{"id":418142,"date":"2026-01-17T02:06:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418142\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T02:06:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:06:03","slug":"melbourne-skipper-suffers-setback-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418142\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne skipper suffers setback – AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Melbourne has confirmed a further setback for skipper Max Gawn<\/a>, while providing an update on several other players who were restricted or missing from training on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Gawn ran laps with first-year player Tom Matthews for most of Wednesday’s session as a result of a fractured finger.<\/p>\n

“Max injured his finger on Monday and will be in a splint for the next three weeks,” General Manager Alan Richardson<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

“He’ll be able to continue running and will maintain his fitness, which means his ability to play in the upcoming AFL Origin<\/a> match won’t be affected.<\/p>\n

Fellow ruck Tom Campbell<\/a>, meanwhile, injured his neck early in an innocuous incident early in the session.<\/p>\n

“He’s torn a ligament and will remain in a neck brace for the next month. He’ll see a neurosurgeon this week to determine the path forward for him,” Richardson said.<\/p>\n

Bailey Laurie<\/a> was missing, having undergone surgery on a broken hand, but the Dees are hopeful he won’t miss much of pre-season.<\/p>\n

“His return will be determined according to his hand functionality, but it’s likely that he’ll be back with the main group in the next couple weeks,” Richardson said of Laurie.<\/p>\n

The Demons also provided an update on Jack Henderson<\/a>, who is managing a stress fracture and expected to return to full training in late February.<\/p>\n

Jack Viney<\/a> and Harry Sharp<\/a> remain a few weeks away from returning from Achilles and hamstring injuries, respectively.<\/p>\n

All of Tom Matthews (meniscus), Brody Mihocek<\/a> (toe), Shane McAdam<\/a> (Achilles), and Andy Moniz-Wakefield<\/a> (ACL) are expected to be available for Round 1, while Jake Bowey<\/a> is progressing through the early stages of rehabilitation for his long-term foot injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne has confirmed a further setback for skipper Max Gawn, while providing an update on several other players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-418142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}