CDHBU hoping Mick Collins will recover from calf injury in time for elimination final

Collins injured his calf just a few minutes into Saturday's game away to Osborne and now faces a race against time to be fit for the do-or-die clash with the Giants at Walbundrie.

The former Power coach missed two weeks recently before returning to face Howlong in round 17 and is crucial to their hopes of progressing deeper into September.

"We'll have wait and see," coach Kyle Docherty said of Collins' prospects.

"Hopefully he'll be right but he's had some issues with the calf over the last four to six weeks.

"He's a super important player for us, we know that, so hopefully he can get up.

"We'll leave it to the last minute for Micka."

CDHBU finished fourth after losing to the Tigers by 56 points on Saturday although Docherty took plenty of positives away from their showing against the minor premiers.

"Osborne are a very good side but I thought that was one of our better performances all year," Docherty said.

"Even though you come away 50-odd points down, the way we came to play and how we pressured the opposition for the first half was really pleasing.

"We had a few guys out and lost Mick early so when you put that into perspective, I was really pleased with how we went about it.

"We played our natural game and we brought the heat for most of the contest so I was pretty pleased.

"It would have been nice to get a little bit closer but they are an exceptional team.

"The way they do things as a whole club, they're a pretty impressive unit."

Docherty, who didn't play on Saturday, faces some tough conversations this week with the return of other key players presenting him with a real selection dilemma.

Melbourne recruit Rohan Heasley returns alongside Kade 'Spud' Wilson, Kane Mills and Docherty, who had been ever-present prior to the weekend.

"I'm getting old so I needed to at least have one break," he laughed.

"I probably should have had a couple of weeks off in the latter half of the year but they had to force me to not play on the weekend!

"It's going to be really challenging to pick our 21 come Thursday.

"The guys that have come in and out of the team throughout the year have played some really good footy.

"But all good teams are going through the same stuff.

"As bad as it is and how challenging those conversations are - that someone's going to feel hurt and they're going to be hard done-by and not agree with it - it's a good thing for our club to have that depth that we're having people push for selection.

"I don't think we've had that for the last four or five years so for us, in our trajectory and where we want to get to as a club, right up there with Osborne and Holbrook, they're having those tough conversations every single week so for us to only have to do it now, into the finals series, is nothing compared to them."

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