Collingwood’s bid to climb back into the AFL’s top eight took a step forward on Tuesday with premiership stars Ben Reid, Dale Thomas and Heath Shaw pushing for senior recalls.

Reid is ahead of schedule in his recovery from a quadricep complaint while Thomas and Shaw (hamstring injuries) are also on track to play in Friday’s round-six clash with the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium.

“Their recovery program says they all should train pretty strongly today. We’re hopeful,” Collingwood football director Geoff Walsh told reporters.

“Those three in particular would all have fairly strong claims.

“Ben has come up really well, quite a deal quicker than we thought originally, so that’s good.”

But Walsh said fullback Chris Tarrant (calf) was unlikely to play AFL in the next couple of weeks.

“With a bit of luck … we think Chris will be able to play in our VFL team next week,” Walsh said.

Small forward Alan Didak, whose pre-season was interrupted by a groin injury, has been doing well in the VFL and pulled up well from Saturday’s game despite an ankle problem.

“He’s had a couple of (VFL) games under his belt and performed OK, got a fair bit of the footy,” Walsh said.

“Today’s session will be critical for him to get through and we expect him to.

“Up until now (the issue) has been the interrupted preparation that he’s had over the summer.

“Alan has been quite professional about his whole rehab and when he’s been available to play in the last few weeks, he has had a really good crack.”

Meanwhile Walsh tried to play down the controversy over last year’s Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse mentoring Melbourne player Aaron Davey this season.

“I don’t think there’s any issues with that,” Walsh said.