Collingwood defenders Heath Shaw, Ben Reid and Alan Toovey will all return from injury for Saturday’s table-topping AFL clash with West Coast at the MCG.

The trio all completed the club’s main training session on Wednesday and coach Nathan Buckley afterwards confirmed they were ready to face the Eagles.

He said the quality and importance of the three players outweighed any concerns about recalling three players from soft tissue injuries at the same time.

“It helps bolster our defence and clearly they’re three very important players to us,” Buckley said.

“We considered the management scenario of it over the bye and through the last couple of weeks.

“But when you’ve got players of that talent and competitiveness, you know they’re going to have an impact. We’re more comfortable bringing three fresh players in of that calibre.

“Especially against a very good West Coast offence – they’re ready to go and ready to have an impact.”

Shaw and Toovey are both returning from calf injuries and Reid from the latest in a series of quadricep injuries.

Buckley said Reid had worked on his running and kicking actions to fix a “mechanical weakness” that the club believed had caused the recurring injuries.

While the Magpies’ selection problems in defence have eased, Buckley admitted the question of how to counter West Coast’s ruck pairing Nic Naitanui and Dean Cox was taking great thought.

Collingwood are weighing up whether to include Cameron Wood to support Darren Jolly in the ruck, rather than their pattern mostly this season of using forward Chris Dawes as second ruckman.

Buckley said regardless of which way they went, fully countering Naitanui’s extreme athleticism was near impossible.

“He’s a unique player and I’m sure every coach that comes up against West Coast would be sitting in a press conference such as this scratching their head, wondering how they can nullify the influence,” Buckley said.

“I don’t think you can nullify it totally but we’ll believe in a team focus, making sure our structure on the ground is right and we get a really good contest in the air.”