LOGAN McDonald won’t return for Sydney against Collingwood on Friday night, despite kicking three goals in the VFL last week in his return from an ankle injury.
McDonald got through a full game at Arden St last Sunday, spending time forward and higher up the ground, indicating his first senior game of the season isn’t far away.
Teammates Lewis Melican and Harry Cunningham will be put through a fitness test this week to determine if they will face the Magpies, but McDonald has already been ruled out.
“Logan is still on restricted minutes,” coach Dean Cox said on Wednesday.
“He hasn’t played for five months so he won’t be available for selection in the AFL team yet, and unfortunately the VFL team doesn’t have a game either. They’ll get a good training load in over the weekend and Logan will be a big part of that.”
While both sides have been hit by injury heading into the clash at Adelaide Oval, one star who will take the field is Nick Daicos.
Magpies coach Craig McRae is fully expecting the Swans to use tagger James Jordon to mark Daicos, having done the job on him before and having also clamped down on Lachie Neale and Caleb Serong effectively so far this season.
McRae said the Magpies will “be smart and strategic” with how they use their star player on Friday night.
“We anticipate he (Jordon) will go to Nick, he’s played on him before, we just want to make sure we get Nick in the best position to play for us,” he said.
“If that means sometimes he sacrifices his role for others, Nick will do that for us. It might mean we need to be smart and strategic with where we play Nick at times.
“Nick is normally first in on Monday mornings looking at tape of the opposition, whether it’s James Jordon or someone else who is going to play on him.
“If you watch him train he trains at another level, so he’s (Jordon) going to have to bring his runners come Friday night because Nick will be running.”
Cox said his side’s focus will be about more than just Daicos.
“The thing with Nick is his ability to cover the ground and how damaging he is, that’s why he’s one of the best players in the competition,” he said.
“But they’ve also got some really experienced players that play some really good football. (Steele) Sidebottom has been one of the highest ranked players in the past three weeks and they’ve got (Scott) Pendlebury sitting there.
“What they do around the ball and certainly through that middle part of the ground, they complement each other really well. That’s why they’re playing the front half game that they’re playing.
“We’ve got to be aware of not only Nick but a lot of players in that team.”
