield dasher Lachie Weller (both knee) on the long-term injury list.
Connor Budarick will also be sidelined after hurting a hamstring against the Crows.
"It's clearly a nasty ankle and leg," Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew said of Powell's injury.
"Generally if the ankle does that at different times there could be a fracture in there as well.
"We'll support Powelly and we spoke about that after the game."
Gold Coast led by 29 points during the third quarter at Metricon Stadium on Sunday when Powell went down in an attempted tackle from Adelaide's Ned McHenry.
The margin was cut to 13 points as the final quarter ticked into time-on.
But the Suns found another gear as Adelaide chased the game, the home side kicking six of the last seven goals to win going away.
"Everyone's only human and a couple of guys mentioned they saw (a replay of the incident) on the scoreboard," Dew said.
"When it's your mate - and everyone knows that Powelly lives for footy - for a little period there was emotionally a little bit of an effect.
"Then they were able to resettle but I think it's only human that when a bad one like that happens there was a little period there where they were just on the back foot.
"They had the maturity to be able to refocus and go again."
The gutsy triumph put Gold Coast (7-6) within one win of eighth-placed St Kilda ahead of Sunday's meeting with Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.
"We still need to celebrate the goodness of this win and we said that if Powelly was in the dressing room that's exactly what he would want," Dew said.
"He's one of our most boisterous team members, so we're thinking of him and we'll check in on him as soon as we can."
