SCANS on Monday will determine the severity of Carlton midfielder Marc Murphy's shoulder injury but his coach has already all but ruled him out of next Sunday's clash with Melbourne.

Murphy sprained his AC joint in a brutal collision with Adelaide's Patrick Dangerfield in the second quarter of Sunday's match at Etihad Stadium.

Both players were going in low for the ball and collided at high speed, and took time getting to their feet before Murphy was helped from the field cradling his left arm.
 
He was treated on the bench before being taken into the rooms, and was subbed out for Chris Yarran at half-time.

Coach Brett Ratten said afterwards he would miss "some footy".

"We're not sure in regards to how significant [the injury is]. He'll go and get scans and we'll find out the full result tomorrow," Ratten said after the 69-point defeat.

"He'll definitely miss next week, whether it's two, four … I don't know what the outcome is just yet.

"He'll miss some footy - I don't know how significant."
 
Dangerfield stayed on the field at first and ran into the Crows' forward half but soon took himself off with what appeared to be rib and back soreness.
 
He returned to the ground and played out the game, and was best on ground with 35 disposals and two goals.
 
Lachie Henderson ended the afternoon with a sore groin and Nick Duigan finished on the bench in what Ratten described as a conservative move.

"We fell away at the end and it was one of those things where we had to make the call, do we risk putting players back out there that have got some cramps and a few little niggles?" Ratten said.

"I suppose that's a hard one for the competition, and for the AFL, to start putting blokes out that might cause injuries.

"You might have to concede a couple more goals in the defeat knowing that you're actually looking after players' welfare because we did see Duigan in a similar incident in Maroochydore [in the NAB Cup] when we'd already used our subs and we couldn't bring on any other player.

"We knew he was fatigued and he ended up doing a quad late in the game, which we thought could have been managed if we'd just left him off the ground.

"It's something we took today and thought, if we had to, we'd put him on but we didn't do that."

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs.