Collingwood had some of its own injury woes, with recruit Nathan Kreuger injuring his left shoulder amid a lively club debut up forward, and Taylor Adams finishing the game on the bench with a migraine.

"It's probably a little bit early to tell (the severity), he's going to have to get a scan, but I think he might have subluxed (partially dislocated) his shoulder," Pies coach Craig McRae said.

"We’ll work out what that looks like in the next couple of days.

"He gives us a bit of spunk, doesn't he? He's got a bit of life in him, he's 100 per cent in everything he does, he gives a good contest and he puts pressure on, too. It's probably unlikely he plays next week, I assume, so we'll have to replace him."

McRae said Mason Cox (minor ankle injury) was close to playing against Adelaide, and will be a "watch and see" for next game.

Collingwood made the unusual decision to have key forward Darcy Cameron as medi-sub – traditionally a smaller running player who can slot into a number of roles – which paid dividends with Kreuger's substitution.

"I thought I might get a question on this one. We just thought we didn't have much height in the game, we had probably four players with a bit of height," McRae said.

"We learnt some lessons against GWS in a practice game – we lost, funnily enough, Kreuger in that game and we looked really out of sorts. So we thought we'd cover it, the medical sub is there for a reason, so we thought we'd cover it in case one of our keys go down, and funnily enough it did, late in the game."