Varcoe injury sours win
A COLLINGWOOD win rated by coach Nathan Buckley as “right up there” has come at a high cost with a potentially season-ending injury to Travis Varcoe.
Buckley said Varcoe had been knocked unconscious and dislocated an elbow in an aerial clash with Jackson Nelson, souring an epic eight-point triumph.
“Trav Varcoe, that (collision) could’ve been anything,” Buckley said.
“He was knocked out and he dislocated his elbow so he’s gonna be banged up big-time.
“And the early prognosis is that we may not see him for the rest of the year but once again we’ll know more in the next 24 hours or so.”
There is potentially more positive news around Darcy Moore after he was unable to return to the ground following a knee to his neck in the second quarter.
“Darcy’s injured his neck in some shape or form,” Buckley said.
“We’re not exactly sure, we don’t think it’s serious but there were definitely precautions taken to not put him back out on the field because he had a fairly significant blow to it. We’ll know more when the dust settles on it.”
Buckley was elated with Collingwood’s spirit after it rattled on the final five goals of the match to upstage a passive West Coast.
The victory leaves Collingwood in 13th place but only two games out of the eight ahead of its clash with Adelaide at the MCG on Sunday as Buckley lauded his players’ resilience.
“It says they’ve got a will to compete and clearly a will to win,” he said.
“It (beating West Coast) just means we had a group of 22 blokes who were prepared to do what it took today.
“We’ve really set ourselves over the back part of the year to just stick at it.
“We gave up 85 points but we want to be tighter than that.
“We want to bring that down and be a stingy, defensive side.”
Asked to rate the win in terms of satisfaction, Buckley said: “Right up there. I think it was a really plucky performance all day.
“We brought good energy from the first siren to the last. A bit of execution hurt us at times.
“The belief in the players was still strong and we were able to hang in there.
“The contested (possession) numbers were +22 in the last quarter so that is a real strong measure of want.’’
MATCH REPORT: Page 23