Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams revealed his star utility Chad Cornes is grappling with the latest flare-up of a knee cartilage problem he has managed for three years.

Cornes, who only three games ago returned early from surgery to mend a badly broken finger, looked a shadow of his usual self during Port's incomprehensible defeat to Carlton.

Though Blues youngster Bryce Gibbs won rave reviews for his tagging job, Williams had said after the game the All-Australian was playing hurt, and decided it was time to make public a problem Cornes has held off getting surgery for since 2005.

Having just been through a debate over whether he came back too early from the broken finger which restricted his kicking, Cornes must now decide whether or not to take the five week break required to clear up the issue.

"He's got a cartilage problem in his knee, and he's probably had it for three years,' Williams said.

"It comes and goes and he gets over it and it slips in and out.

"At the end of the year there's nothing wrong with it so you let it go and keep it going and unfortunately it's flared up at this stage in the last few weeks.

"As time goes by it's unfair for Chad and as always when people cross the white line everyone's 100 per cent and it's `what the hell's going on and there's something wrong with him and he's not playing well' and all those things, but to be fair to Chad he puts his hand up and wants to play.

"He's got a sore finger and people understand that, but the things you don't know about the players it's a great credit to them and most of the time they get away with it without people knowing.

"It could come good this week or it might be that he needs four or five weeks off with surgery.

"(Surgery) is more possible than remote."

Cornes' is not the only knee causing problems for the Power, as backman Toby Thurstans is to miss a month with a strained medial ligament sustained in the final stages of the Carlton game.

The prognosis is somewhat brighter for young defender Paul Stewart, who is likely to be fit for next week's trip to Geelong after tests showed no structural damage from his heavy knock to the neck.

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