Senior Coach Craig McRae has addressed the media ahead of Collingwood’s Gather Round clash against Fremantle.

McRae touched on debutant Angus Anderson, the availability of two star players, and combatting an in-form Dockers side.

Anderson to debut

“It’s always good to tell a player that he’ll make his debut,” McRae said.

“Angus is not from South Australian, but clearly played there last year and his last game there was at the Adelaide Oval and won a premiership for Sturt.

“The fans will love his tackling intensity and every time we show some highlights of him at VFL he’s really smashing in and hurting the opposition.

“Contest and clearance stuff is his strength and we’re playing against an opposition that’s number one in the competition for those parts of the game.

“He’s played really well against Coburg on the weekend and now he gets a chance on the big stage.”

Pendlebury and Daicos’ fitness

“Nick will play and so will Pendles,” he said.

“They did what they needed to do to get through this week. We’ll declare that they’ll both play.

“I don’t think we’ll manage Nick’s minutes.”

Coming up against Fremantle

“I think they’re a great team, they really are,” he said.

“They’re coached well, they’re very well structured, their list is full, they’re ready to good.

“We’re going to have to bring our A-game and contest is important and clearances which we’ve been a bit down on in the last period, so we need to get on top of those things.

“We’ve got a great record at Adelaide Oval and if you see our ground here, we’ve marked the ground according to Adelaide Oval.

“You just look at the difference in the width, and it creates a different game and you’ve got to defend the ground well and you’ve got to be good at contest.

“We’re both teams who think we defend the ground well and the contest is going to be really important.”

Josh Daicos’ role

“I thought he was outstanding in the first couple of rounds and really important to us,” he said.

“Metres gained last week he had 700 or something so those thing are important to his game

“I think across the board last week our performance was really down, but Brisbane were amazing.”