Collingwood coach Craig McRae is prepared to get inventive as the Magpies try to rescue their title defence without star midfielder Jordan De Goey.
The explosive De Goey suffered a season-ending high-grade hamstring injury in Saturday night’s thrilling victory over Carlton.
While Nick Daicos is the star of Collingwood’s midfield, the explosive De Goey is probably the team’s most important barometer.
“We don’t replace Jordy – I don’t think he’s replaceable to be honest – but then we look at other avenues and other options for us,” McRae told the media on Tuesday.
“His centre-bounce work is as good as anyone in the competition, and his impact on games – we saw what he could do in the last half-game, so he has a lot of impact.
“So hard to replace, but we’ll find someone… we’ll see what we can do.
“He can play as a midfielder or forward, and he occasionally switches between the two. We’ll dig deeper into what that looks like.”
De Goey was limited to just 13 appearances this year due to groin and abdominal problems.
“He’s been chasing his tail this year, Jordy,” McRae informed me.
“You would’ve seen at training he couldn’t get through many sessions and then we were struggling to get him to the line.”
Tom Mitchell, another premiership midfielder, will also miss the remainder of the season due to a foot injury.
Collingwood will look to follow up their victory over the Blues with a shock win against ladder leaders Sydney at the SCG on Friday night.
Sydney, who have lost five of its last six games, is coming off a shocking 112-point defeat to Port Adelaide.
“It was a game like I hadn’t seen before,” McRae added.
“And I believe that outlier games are difficult to measure.
“… We’re certain that we’re going to meet an opposition that will go back to the basics and come with what they stand for.”
Collingwood is four points short of the top eight, with games against Sydney (SCG), Brisbane (MCG), and Melbourne (MCG) remaining.
“This is the competition, right? “Every team appears to be going through it,” he said.
“I believe we lost four games in a run, Geelong lost six or seven, and Sydney is currently going through that.
“The competition is really tight.
“So we’d like to think we’re getting a lot of personnel back that make us a better team and and then we’re playing at a level that we’re starting to build, it’s a nice time to build.”
McRae acknowledged that Collingwood, like other clubs, is in the process of making list management choices.
He declined to comment on defender Jeremy Howe’s future, preferring to commemorate the 34-year-old’s 250th game on Friday.
