MELBOURNE captain Max Gawn has declared himself fit to face Adelaide on Wednesday night despite undergoing a scan on Monday.
The triple All-Australian ruckman was reportedly dealing with a soft-tissue strain in the wake of the Demons' disappointing 51-point loss to Port Adelaide last week.
"I'm OK. I'm no more battered and bruised than I am during the year (normally)," Gawn told RSN radio.
"We just checked a few things and I will train today and get on the plane and play the Crows.
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"There is that added (responsibility) from the captain to potentially go out there and perform.
"But also, if I genuinely did have something wrong with my body, I am smart enough to know that my body is bigger than one game … but my scans were relatively good this week, so it's all systems go at this stage."
Melbourne has received significant criticism since the Power defeat, which followed three pretty strong performances in wins over Gold Coast and Hawthorn and a narrow loss to Brisbane.
One of the harshest critiques came from club president Glen Bartlett.
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"He's the 'pres' – he can say whatever he wants and, to be fair, he said what he saw and he said pretty much what 'Goody' (coach Simon Goodwin) said after the game to us internally," Gawn said.
"So the fact it was external doesn't really bother us. To another point, we are up in the Sunny Coast … and I doubt the majority of players have probably seen it.
"It's not the first time I've had someone at the board or presidency level say something about the club.
"It's just because they're passionate and really want the team to be successful. I know Glen well. He's just passionate and he was really disappointed in the result and that's fair enough."
Gawn expected his team to respond from that underwhelming effort but also pointed out that the 0-9 Crows would also be desperate to avoid another defeat.
He said the Demons knew what they did wrong but were still trying to discover the reason for it.
"If you're relying on external triggers to make you respond, you probably don't have a great backbone of your culture," he said.
"If we're relying on someone to come out and go bang to get an on-field response, we're probably not where we want to be as a club."
