Lions coach Chris Fagan expects ruckman Oscar McInerney won’t be play in next Saturday’s AFL grand final after twice injuring his left shoulder in today’s game.

McInerney, a much loved player for the Lions, was sent to hospital in the final term after again injuring his shoulder after popping it out in the first half.

Fagan said he couldn’t see McInerney playing next week and, while the Lions had yet to do team selection, he expected they would bring in another ruckman such as Darcy Fort or Henry Smith.

Fagan added that the Lions reserves were playing up until the last couple of weeks having made the preliminary finals.

“I reckon that when you double-dislocate your shoulder in a preliminary final, you are probably not going to play in a grand final which is a shame,” Fagan said.

Former Lions star Luke Hodge said on Seven that he expected Darcy Fort would come in for McInerney despite only playing two games this season.

“I feel very proud of our group, not just for the resilience that they showed tonight, but for the resilience that they’ve shown throughout the year,” Fagan said.

“You know, we’re in a pretty dicey situation at the halfway mark of the season, with four wins and six losses and a draw.

“If you had have said to me at the halfway mark of the season, ‘we’re going to be playing in the grand final at the end of the year’, I probably would have said, ‘you’re crazy’.”

Apart from their slow start the Lions also had four players suffer ACL injuries this year - Keidean Coleman, Tom Doedee, Darcy Gardiner and Lincoln McCarthy.

“You are the sum of all your experiences and we were obviously disappointed about what happened in the grand final last year as close as it was,” Fagan said.

“That was driving us coming into this season, but it was probably in a way driving us too hard. I felt like we were trying too hard.

“I think that it manifested itself in our kicking for goal as an example.

“But it has enabled us to uncover depth that we didn’t know that we had. A lot of young players have come into our team and given us an enormous amount of energy.”