Collingwood has confirmed that captain Darcy Moore is set to miss the next three to four weeks.
The key defender suffered a low-grade hamstring strain on Friday night, with scans also revealing an inflamed bursa behind his knee.
“Darcy will continue to work closely with our medical and high performance team as he progresses through his return-to-play timeline,” EGM Football Charlie Gardiner said.
Moore was playing his first game of 2026 after a pre-season calf injury, suffering the hamstring strain in the first quarter and playing out the game in discomfort.
“For those following his rehab back to play, he had this about 10-12 days ago,” McRae said in his post-game press conference on Friday night.
“We're in a game so we go ‘can he push through, can he take some minutes?' because it's important in terms of rotations if he can take some minutes without risk.
“Now I say that (but) I'm just backing the high performance team, that's not my area…but he's not right, he's not 100 per cent.”
It continues a concerning trend of soft tissue setbacks for the 30-year-old.
Wil Parker looms as the obvious replacement, having played in the first two games before making way for Moore and Jeremy Howe.
He was the carryover emergency for Round 3.
Joel Cochran is also a possibility to make his debut after a summer where he has gained considerable strength.
Reef McInnes played his first game back from an ACL rupture in Friday's VFL match, but was on significantly reduced minutes and still needs to build his loads before he comes into consideration for AFL selection.
Collingwood take on Brisbane on Easter Thursday.
