Collingwood will begin its season without the experience of skipper Darcy Moore and veteran Jeremy Howe.<\/p>\n
The key Magpies were ruled out on Tuesday afternoon, alongside recovering defender Reef McInnes.<\/p>\n
Moore has progressed well from his calf setback and has integrated back into full training but won\u2019t take on St Kilda in front of a packed MCG on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Howe, meanwhile, is still yet to complete main training after his calf injury but is expected to start this week and be in the selection frame within a fortnight.<\/p>\n
McInnes \u2013 who ruptured his ACL in Opening Round of last season \u2013 has started full training, including match simulation, but will continue building his fitness base.<\/p>\n
At Punt Rd, it\u2019s more bad news for uncapped top pick Josh Smillie.<\/p>\n
The exciting midfielder \u2013 who was considered one of Richmond\u2019s best picks in the 2024 super draft \u2013 will spend more time on the sidelines with a quad injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cJosh, unfortunately, suffered a quad strain at one of our recent rehab sessions, which will delay his return to play,\u201d high performance manager Ben Serpell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, it is not a re-injury of the injury which required surgery, and the young man himself is as disappointed as everyone else at the club is for him, given the work he has put in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are on the right path with Josh. However, we also want to be conservative and anticipate that this will unfortunately extend his rehab by 4-8 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have a clearer picture on this in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Western Bulldogs stars Sam Darcy, Adam Treloar and Bailey Dale have all been listed as needing to prove their fitness ahead of Opening Round.<\/p>\n
Darcy pulled up with a sore hip and groin from State of Origin and has been watched closely since.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo reduce the risk of Sam suffering prolonged issues related to this soreness, Sam didn\u2019t play in Friday\u2019s practice game and instead completed a football training session,\u201d Bulldogs head of sports medicine Chris Bell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam will be monitored across this week to determine his availability ahead of Opening Round against the Lions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collingwood will begin its season without the experience of skipper Darcy Moore and veteran Jeremy Howe. The key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,88710,10989,258134,147322,10132,12002,43961,677,144783,85,1122,64414,660],"class_list":["post-516534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-calf-setback","tag-darcy-moore","tag-fitness-base","tag-injury-setbacks","tag-jeremy-howe","tag-newcastle-united-football-club","tag-newswire-sport","tag-oceania","tag-selection-frame","tag-sports","tag-st-kilda","tag-tyler-lewis","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}