Collingwood half-forward Alan Didak has failed to appear at the Magpies’ training session on Wednesday, casting major doubt over his hopes of playing in Friday night’s AFL preliminary final against Sydney.
Didak injured his calf in Saturday night’s qualifying final win over West Coast.
He and key forward Chris Dawes, who is battling a knee medial ligament injury, were expected to push their selection claims at Wednesday’s main session for Friday night’s ANZ Stadium clash.
In front of hundreds of fans, Dawes was able to run and kick in a dramatic improvement on his showing in Tuesday’s recovery session, to bolster his chances.
Before the session, Magpies director of coaching Rodney Eade had expressed confidence that both Didak and Dawes could prove their fitness.
“Obviously they’ll be sent through a program that the medical staff are going to set for them,” Eade said.
“It will be mainly some straight lines and some running, giving them as much chance as possible to get up for Friday.
“The word before training is that the medical staff are reasonably confident but only time will tell.”
Despite Dawes limping noticeably on Tuesday, Eade said it had been expected he could improve quickly.
“There’s a little bit of a strain there, but with the impact too he had a bit of bone bruising,” Eade said.
“So there’s a bit of pain there, I think that probably causes the limp.
“We think that will subside relatively quickly and also it’s just a management issue from Chris to be able to cope with that.”
Eade said Didak was still feeling discomfort in his calf, after receiving a knock in Saturday night’s match then being subbed off after experiencing calf tightness.