Collingwood coach Craig McRae says injured star Taylor Adams is “a chance” to return should the Magpies make the AFL grand final after confirming a straight swap for returning star Nick Daicos as the likely only change for Friday’s preliminary final.
Daicos trained strongly again on Wednesday as McRae suggested he would consider using his star in a variety of roles, including at half-forward, but warned that the Magpies were “conscious” of how much football he had missed since suffering a hairline fracture to his knee in round 21.
McRae dismissed injury concerns for captain Darcy Moore, who also trained fully at Olympic Park, as Adams was put through some light drills in his bid to return from a hamstring strain should the Pies make the grand final.
The coach called Adams “a chance” to return if Collingwood beat GWS at the MCG.
“(Daicos for Adams) looks like the most likely (change), at this stage,” McRae said.
“It’s the unknown … we’re hoping (Adams could play next week). He’s progressing really well. It was a minor hamstring strain, what that means is he’s a chance.
“You would see the work he’s doing … he’s a race against the clock, but we’ve got to get there first.”
McRae said Daicos could be thrown into a number of positions on his return depending on the match situation.
“We’re going to use him where we need him, to be honest. He might start forward, he might start mid, just whatever the game needs,” he said.
“It’s a great weapon to have, bringing back one of your best players. He looks like he’s hungry, ready to go, he’s trained on and on. (He was) a bit scratchy in the first couple of weeks back … he’s missed a lot of footy, so we’ve got to be conscious of that.”
McRae said Moore’s wrist injury had “settled down reasonably well”, as the key defender trained without the cast on his hand he had worn last week.
He said it was unlikely any adjustments would be made to the Magpies’ defensive personnel despite the difficult threat posed by Giants half-forwards Toby Bedford and Brent Daniels.
Last week’s omission John Noble is an option for McRae if he opts to go with a smaller defence, but the coach said he was happy with the current balance of the backline.
“Daniels is a really good player, I think he’s underrated, we have to watch out for him. They’re good players … if you went through every player on the field you’d go, ‘ooh, this is a concern’, but we have a team defence so we like to back our system in,” he said.
“I had a good chat to Johnny (Noble) earlier in the week – he’s disappointed, as you would be, but as a quality human that he is, he just gets back to work and he’s trained so well this week.”
Livewrire Jack Ginnivan came on as the sub in the qualifying final win over Melbourne but McRae said he had to consider whether “insurance” was needed in other positions.
“I’ve said before, we look sometimes for insurance, and then look sometimes for spark. Sometimes you can get a bit of both – I think Mason (Cox) against Brisbane a few weeks ago looked like he gave us a bit of insurance and a bit of spark,” he said.
“Jack Ginnivan’s doing a great job in that role, so we’ll see how that plays out.”
