Demons coach Simon Goodwin hopes his side can “reset” after the disappointing events of this past week.
The AFL announced on Thursday that it will be looking further into the brawl between Steven May and Jake Melksham that occurred at a Prahran restaurant on Sunday.
May was issued a club-imposed one-match ban for drinking while in the AFL’s concussion protocols, while Melksham has since undergone surgery to clean up an infection in his hand that occurred as a result of the altercation.
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Speaking publicly for the first time this week after club captain Max Gawn and football manager Alan Richardson addressed the incident, Goodwin apologised for the scandal, but presented a united front.
“Obviously the week was disappointing. I think Max summed it up really well saying it was embarrassing for everyone else involved at our footy club,” Goodwin said.
“We’ve worked really hard to build what we’ve built internally, and obviously externally that’s shown out on field.”
The most recent premiership coach said he hoped the club could take lessons from the dispute and galvanise as a group ahead of Monday’s Queen’s Birthday clash with Collingwood as it stares down the barrel of three consecutive losses.
“But as I’ve said to the players, culture is never perfect and these things always come up and it’s what you do about them, how you react to them, how you learn from them, how you get better, and that’s what we’ve done internally as a playing group,” Goodwin said.
“It’s been a great chance to reset ourselves as a playing group internally about what we really want to stand for and continually stand for, and use this as a lesson to get better. Culture is never complete, it’s never finished, it’s always ongoing and you’ve got to nurture it. You’ve got to continue to remind yourself about what’s important.
“That’s the thing about culture, there’s gonna be mistakes and people will have behaviours that you don’t want to tolerate and you will have to address them. And we have, we’ve addressed it, we’ve given the sanctions out and we’ll move forward and learn from it.
“But in terms of the incident, it doesn’t mean that our playing group don’t love and care for each other. I’ve got four brothers and I’ve had a fight with all of them, it doesn’t mean I don’t love and care for them.
“We don’t tolerate violence one bit, but this isn’t isn’t going to define our playing group. They’re united, 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 is a real galvanising time for us where we’ve come together as one and continue that pathway forward to what we want to achieve.”
Goodwin also revealed Melksham experienced a “pretty bad infection” to his hand that required a second surgery to resolve, but confirmed that there were no broken bones.
“It’s been washed out twice … so he’s definitely going to be unavailable for selection this week. It is a serious infection we need to get on top of,” he said.