A friendly fire collision last weekend has cost Collingwood captain Darcy Moore a start on Anzac Day

Collingwood captain Darcy Moore was at the Shrine in Melbourne on Tuesday talking up the meaning of the Anzac Day clash but won’t get to take his place at the MCG.

Collingwood will “shuffle the decks” for the club’s Anzac Day showdown with Essendon after star captain Darcy Moore was ruled out with an ear issue.

Magpies coach Craig McRae denied Moore’s setback being related to his clash with teammate Jeremy Howe during last’s Thursday loss to the Brisbane Lions which resulted in him being subbed out with a cut ear.

Moore declared himself fit to play on Tuesday evening but did reveal he wasn’t able to train on Monday through illness.

The gun defender did not train again on Wednesday and was later ruled out by McRae with what he described as “vertigo symptoms”.

“Darcy won’t play, he’s got a bit of an inner ear issue, we’re not sure exactly what it is, we’ve had scans, he’s off to see specialists now but he won’t play” he said.

Darcy Moore hurt his ear in against Brisbane. (Photo by Russell Freeman/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“We’ve done the assessment a couple of times, there’s no issue there, it’s just something that lingered earlier in the week and it’s just not going away.

“He hasn’t had the ability to train, we’ll get to the bottom of it and hopefully we’ll find out today what’s going on.

“I just chatted to him prior to training and he just goes ‘it comes on and then it goes away’, I haven’t experienced vertigo but he’s using that language.”

It’s a setback for the Magpies, who will go against in-form Essendon forward Peter Wright without their best defender.

Wright kicked six goals to steer Essendon to a two-point win over West Coast at Optus Stadium on Good Friday.

McRae says the Magpies aren’t short of experience to make up for Moore’s leadership but admits they will need to explore options to cover him defensively.

“Lucky enough we have a few players we can bring in, we’ll have to shuffle the decks whether we go smaller, whether we go smaller in our backline, it leaves a hole” he said.

“With a mature list, there’s plenty of opportunities for Pendles, Steele, Crispy, all these guys have great experience, Howey and the like.

“It won’t be a matter of lack of experience in terms of leadership, I think we should be OK there.

“He’s (Wright) obviously a weapon, I have been watching the injury lists and seeing how many weeks he’s out.

“He’s an important player, he’s hard to defend, Billy Frampton will get a job now and we’ll have to support him in other ways.”