FOR ALL of its miraculous results under his watch, Craig McRae can't see Collingwood pulling off what would be the greatest steal of all to keep its flag defence alive.

The Magpies enter the last home and away round sitting four points and 10.6 percentage points behind eighth-placed Carlton, and need a host of unlikely results to fall their way.

They must beat Melbourne on Friday night and see the Blues lose to St Kilda, with the combined margin between the games required to be about 200 points.

Collingwood would also need Fremantle to lose to Port Adelaide.

The percentage equation led former Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel to call for McRae to throw caution to the wind at the MCG on Friday night.

Bartel suggested the Magpies should play with "disrespect" and throw extra players forward, but McRae isn't planning anything radical.

"We're an attacking team and we won't shy away from that, but obviously we've got to defend well too," McRae said on Wednesday.

"We're not here to go out and score an amazing score - I think that's unrealistic."

McRae said the Pies' usual attacking game style won't change.

"I like to think we do that every week," McRae said.

"Come watch us, you'd like to think we turn up the screws at certain times of the game and want to make sure that we try to score heavily.

"But one thing that's true in AFL footy is it's hard to score against good defence.

"Melbourne have a really good defence and we've got to respect that."

Despite being resigned to missing the finals, third-year coach McRae brushed off suggestions Collingwood's season has been a failure on the back of a premiership in 2023.

"Every week we're challenging high performance and then we're looking at a culture of what winners look like," McRae said.

"How we look after our past and respect all those parts of it and how internally we look after each other and care for each other, love and support on or off the field.

"I think we're winning on a lot of levels but are we winning all? That's hard to say.

"I don't think we can sit here and say we are, but we're doing a lot right."

Key forward Dan McStay will sit out what is almost certainly the Magpies' final match of the season through soreness, after playing five games on return from a serious knee injury.

Hard-running first-year midfielder Ed Allan is in the frame for a call-up after strong VFL form.