AFL 2025: Collingwood weighs up two changes to its backline for Hawthorn

News.com.au

3 days ago

Collingwood will regain veteran defender Jeremy Howe but Bobby Hill is in doubt for Thursday night's crunch clash with Hawthorn as the Magpies look to avoid a fourth loss in five games.
Howe is set to return from injury, while Billy Frampton is also in consideration to boost the Collingwood defence after a fortnight of football in the VFL.
Norm Smith medallist Hill, however, is battling gastro and is in doubt to play against the Hawks after completing his first game back in a month last week.
Nick Daicos also didn't complete main training on Tuesday, but Collingwood coach Craig McRae ensured the star on-baller would be selected.
McRae said Frampton, who had become reliable in defence for the Magpies prior to injury, had posed 'some question marks' for the match committee.
'Nick will play, his loads are being managed, we've been gradually doing it more and more throughout the week because his GPS is really high on match day,' McRae said.
'Bobby has got gastro, it's a bugger, we'd love to keep him moving, so it's unfortunate.
'He may be in doubt, we'll have to see how he goes in the next 24 hours. I know we're only 48 hours from playing, so he'll be in doubt you'd think – fingers crossed.
'Jeremy will definitely play, he got through today well and is excited to play. Billy's name will come up in consideration, I loved his game in the VFL
'The week before was about getting minutes, this week was about performance and he performed well. He'll put some question marks around match committee.'
The Magpies have lost three of their past four matches, playing contrasting football to the side that netted a 10-point gap on top of the ladder six weeks ago.
McRae said the cause of losses had been 'fractional little things' and was confident his side could rectify them before the top-eight-shaping match.
'You'd argue it was contest last week but the week before our contest was strong, so it's probably a week-to-week thing' he said.
'Opposition last week smashed us at contest and clearance, mainly in the second half, so that became a cost for us to lose territory.
'We got a bit stuck with our ball movement, we look at and go, 'We can fix that, we can fix that'.
'The good thing about our group is we've got strong leaders who want to get better every day – they drive agendas around that and then we've got coaches hungry to improve.'
The Magpies are yet to get top return out of All-Australian Dan Houston since his trade from Port Adelaide last year.
Houston gathered just 11 disposals in Saturday night's loss to Brisbane, three of which were kick-ins.
McRae said the Magpies would look at ways they could get Houston more involved but referenced the first year of Lachie Schultz as proof that adjustment takes time.
'We want the ball in (Houston's) hands, whether you watched training today, he was significant in that, we went through him a lot,' McRae said.
'There's some of that on him and us, some of the way we played at times. If you play straight down the line, kick it to our keys, he's not going to touch the ball much. We've got to look at ways we can change that.
'I think it's subtle, the way we move the ball. It becomes boring to play and boring to watch, but Dan's not going to touch it much.