MELBOURNE defender Steven May has been ruled out for Friday night's crunch game against Essendon with a groin injury.

While May will definitely miss this week's game, more will be known about the extent of his injury, including a clearer timeline, in coming days.

Demons football manager Josh Mahoney said May's return to the field would not be rushed.

AROUND THE STATE LEAGUES Who starred for your club?

"He's had one set of scans today so we're going to rule him out for this week's game due to the short turnaround," Mahoney said.

"At this stage we can comfortably say he's not playing this week. He's an important player to us so we don't want him coming back any quicker than he has to."

May sat out the final quarter of Saturday night's 80-point loss to Geelong at GMHBA Stadium, as the Demons went to 0-2 on the season.

NINE THINGS WE LEARNED Time to find your mojo, Tigers

The marquee recruit suffered the injury in the second quarter of the game and after receiving some treatment it was determined May had no power in his groin to continue to play on, with the call made to take him out of the game once the result was beyond doubt.

Mahoney said initial scans showed some damage to May's groin, although the severity of the tear is still being explored.

"With these types of groin injuries it depends on how quickly things settle down, how the treatment progresses and we'll be able to tell more later in the week," Mahoney said.

BARRETT Dons a mess, Dees misfiring

May missed around three weeks of training after a hamstring injury hindered his progress over the pre-season, while he missed round one through suspension.

"We'll just make sure we set him up for a really good season and if that does mean he needs an extra week then we'll take that approach," Mahoney said.

Find In the Game on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify