Another week off for Collingwood star Scott Pendlebury

MEDICAL instructions vetoed Collingwood ace Scott Pendlebury's determination to play against Carlton at the MCG tomorrow night.

MEDICAL instructions vetoed Collingwood ace Scott Pendlebury's determination to play against Carlton at the MCG tomorrow night.

The Magpies decided on a cautious approach with the gun midfielder despite his urge to resume following a fractured lower leg.

"He had some extra investigative work done this morning and the doctor has just decided to give him one more week," assistant coach Matthew Lappin said.

"We've taken a precautionary approach with Scott. He'll train over the weekend and make sure he's right to go next weekend.

"At the start, the doc said it would be six weeks and I think this is week six now. Nothing has gone wrong or anything, we've just decided to give him that extra week so he's 100 percent right to go.

"He's a little bit disappointed. He wanted to play, he has been training hard for a couple of weeks, but at the end of the day the doc has the final say on that and we support him with that decision."

Pendlebury trained strongly this morning and he's fully recovered from the leg injury from round 10 against Gold Coast.

His Brownlow Medal hopes have been dealt a blow by being forced to sit out four games, while the bye provides the prescribed six weeks recuperation before he resumes against Geelong on Saturday week.

Forward Ben Sinclair, out for the past three games with an ankle injury, is back in the senior 25. But experienced pair Chris Tarrant and Alan Didak will start back with the Magpies' VFL team on Sunday.

"They won't be in the senior side this week, but hopefully we'll get a VFL game into them. There's still got a training session to get through as our VFL side plays on Sunday, but they're not too far away now," Lappin said.

Key forward Chris Dawes, who admitted this week that he was struggling for form, is still valuable at the marking contests to provide crumbing opportunities.

"We've been working hard with Chris. He's well aware of his individual form. I think the positive we've been able to take out of it for Chris is that he's part of a functioning forward line of six players and he's a role player. He's providing good contests for us and it's nice and predictable for our small players," Lappin said.

"Look, we would like him to be marking the ball more and we would like him to be impacting the game more. He's working really hard and we're pretty sure that will turn around."

Lappin said Carlton's 60 points win in round 3 had prompted Collingwood to alter its game style.

"As coaches we've had a good look at that to see where Carlton were able to pull us apart," he said.

"Obviously, they're playing a little differently and so are we. That was a game that triggered a fair bit of change in the way we play our footy.

"It's Friday night, the heat has been on them and we expect them to come out nice and fierce.

"History is littered with sides in this competition being under that sort of pressure and causing upsets and coming out really hard and fast.

"I'm familiar with some of their players and I know what Mitch Robinson and Chris Judd and some of these guys, I know how they're going to come out and attack the footy.

"Our players are aware of that, we need to match them early and try to go a bit harder than them and try and get them on the back foot early."