FOR THE first time this season, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley found himself questioning his players' effort levels after Friday night's 41-point loss to Geelong.
Heading into the clash with the Cats, the Magpies were ranked No.1 in contested possessions in the AFL. On the flipside, Geelong was ranked last in the competition in that category.
But Collingwood "lowered its colours" and fell on the wrong side of that ledger (132-145), leading Buckley to demand answers from his side ahead of Sunday's duel with Richmond at the MCG.
"The wins that we've put together have been on the back of really solid team football," Buckley said.
"But we lacked the contribution of most (players) in the game against Geelong and for the first time, internally in our review, we questioned our effort.
"The focus might go on two or three players, but in the end we understand that we lowered our colours."
Meanwhile, Magpies defender Ben Reid trained strongly on Tuesday and, barring any late setbacks, will line up in the VFL this weekend.
"This is where the real test comes. For all that we do out on the training track, there's an extra five to 10 per cent of intensity that you need to get to and he's got to get that at VFL level," Buckley said of Reid.
"Once he's consolidated that, and he's in form, he needs to find it at AFL level. So there's still plenty of hurdles for 'Reidy' to jump."
Anzac Day medallist Paul Seedsman has overcome a glute problem and Buckley expects him to play against the Tigers, while star midfielder Steele Sidebottom (thumb) is still "another week (away), at least".
Sidebottom joined in select drills at training but spent most of the session running laps and appeared to still have trouble handling the football.
"He's had the (thumb) guard for a week now and he's handling the ball but, albeit a little gingerly. He needs to get strength back into the hand," Buckley said of Sidebottom.
The Pies announced on Monday that young midfielder Nathan Freeman, pick No.10 in the 2013 NAB AFL Draft, would be put in for "exploratory surgery" on his troublesome hamstring.
"He had a serious hamstring injury at the start of last year (in the first NAB Challenge game of 2014) and it took him all year to recover," Buckley said. "He's a fast-twitch athlete, so when those types of athletes do a soft-tissue injury, at pace, it's going to ask a little more of their recovery.
"He had a solid off-season and pre-season and he was tearing the track up. But once we got into games, you're less in control of how your body reacts to different circumstances and stimulus.
"His communication back to us has been that his hammy hasn't been right, that there's something preventing him from really opening up.
"We've tried a number of different things over the last eight weeks to see what that might be and the docs have come to the point that we're going to need surgical intervention to explore whether there's some scar tissue wrapped around the nerve that's causing the distress for 'Freo'."
