Nick Daicos has officially been ruled out of Collingwood’s qualifying final against Melbourne on Thursday night, with the young gun requiring another week to recover from a knee injury.
Daicos has been sidelined for a month after suffering a hairline fracture in his knee during Collingwood’s round 21 loss to Hawthorn.
Initially expected to miss at least six weeks, Daicos has progressed well through his rehabilitation, with the 20-year-old not required to undergo surgery on the break.
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Collingwood has confirmed Daicos has started running and should be available for the second week of finals.
“He’s progressing really well, really happy with the progress so far. He’s completed a couple of runs and pulled up really well from both of those. The timing is just going to be a little bit short for the first final (qualifying final), so we will rule him out of that one,” Collingwood’s head of high performance Jarrod Wade said.
“We want to make sure we give him enough time to get the loads in his legs and now that he is able to run, make sure we build that load tolerance back up in there and make sure that the joint is responding each time to that load tolerance.
“He’s unavailable this week and we’re really confident that if required he’ll be able to play week two of the finals series.”
Captain Darcy Moore is set to return to the side following a hamstring injury suffered in round 22, while defender Nathan Murphy will also be available for selection after recovering from a glute and back complaint in round 23.
Draftee Jakob Ryan will be free to play if he passes relevant concussion tests ahead of Thursday. Beau McCreery is also eligible to return after serving a one-match ban rough conduct in round 24
Collingwood will be hoping to prevail over Melbourne and set up a preliminary final in week three of the final series against Brisbane, Port Adelaide, St Kilda or GWS.
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