Several Magpies face fitness tests in the coming days for the crucial round 11 clash, although both teams must name initial 25-man squads on Thursday night.
Collingwood will have to trim its squad on Friday night and then have a final training run the day before the clash with the Bulldogs - at which coach Mick Malthouse said he would be able to lock in his team.
“We’ll train today and then we’ll just see how they pull up, and then we’ll have an assessment,” Malthouse said on Thursday.
“We don’t play until Sunday at 4.40pm. We’ve got to put the side in this afternoon, so it’s highly unlikely that the squad we pick is going to be the side that we play.
“Not because we don’t want it to be ... the simple fact is we won’t know until Saturday morning [when we have our] final training session. It’s a bit difficult.”
Of most concern for the Pies is the fitness of forward Paul Medhurst, who has missed three matches with a foot injury.
He and fellow small forward Leon Davis (calf) both trained on Thursday and will push for a recall against the Bulldogs.
The Pies will also consider Josh Fraser (knee) should he be passed fit while Malthouse said emerging midfielder Jaxson Barham was “getting closer and closer” to forcing his way into the line-up.
Sunday’s match looms as an eight-point match for both sides, who are struggling to find the sparkle both seemed to possess heading into 2010.
The Pies, on top of the ladder a fortnight ago, have lost two straight.
Last week, Malthouse was particularly scathing in his assessment his side’s forward line following the eight-point defeat to the Brisbane Lions.
However the coach said he wouldn’t change the method with which his team had been so successful earlier in the season.
“[The] structure itself won’t go,” Malthouse said.
“Playing personnel may change marginally, but the structure itself won’t change. I’m not about to start to panic over one match and change it.”
Malthouse put his team’s sudden form dip down to a drop in intensity and said all clubs were aware of the evenness of the competition.
He said ladder leader Geelong - which beat the Pies two weeks ago - had most bases covered but even the reigning premier had been conquered this season.
“There is absolutely nothing in it,” Malthouse said of the AFL competition.
“Things ebb, flow [and] change. One person rarely plays at the same level every week.
“It’s very difficult to get 22 people [playing at the same level every week], unless they are standalone talent-wise, experience-wise and belief-wise, which Geelong have. And even then, they’ve lost games.
“Even they have had those ebbs and flows.”
