ESSENDON ruckman Tom Bellchambers has had further surgery on the injured ankle that disrupted his season.
After playing in last week's elimination final loss to North Melbourne, the 25-year-old underwent follow-up surgery to the reconstruction he had in January.
"The doctors decided that it would be worth going in and investigating a bit further to see if there's anything that needed to be cleaned up there," Essendon football operations manager Rob Kerr told AFL.com.au.
Bellchambers originally suffered the injury at pre-season training, which ruled him out for almost four months. Even though he returned to play eight senior games, he never quite reached peak fitness.
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"He was a bit sore throughout the year and he was obviously pushing his recovery. It never really completely settled down for him so he's gone in to try and tidy it up now," Kerr said.
"Ideally he might have given it a bit more rest but he was just trying to get back to playing."
The club is yet to see the results of the second surgery, and what it will mean for Bellchambers' hopes of a full pre-season.
Bellchambers is one of only two post-season surgeries for the Bombers, along with midfielder Brent Stanton (hip arthroscope).
Some other players, including defender Tayte Pears (heel/shoulder surgeries), went under the knife last month.
The first-to-fourth year players at Essendon will return to training on November 5, with the rest of the list to come back on November 17.
Last year the Bombers took more than 25 players to Colorado for a high intensity altitude training camp, having sent just 10 for a trial in 2012.
Kerr said the club was yet to commit to travelling overseas again, but if it did go ahead with the altitude training, only a "select group who we think can get maximum benefit" will go.
