Collingwood Senior Coach Craig McRae has addressed the media ahead of his side’s Gather Round clash against Hawthorn this Sunday.

McRae spoke about the excitement ahead of the second year of Gather Round, coming up against Hawthorn again, and multiple players who have performed in the past week.

Heading over for Gather Round

“Obviously coming from Adelaide a long time ago, it was good to go back last year and I went there an experienced the whole thing,” McRae said.

“They put on a good show, it’s something really special for footy fans and my wife drove over the other day and the roads are packed and the planes are full and everyone’s getting over there.”

Taking on the Hawks

“In terms of playing an opposition that we didn’t do so well against last time, there’s a little bit of a desire,” McRae said.

“There’s thing we need to do better than when we played them last time so it’s a big game for both teams.”

Sidebottom set to equal Tony Shaw with 313 games

“Steele will play and that (managing him for Round Three) was all part of our management, we had Will (Hoskin-Elliott) and Tom (Mitchell) and those guys resting during the early stages of the season,” he said.

“This is something we planned, and Steele will be back in, it will be good to have him as part of the 22 or 23.

“I think he’s now second all-time on the Collingwood players in the history of the Club, so it’s a significant achievement from such a legend of our footy Club.”

Jack Crisp’s response

“I had that conversation with Jack earlier in the week, it was the response we needed from our quality players, not just Jack,” he said.

“We need our leaders to be playing well and Jack was not playing well and needed a little bit of a prod, and we were really happy with the response.”

Joe Richards in extended squad

“He’s been fantastic, he’s had an awesome pre-season and is one of those players that we need to step up and he kicked six goals in the VFL and looked amazing,” he said.

“He’s going to be part of our squad, at this stage we’re not sure if he fits in this week but he’s certainly another one that we’d really like to step up.”