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Nth Qld at a loss to explain serious knee problems

North Queensland Fury have copped the brunt of the injury problems in the A-League this season, leaving their strength and conditioning coach scratching his head.

Alan McCall, who joined the Fury from Scottish giants Celtic, cannot believe that the new club has had to deal with so many injured players this season and says the serious knee rate they have endured is unheard of.

With Shane Stefanutto and Scott Wilson already going down for the rest of the season with anterior cruciate ligament damage, a third in seven weeks is now being feared.

James Robinson went down awkwardly in Sunday's loss to the Newcastle Jets and will have scans today to determine the injury.

McCall said the fact a club had three player potentially going down with similar knee injuries was something he had never experienced.

''To have two in two seasons would be unheard of, never mind having three in the last six or seven weeks,'' McCall said.

''We're looking into things ... I don't know if it's just bad luck but it's completely unheard of, I've never seen anything like it and everyone I speak to within AFL and NRL agrees.''

The only thing McCall could think of was that all the injuries, as well as the one to defender Karl Dodd which has kept him out for seven weeks, had happened in away matches.

''The surfaces are definitely different from Townsville, here the grass is a lot shorter and if your foot gets caught in it it spins quite easily, whereas at other parks it might get stuck,'' McCall added.

''But again, it's difficult to say and we'll probably never know for sure, but we'll definitely investigate and I'll speak to some experts in the field to get their thoughts and see if that might be an issue, if there's anything else we can do. Regardless of what injury it is we look to see if there's any way we can avoid it: Is there a reason for it?

''It's just difficult to find a reason for the knees that we've had, it's been extremely unlucky. But hopefully that's it, for the next few seasons at least.''

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Andrew Slevison
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Andrew Slevison

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