Andrew Krakouer set to rejoin Collingwood training

NATHAN Buckley expects Andrew Krakouer to join teammates at recovery today, but he's no certainty to play against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday.

Andrew Krakouer

COLLINGWOOD coach Nathan Buckley expects Andrew Krakouer to join teammates at recovery today, but he's no certainty to play against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday.

Krakouer, 30, who did not play in the 83-point win against Melbourne, was given time off by the club for family reasons.

Read Mark Robinson's take

He did not return to his home state of Western Australia as reported yesterday, but Buckley said Krakouer spent time away from the club, missing some training sessions because of personal issues.

"Andrew's been fantastic over the last couple of months - he's training consistently, he's been playing consistently," Buckley said.

Some positives for the Dees

"Like every individual that plays for us, guys have got challenges outside of the game.

"If family issues crop up, well then that becomes important to them at the time. We'll manage that as best we can. But clearly we're about playing the best football that we can on the field, we're about supporting everyone that we've got on the list and we'll continue to do so.

"We support Andrew. We want to give him every chance of playing AFL football. We want to give him every chance of representing us because we believe that when he's at his best, it makes us better.

"Our next main session is tomorrow. We'll do a recovery session and we expect he'll be there for that."

Krakouer could be hard pressed to break back into the side this week.

Ben Kennedy and Kyle Martin each kicked three goals, while Josh Thomas (27 touches, two goals) was among his side's best.

Collingwood moved to sixth on the ladder (7-4) and gained a much-needed percentage boost from 97.2 to 105.6 from yesterday's win.

"It was a pretty ugly game of footy," Buckley said.

"We did what we needed to do. Our major focuses were scores against and to keep the opposition to 5.9, 14 scoring shots and 35 inside 50s was a focus and we got better as the game progressed in that regard."

Melbourne matched the Pies in the first term, leading the tackle count 13 to eight to trail by only one point.

But Collingwood turned it on in second, kicking 6.5 to the Demons 0.2.

"It's very difficult to measure our performance against that," Buckley said. "What's acceptable - 50 points, 75 points, 100 points, 150? In the end, we did play the way we wanted to play, for the most part ... but we can be better."