St Kilda midfielder Luke Dunstan won’t play again this season after dislocating his left shoulder in Sunday’s 71-point win over Carlton at the MCG.

Dunstan, 21, has been assessed by specialists this week, but a decision on whether to operate on the South Australian has yet to be made.

The hard-nosed onballer underwent a shoulder reconstruction at the end of his first season in 2014, but returned for the opening game of 2015 before playing 19 games that year.

“Early stages of Luke is he’s still being assessed, the dislocation went back in quite easily, and he has been assessed by specialists,” said St Kilda GM of Football Performance, Jamie Cox.

“At this stage, there’s no immediate surgery they’ll assess that over the next week. What is clear is he’s year’s over unfortunately.

“But we expect him to rehab strongly there is no reason to suspect he won’t start the year next year.”

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Defensive forward Nathan Wright is in doubt for this Saturday night’s important clash with Sydney at Etihad Stadium after injuring his back in a marking contest last weekend.

The 22-year-old bravely played out the game after a delayed start to the second half, but will need to prove his fitness at Thursday’s main training session before being given the green light.

“Nathan Wright had a knock to the back during the game against the Blues. He probably wouldn’t have finished the game out, he was a bit incapacitated, but with Luke going down Nathan went back on and did finish the game but certainly finished a bit sore. He’ll be tested this week but might miss,” Cox said.

Tasmanian midfielder Eli Templeton didn’t play in the VFL on Saturday after pulling up from training with hamstring tightness. He is expected to play this weekend, as is first-year rebounding defender Brandon White, who has missed the last couple of weeks with a hamstring strain.

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