After another amazing recovery, McRae has major names ready to return to Pies line-up.
Collingwood enters its bye week in the top four for the first time this season, having rallied from 54 points down to defeat North Melbourne by one point. Key players are likely to return after the break.
Craig McRae, the Magpies’ coach, claimed standout onballer Jordan DeGoey
and crucial forward Brody Mihocek would return for the round 16 match against the Gold Coast, with Scott Pendlebury likely to be ready the following week.
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After coming back from 54 points down to overcome North Melbourne by one point, Collingwood has a bye in the top four for the first time this season.
It has put the Magpies in a strong position to compete for a second consecutive premiership after they lost the first three games of the season before battling through a six-game stretch where injury decimated the team, leaving only 11 of last year’s premiership players on the field against the Kangaroos on Sunday. They were outside the top eight going into the King’s Birthday encounter with Melbourne, but they can now manufacture their own luck in an unpredictable season.
“We’ve got a bye to reset. I explained to the lads that it is a comma rather than a full stop. We can breathe… we’ve had a really rough stretch here; the last five or six games, we’ve been fighting hard, the magnets haven’t looked the same, and we’ve been throwing men around,” McRae explained.
“We have found a way and lost one game in that period, which, ideally, stands us in good stead.”
They beat North Melbourne despite trailing by 54 points early in the third quarter and 31 points in the final break.
