Ben Brown had knee surgery on Thursday morning.Credit:Getty Images
The club is hopeful Brown will be back running in four weeks and able to return to play in the early part of the season,but Melbourne football manager Alan Richardson confirmed a conservative approach would be taken to his recovery.
“He is in very good shape and his training standards since joining the club have been outstanding,” Richardson said.
“We recruited Ben as a long-term player for the club and are very confident that his best football is ahead of him.”
Brown has kicked 287 goals in 130 games and was runner-up in the Coleman Medal in 2019 when he kicked 64 goals,his third season in succession where he kicked more than 60 goals.
But he had a form slump in 2020,kicking just eight goals in nine games before injury ruled him out.
Brown joins vice-captain Jack Viney on the injury list as he recovers from a foot procedure last week that will keep him sidelined for another week,while the unlucky Marty Hore recovers from a knee reconstruction.
Brown wasn’t the only tall to receive bad news on the injury front this week,with Carlton revealing that promising ruckman Tom De Koning was suffering from a low-level stress reaction in his back.