Light at end of tunnel for injured Beams

BRISBANE coach Chris Fagan has declared influential skipper Dayne Beams will play again this season in a major relief for the developing AFL battlers.

Beams played a bare 60 seconds in the last-placed Lions’ 60-point drubbing by premiership pacesetter GWS on Saturday after being ironed out by Shane Mumford.

The classy midfielder, who had his right shoulder reconstructed in late 2015, was taken off and never looked like returning, raising fears his season was over.

Fagan largely allayed those concerns after the loss.

“We’ll know more once he’s had a scan but there isn’t an expectation that he’s going to need an operation,” he said.

“He’ll probably recover and play some footy, I just don’t know how long he’ll be out for, whether that will be one week or four weeks.”

Fagan was left to lament the absence of the former Collingwood premiership star, especially when Dayne Zorko and Daniel Rich were largely invisible. Queenslander Sam Reid did an outstanding tagging job on the in-form Zorko, who was held to just five possessions.

Fagan was reluctant to criticise a “rare, quiet night” for Zorko, who Beams this week said should be in All-Australian contention. “If Beamsy had been out there it might have been able to help us a little more and he may have been able to settle things around the clearances in that third quarter,” the coach said.