Only a hiccup in their recovery from minor injuries could prevent Collingwood stars Jordan De Goey and Jeremy Howe from playing in the pre-season clash with GWS next week and taking their spots in round 1.
After suffering a broken rib at training, De Goey is back up and running and coaching staff “put him through his paces” on Wednesday, with another big session on Friday to come as he increases his physical work.
Neither De Goey nor Howe, who suffered only a minor groin injury, will play against Hawthorn in the practice match at Morwell this week but could be, along with defender Jordan Roughead, who has had shoulder surgery, the only Magpies not available to play.
Jamie Elliot and Cooper Merlo missed training on Wednesday with illness but should be readyxjmtzyw to take part in the game.
Collingwood assistant coach Hayden Skipworth said De Goey and Howe should be ready to go by next weekend and certainly for the season opener against St Kilda on March 18.
“Unfortunately, (de Goey) got a broken rib a week or two ago. He’s had a really good block before then and now it’s focused around his conditioning,” Skipworth said on Wednesday.
“We put him through his paces today and another big one on Friday and then hopefully he’ll integrate back in for the GWS game the week after. Hopefully, all goes well with his rehab, we tick off the contact the last session. Next week we will build up his contact progression.”
Howe suffered a “really minor” groin injury and their imminent return gives Collingwood a “pretty healthy” list for the opening round.
“We’ve had most of our guys get through pre-season. We’ve had a fair few guys complete a lot of sessions,” Skipworth said.
Collingwood will take every player to Morwell for the six-quarter clash on Friday afternoon, with a raft of young players set to man the forward line amid hopes one could “jump out of the box” and star this season.
“Everyone will play, we’ve picked a senior team for the first three quarters and the rest of the guys will play with some VFL guys for the last three,” Skipworth said,
“We’re ready for opposition, we’ve been playing against ourselves all pre-season and the guys are craving to see where they are at.
“A lot of our young guys in the team will be through the forward line. We’ve got Jack Ginnivan, Trent Bianco, even (Nathan) Krueger coming through who could get an opportunity in that forward line. That’s were a lot of our growth will come this year, in front of the ball.
“Ollie Henry is another one. We’re hopeful one of those guys will jump out of the box and have a really good year for us.”
