COLLINGWOOD looks set to be without forward Ben Reid and midfielder James Aish for extended periods after the pair were injured in Sunday's loss to Richmond at the MCG.
Aish came from the ground early in the third quarter after injuring his left knee in a marking contest and took no further part in the game, while Reid limped from the ground in the dying minutes with a lower leg injury.
After the game, Magpies coach Nathan Buckley confirmed Reid had suffered an Achilles tendon injury, while Aish had damaged his posterior cruciate ligament.
TIGERS TOO TOUGH: Full match coverage and stats
"(With) Reidy, it's an Achilles injury of some sort and I don't like the sound of that, but we'll see where the dust settles," Buckley said.
"Aishy's a PCL injury and we have to get it scanned to understand the significance of it.
"So it would be premature to speculate on either of those boys."
PIES PASS TEST: Five talking points
In better news for the Magpies, Buckley said Brayden Maynard, who had been assessed in Collingwood's rooms during the third quarter, had escaped with nothing more than a rolled ankle.
The Magpies coach also suggested Taylor Adams and Darcy Moore were good chances to return from hamstring injuries next Sunday against Brisbane at the Gabba, but said Daniel Wells was "unlikely" to be ready for a senior call-up and Jamie Elliott was still "a couple of weeks away".
"I know that 'Tay' wanted to play today and I know that Darcy wasn't far off today," Buckley said.
GAME BREAKER: Caddy kicks a handful in Tigers' big win
Collingwood went down to Richmond by 43 points, but took the fight to the reigning premier for much of the game and led as late as the 22-minute mark of the third term.
In allowing Richmond to pile on 10 of the game's last 13 goals, Buckley said his team had simply lost too many contests, both on the ground and in the air.
But the Magpies coach said there had been encouraging aspects of the loss that reinforced the confidence his team had gained from its good recent form.
WATCH: Nathan Buckley's full post-match press conference
"We're confident in what our capacity is and we're still building that capacity. (We're) understanding each other a bit better about the way that we want to play and imposing that brand on opposition, which we believe is going to give us the best chance of success week to week and then whatever that looks like medium to long-term and through a season," he said.
"We're still building on that, we're still understanding it, we're still exploring what that looks like. We've shown some good signs over the last three or four weeks, over the majority of the home and away to date.
"We've played some pretty good opposition and we'll play some pretty good opposition in the near future that gives another chance to learn and improve.
"I suppose in that regard today is a loss but it probably gives us some form of reinforcement that we can stand up in some pretty fierce pressure and put some pretty fierce pressure on an opposition defensively in the contest.
"But we just weren’t able to do it well enough for long enough today."
