Melbourne's Jake Melksham has required a second surgery on the infected hand he injured in his alcohol-fuelled restaurant fight with AFL teammate Steven May.
The reigning premiers were left deeply embarrassed by Sunday night's fight in Prahran, where May and Melksham, both 30, brawled after drinking alcohol at a dinner with teammates.
On Friday, Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin followed skipper Max Gawn and footy boss Alan Richardson in calling the incident "embarrassing" and confirmed Melksham required further treatment.
"He's got a pretty bad infection. So he's had it washed out once under surgery and he had it again yesterday," Goodwin said.
"So he's had two doses of surgery, it's been washed out twice, the infection was pretty bad.
"So he's definitely going to be unavailable for selection this week. He'll miss this week, no matter what.
"He's gone in twice. So it is a serious infection and one we need to get on top of."
May received a club-imposed suspension for drinking alcohol while in concussion protocols while both players were handed community service.
Goodwin said May had "broken some trust" and would need to rebuild that with his fellow players.
But he was confident the Demons could move on from the incident.
"We don't tolerate violence one iota but this incident isn't going to define our playing group," he said.
"They're united. They're committed to the cause. They know they've made a mistake and we'll learn from it and get better and move forward.
"Hopefully in time people will see this as a real galvanising time for us where we've come together as one and continued our pathway forward to what we want to achieve."
