Player availability

Tim English unfortunately is ill – so he won’t play. He’s recovered from his injury, but he’s just really sick. I think this flu that is going around has gotten a hold of him and has knocked him around. We’ll miss him this week again.

(The week off) will help Marcus Bontempelli on one front with his niggles and some of the soreness in his ankles and hip – all of the things he was sort of dealing with. He had a strain of the flu as well, which floored him for a while so we made that decision for him last week. He’ll be fresher in the body as far as injuries go – we just hope he’s running on top of the ground and that (the flu) hasn’t affected him too much. 

We’ve got to consider most players after what happened with our injuries and even the way we played against Port – we’re not satisfied and so still need to maintain integrity at selection and pressure for spots. Jamarra Ugle-Hagan will continue to be talked about every week, but is unlikely to come in this week.

Collingwood

I’ve been impressed with what they’ve done. They’ve got some significant experiences in different areas of the ground –I think it’s been recognised they’re playing a bit quicker at times, but I think they can be measured as well. Some of their young guys have been really impressive.

They’ll be hard to contend with on Friday night. We can’t give them an edge in any area of the ground because they’ll make us pay.

Sam Darcy

We will see him in the VFL this weekend – it’s exciting for all of us. Sam hasn’t played footy for a long time now. He’ll only play probably 60-70% of the game, but we’ll make sure he gets going. We’ll probably play him in some areas where he can really take control of the game, but we hope he gets through with flying colours. He’s been training well.

2022 form

Last year we used 41 players throughout the course of the year, which I guess highlights a health in your system and program that you can bring new players in to perform important and critical roles to help you win games. This year we haven’t been able to do that so much – we’ve been expecting more from the boys that have played. We’ve challenged some sides who are up a bit higher on the ladder without making a total nuisance of ourselves unfortunately.

We’ve got a confidence in what we do, and know we will evolve and come out of it – we’d like to do that sooner rather than later though.

Obviously the attrition rate is a little bit higher at the moment, and everyone is sort of going through different iterations of themselves. The whole competition has its challenges – we’re no different, we’ve just got to accept it and be as resilient as we can.

We want to give a really good account of ourselves this Friday night, and hopefully go 4-5 and get a look at squaring the ledger the week after.