Fremantle coach Ross Lyon is hopeful Nat Fyfe won't require knee surgery at the end of the year, and is backing the star midfielder to keep playing through his minor niggle.
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Fyfe is battling a tendon issue that has left his knee feeling sore on several occasions in recent weeks.
Scans have cleared Fyfe of any serious damage, with a surgeon also giving the knee a green light.
But whether Fyfe will require surgery at the end of the season remains to be seen.
"It's just a really minor ligament ... it just rolls and catches," Lyon said.
"At this point it (surgery) is not necessary. But down the track they would assess that.
"Connor Blakely's had it for 18 months, and it hasn't prevented him at all, and he hasn't needed a procedure at the end either. So hopefully it just settles."
Lyon played down talk that Fyfe may as well go in for a minor "clean out" at the end of the year.
"I don't like the term clean out," Lyon said.
"They don't just clean out. A surgeon told me once that if you have a knee op, they're all serious.
"There's always a chance of infection. We don't just clean it out, we trim cartilage, we adjust ligaments. Any operation is serious."
Fyfe is the Brownlow Medal favourite following his hot start to the year, and he looms as a key figure in Sunday's clash with North Melbourne at Optus Stadium.
The Fremantle skipper is set to get a tight tag from Ben Jacobs, who restricted Richmond's Dustin Martin to just 16 disposals a fortnight ago.
Fyfe is five centimetres taller and seven kilograms heavier than Jacobs, and Lyon is urging his star midfielder to drift forward to expose the Kangaroos tagger.
Forward Cam McCarthy has copped some heavy criticism following his goalless display against Sydney last week, with former Bulldogs and Richmond coach Terry Wallace labelling the performance as awful.
But Lyon took blame for McCarthy's quiet form of late, saying the former GWS forward doesn't have enough tall support in attack.
McCarthy has struggled since Matt Taberner went down with a footy injury in round five.
"I feel a bit guilty with Cam because (of) the team we've picked," Lyon said.
"I take responsibility for Cam not having a lot of support, so that just flags (David) Mundy will play a lot more forward.
"We think with the support, when he's more freer and he's not feeling the pressure of being that spearhead and tall all the time, he then plays very good footy."
Australian Associated Press
