AFTER being caught in the eye of a round one media storm, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley was intent on steering his club out of the off-field spotlight and switching the focus back to football in his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
The Pies endured a torrid season-opening weekend from the moment a news report on Thursday night claimed up to 11 of their players had returned positive hair tests for illicit drugs.
It went from bad to worse on the field, with Collingwood suffering an 80-point belting from the Sydney Swans, star Dane Swan suffering a serious foot injury and gun midfielder Steele Sidebottom being rubbed out for two weeks for a high bump.
Although some have speculated Swan's career could be finished by three broken bones in his foot, including a Lisfranc fracture, Buckley wasn't about to fuel discussion about the 32-year-old Brownlow medallist's future.
"It's too early to speculate. We don't know, I don't know – I haven't spoken to him," Buckley said.
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"I'm sure he'll have an idea on what his future is and an idea on what he wants to do about it, but I think even he needs to get more information before he can make that judgement."
Swan will be sidelined for months, while Sidebottom will miss matches against Richmond this Friday night and Saints in round three.
Buckley said Sidebottom needed to change his technique contesting the ball after the ball-magnet was suspended for the second time since 2014 for rough conduct after a previous high bump on Saint Maverick Weller.
"Both of them were spur of the moment," Buckley said. "At the moment when you get in those contested situations, players are loathe to go too low.
"Players are second-guessing themselves at times around those areas and Steele's got into a little bit of a habit at the moment of not going low.
"I'm sure we wouldn't like Steele to do that again."
Swan and Sidebottom aside, the Pies also have concerns over Nathan Brown who was sent for a precautionary scan on his hamstring, although Buckley hasn't ruled the key defender out of the Tigers clash.
Reinforcements are available, with injury-prone backman Ben Reid back in the selection mix again this week after he was one of the Pies' best performers in a VFL practice match on Saturday.
"He (Reid) was touch-and-go last week and he got through the game really well," Buckley said.
The Magpies coach said there wouldn't be any "knee-jerk" wholesale changes to the side despite the demoralising Swans defeat, but ruckman Brodie Grundy, James Aish and Jeremy Howe are among those pushing for spots.
Buckley called on the Pies to get back to being a "grunt side" after being smashed in contested ball (-31) by the Swans and said key forward Travis Cloke's need to have a "real crack" to turnaround his form after being statless in the first half.
"If we could give him a bit more supply it would be handy, off the back of the last four quarters of evidence," he said.
"Clokey's been a bit quiet through the early stages of the year and he'll be looking to have a big one.
"I don't think he's in good form. There's only one way to get your way out of that and that's hard work and having a real crack."
Buckley refused to stoke the fire over recruit Adam Treloar's comments that he chose Collingwood over Richmond because of the Magpies' better list, and said the Pies wouldn't address the ongoing illicit drugs controversy leading into the game.
"You don't talk about it. We're done. We've had our say, it's a League issue and the League will continue to do what it needs to do and we'll play our part in that behind the scenes," Buckley said.
"I won't be discussing it any further - it's been front-and-centre enough but it won't be out of my mouth."
