Danny Jacobs, one of Essendon's rising stars, will not play again this season after being diagnosed with stress fractures in his foot.

Jacobs came off the track early on Wednesday night with pain in the foot and scans yesterday confirmed the bad news.

The fracture is expected to take about seven weeks to completely heal and that will sideline him for the remainder of 2000.

Jacobs had been in excellent form in the reserves over the past two weeks and was very close to forcing his way back into the senior side.

"We are very disappointed to lose him and naturally he was pretty upset when he was told of the injury," football manager Matthew Drain said.

"His versatility has been a real plus for us at stages this year and his form has been excellent.

"It is not the injury that James Hird had and we don't expect it will have any long-term ramifications."

The Jacobs news came just one day after Peter Berbakov underwent a total knee reconstruction.