Richmond defender David Astbury will miss this weekend’s match against Melbourne due to cartilage damage in his knee. 

Astbury experienced some knee soreness during last Saturday's loss to St Kilda at Marvel Stadium, and scans have since confirmed the damage. 

The 29-year-old will have arthroscopy of his knee to clean and remove loose cartilage, and he is expected to be unavailable to play for 4-5 weeks. 

See the full injury report from Physical Performance Manager Peter Burge below, brought to you by Victor Sports.

David Astbury, knee

"David had an incident in the game where he came down from a marking contest and had a little bit of a subluxation of the patella…He felt some discomfort with that and we checked him and he was having a bit of an issue with landing and hopping. But we got him back out there and he was able to function for the rest of the game...(He) had some scans on Sunday and there’s a little bit of loose fragment of articular cartilage which had come off behind the patella which needs to be removed. So he’s going into surgery today (Tuesday) and will probably miss around 4-5 weeks."

Josh Caddy, glute

"Josh had a small incident with his glute during the game in a contest. He’s just got a very minor glute strain in one of the small muscles. But he’ll be fine to train this week and play this weekend."

Dustin Martin’s return

"Dusty’s pulled up fine. He got through the game so he’ll have full training this week and be available to play this weekend again."

Readjusting to the fixture change

"We’re (now) going into a Sunday game this week and our following two games are Sunday games, so our schedule will reflect the same week for the next three weeks, so it was fairly easy to adjust. We gave the players an extra day off on Monday and started our weekly program again today. Our week progresses as normal into Sunday’s game."