Collingwood defender Lachie Keeffe suffers injury setback
Collingwood's injury woes continue with comeback big man Lachie Keeffe now laid up with a kidney ailment.
AFL
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COLLINGWOOD'S injury woes continue with comeback big man Lachie Keeffe now laid up with a kidney ailment.
The versatile Keeffe's return from a knee reconstruction in the VFL is on hold after he bruised a kidney in a fall late in last Saturday's win against Essendon.
"Lachie copped a knock to his kidney late in the game at the weekend,'' coach Nathan Buckley said today.
"Structurally, from a knee perspective, it was excellent. But unfortunately he landed awkwardly on an opposition player and has a bruised kidney.
"He won't play this week and we'll just assess where he goes beyond then.''
Buckley described rebounding defender Heath Shaw as "in the mix'' to return against Brisbane on Friday night after two weeks out through suspension and as precaution following back pain.
"He had tightness in the lower back. We could've pulled the trigger and pushed him through, but we chose to back the defensive line-up that had done the job against Geelong. It didn't prove that way against Sydney, but he's in the mix this week,'' the coach said.
Shaw used the extra week off for additional training sessions and Buckley didn't shy away from the fact that the important backman's fitness, such as skinfold levels, can improve for the second half of the season.
"His skinnies are a little bit high. It's an ongoing battle for him, but he's not alone in that, we've got a couple of boys. I suppose, around the AFL guys are keeping a check of them and he's one of them,'' Buckley said.
"We feedback to our players constantly about their professionalism and expectations are our values. Guys are relentless the way they go about it and every one of our players is accountable to that.''
Buckley identified the ability to defend and trap the ball in the forward half, plus improved contested ball stats, as the key elements of planning before Friday night's game at the Gabba.
"Clearly, there needs to be changes after a performance like that. We need to keep our individuals held to account,'' he said.
"We were outworked by a side that worked really hard. That's not to say we didn't work, we just didn't work at the same level as they did.
"At last six weeks have gone win-loss, win-loss and it takes a toll. You've got to arrest that at some stage.
"The opportunity is to travel together up to Brisbane and there's areas of our game that we're continually working on and clearly we need to move the ball better. But our major focus is going to be how we defend. We need to be able to run hard enough and defend well enough against the best sides.
"We've practised that during the week and we'll get a chance to practice that against Brisbane.
We know where's we're at. We're not happy with the level that we produce when we get beaten and we work to improve it.
"We were beaten by last year's premiers playing their best footy in 2013. So, we're had a very good look at what the very best looks like. That was the best performance against us, they were very hard to stop on offense and they clearly worked really hard running forward. We were given a lesson and we'll take lessons out of it.
"Paul Seedsman, Marley Williams, Jamie Elliott, Jarrod Witts, Sam Dwyer, all those guys have now got a look at what it is to play against the best opposition.''