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Pies selection wide open

Malthouse: Pies selection wide open

09/04/2010 09:11:58 PM

Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse has said there will be no guarantees in his side for their preliminary showdown in two weeks' time in the wake of Saturday night's thrashing of the Western Bulldogs.

The Pies were without defender Simon Prestigiacomo for the match, but now that they have the week off the veteran is likely to have fully recovered from the thigh injury that has kept him on the sidelines for the past week.

Nathan Brown did a sound job on Barry Hall, while youngster Ben Reid restricted Jarrad Grant, who booted six goals against the Bombers last week, to just six possessions and two behinds.

But Malthouse wouldn't guarantee anyone's place in the side, saying that it will come down to their opponents - Geelong or Fremantle - and the match-ups.

"We don't guarantee anyone," Malthouse said.

"That 22s got no guarantee … of course a lot of players have, now when I say that what I'm talking about is we will weigh up our opponents and we will look at our selection table, we take everyone off, we look at the opposition, we put back form and players that can have a direct impact for us either two ways negating them or putting some trouble on the ground for them."

"Simon is a very valuable player to us so if he's available it's something that we'll have to seriously consider."

The Pies dominated the Dogs in all areas of the game and never relented as they powered to the final siren with six goals in the last term blowing the margin out to 62 points, which was very pleasing for Malthouse.

"It was a good performance, played a good football side, played four quarters of footy, good contributors in most areas which is nice and handy,"

"Our game all year has been built around team, I know there's a couple and Swanny's been a very impressive player all year, but the thing about it is we've been able to put 22 out there that have been highly competitive nearly everywhere they play."

"We dropped that competitiveness a couple of times throughout the year and the boys remind themselves and I remind them about areas that we needed to correct and I just think they're holding up."

"I thought we played the percentages really well, stuck to our formations and in general made it difficult for them but there's no easy game."

One area of concern for Malthouse is the Magpies' poor kicking in front of goal as they kicked 17 goals from 39 shots.

It has been a constant problem for Collingwood all year, but it was the seven rushed behinds on Saturday night that Malthouse will be looking closely at.

"We'll have to examine why they get rushed," he said.

"Are we chewing off a bit too much? Are we kicking the ball from areas that aren't realistic enough to have a shot on goal?"

"When you get seven rushed points perhaps taking the weather situation … there's little things that we can address."

"There's a few shots that we missed, a couple of snaps that were a bit wayward. I thought in general we weren't too bad."

Midfielder Sharrod Wellingham left the field in the third quarter with what looked to be a serious ankle injury.

Malthouse said it was too early to know the full extent of the injury but the early signs were good and he expects him to be fit in a fortnight's time.

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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