TOM McDonald will have to pass a late fitness test on his injured ankle to prove he is ready to play in Thursday night's match at the SCG, coach Simon Goodwin says.
The Demons have taken a squad of 25 players to Sydney as they look to register their first victory of the season and will make a call on selection after training at the SCG in a closed session on Wednesday.
We're not happy being 0-3 but we've got to keep looking at ways of getting better - Simon Goodwin
McDonald rolled his left ankle in last Friday night's game against Essendon and pulled up sore in the days after the match.
"We've got a short week so we'll train up there today (Wednesday)," Goodwin said.
"We've got a squad of 25 coming up, so we'll get through our training, see who's available and we'll pick our final team from there."
Braydon Preuss, Marty Hore, Charlie Spargo and Billy Stretch were all part of the extended squad bound for Sydney.
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Key defenders Sam Frost and Oscar McDonald have both come in for scrutiny for the way they played against the Bombers, with commentators centralising their blame on the pair for Melbourne's inability to defend the opposition.
The Demons are ranked last in the AFL for defence, conceding 114.3 points per game.
Dirty day: Sam Frost in action against Essendon. Picture: AFL Photos
"They've both been under pressure publicly, but as a club we need to defend better and we've spoken about that at length post-game and earlier in the week," Goodwin said.
"If we defend better as a team that's hopefully going to aid them in playing their roles for the team.
"There's a lot of theories about whose fault it is. Is it the backs? Is it the mids? Is it the forwards? But we're all in this together and we're all going to get our way out of it."
Goodwin reiterated the message that there were "no excuses" for the club's poor start to the season.
"We want to be held accountable, there are no excuses," Goodwin said.
"We're not happy being 0-3 but we've got to keep looking at ways of getting better. But there's no better way of doing that other than to hold yourself to a high account and continue to learn.
"We're out there to perform and to perform well."
Preuss was a late withdrawal from Sunday's VFL match, while Hore and Stretch were on managed minutes with a view to being available for Thursday night's match even with a four-day turnaround.
Spargo missed last week's game due to a broken jaw but has been cleared to play if selected.
"It's not ideal. I wish the AFL and VFL would align more with their schedules. We only had four days with our VFL team," Goodwin said. "But we work our way through that. We had some guys who played half a game and we had some guys that didn't play at all.
"It makes it challenging, but we'll make it work."
