MELBOURNE midfielder James McDonald has said Aaron Davey has a good chance of recovering from his hamstring injury in time to play in the Queens Birthday clash against the Pies at the MCG on Monday.
Davey did not play against the Saints at the weekend after he pulled up sore in a midweek training session.
“He’ll be a good chance I’d say,” McDonald said.
“He didn’t do too much damage so he’ll train today and we’ll see how he goes. I suppose with the extra day as well, that will give him a good chance.”
McDonald said the team missed ‘Flash’ in their crushing defeat against St. Kilda.
“He’s a match winner and he’s one of those players who can run the lines and break open a game,” he said.
In more bad news for the Dees, star forward Russell Robertson had his season cut short when he snapped his achilles tendon. He undergoes surgery today.
“He’s pretty shattered. He’s having an operation right about now. It’s disappointing. He’s going to be a big loss but hopefully he can make a good recovery.”
McDonald insisted that despite Robertson’s setback, which comes only a week after the retirement of Demons’ veteran forward David Neitz, the bottom of the ladder club must remain upbeat.
“You don’t have a choice really. You can’t sit around and mope around all day. It doesn’t do you any good. Good thing is we’ve another big game next week against Collingwood so the boys will be pretty pumped up for that. Hopefully we can get ourselves up for that.
“Mentally we’ve got to get stronger and tougher to have that desire to play at the level that’s required every week. The older blokes have got to show the way to teach the younger blokes how to prepare for each week.”
McDonald admitted that he was disappointed with his side’s intensity against the Saints, who had been labeled as “soft” by their coach Ross Lyon, just a week earlier.
“We knew St Kilda were going to come out hard because they got a bit of flak during the week. We couldn’t match them and the game was probably over at quarter time. That’s a big area we need to improve on. Just putting in that consistent intensity that’s required to play at AFL level.”
