Dees reveal Clayton Oliver's courageous effort

Clayton Oliver donned a glove on his left hand at the MCG on Sunday and the reason why has now been revealed by his coach Simon Goodwin.

The 20-year-old had undergone surgery on a finger six days prior to the 109-point win over Carlton after breaking it last week, with the glove allowing the courageous midfielder to tough it out.

“It hasn’t been well documented but he broke his finger last week,” Goodwin said.

“He had an operation on Monday and he got up for this week’s game … it’s a credit to Clayton and it’s a credit to our medical department.”

It’s the second time a Melbourne player has required an operation on a digit this year after Christian Petracca copped an infection from a dog bite.

But this was a sheer coincidence, as Goodwin attested immediately.

“It certainly wasn’t from a dog bite – it was footy-related,” he said.

Oliver racked up 26 disposals in the courageous effort and the glove seemingly offered the right protection as 18 of his touches were handballs.

He laid three tackles and kicked one goal in the thumping victory, which was Melbourne’s first by triple figures since 2004.

“To be able to have this sort of procedure done and still play, you wouldn’t have even noticed with Clayton the way he goes about his footy,” he said.

“Clayton, right from he outset was keen to play. Not just play, he wanted to play well. It comes down to the athlete’s mindset and his was outstanding.”

The Demons moved into the top four with the win.

After emerging clear of a first-quarter tussle, the major point of interest quickly became Melbourne’s winning margin.

Tom McDonald kicked four first-half goals and by fulltime he was joined by four other multiple goal-kickers.

Jake Melksham tallied five majors and Alex Neal-Bullen was full of run and finished with four himself.

More than half of Melbourne’s side featured on the goalkickers list – though spearhead Jesse Hogan left his run late and joined them with the last goal of the game.

with AAP