Melbourne star Clayton Oliver remains in hospital and has been ruled out of the King’s Birthday blockbuster against Collingwood.
Demons coach Simon Goodwin says the midfielder will likely be in hospital until Sunday due to the “pretty serious” infection from a blister on his foot that has required strong antibiotics.
He said Oliver would adjust his holiday plans to prepare for the Demons’ round 15 clash against Geelong that comes after his side’s bye but only 10 days after the Magpies game.
“I did promise (Oliver) was going to play, didn’t I? I’m going to have to go back on that word, he’s definitely not playing,” Goodwin said.
“He’s still in hospital with an infected foot – it was pretty serious at the time, the infection – he’ll probably end up with five days in hospital and he’s probably not looking likely to get out until Sunday.
“He definitely won’t be playing this week.”
Goodwin said the Demons were “hopeful” Oliver would recover quickly and be able to return immediately after the bye.
“We’re pretty hopeful that once he gets through that period, it’s going to be a fast transition back,” he said.
“It’s just a blister … it just took off. It’s not the first infection we’ve had within our footy club this year, we had a pretty significant one with Joel Smith as well.
“We deal with it as we go through, but as I said it’s pretty serious, it all happened pretty quickly.”
Goodwin said premiership full-forward Ben Brown would need to produce higher level performances in the VFL to force his way back into the senior side, but insisted the Demons remained “open minded” towards selecting Brown in the same side as ruck duo Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy.
“Browny is in solid form, he’s not in brilliant form … he’s played one or two good games at the VFL level, so we’re just looking for consistency,” Goodwin said.
“In the end, if he’s playing to a really high level, then he’s going to play AFL footy.”
Goodwin said the Demons’ scoring issues had become a concern over the last three weeks, with Melbourne ranked sixth for forward entries but 16th for scores per inside 50.
“We’ve still got work to do there, there’s no doubt about that, but on the flip side what I have been absolutely rapt with is how we’ve defended,” he said.
“We created 40 forward half turnovers last week which is a record in the game, so there’s certainly areas in our game that are going well but we need to try and maximise those (by scoring) as well.”