COLLINGWOOD veteran Scott Pendlebury and captain Darcy Moore are both expected to miss the Magpies' Easter Thursday blockbuster against Brisbane at the Gabba.

Pendlebury started the second half of Friday night’s 33-point win over Greater Western Sydney on the bench before being ruled out for the rest of the game due to Achilles tightness.

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The 38-year-old played is now up to 428 games and closing in on the games record of 432 set by North Melbourne great Brent Harvey.

Pendlebury played the issue down post-game on Fox Footy and said it wasn’t worth risking further injury after tweaking his ankle against Adelaide in round one.

But with a six-day break, plus travel to Queensland, Collingwood coach Craig McRae said post-game that the club was planning to manage Pendlebury even before the issue against the Giants.

“We got told it was a tight Achilles. I don’t know (the severity), the paint is still wet, we will have to find all this out,” McRae told reporters in his post-match press conference.

“Pendles and I chatted this week, and we chatted pre-season, he was unlikely to go to this game and we’ll probably stick to that plan.

“Six-day break, travel to Brisbane, then back to Melbourne and go to Gather Round. That was always our plan not to go to this game. It falls in line with that.”

Moore came from the ground just before quarter-time with a hamstring issue in his first game of 2026 and underwent a fitness test in the rooms and on the boundary, before being cleared to return 10 minutes into the second quarter.

The 30-year-old ended up playing out the game (61 per cent game time) but is set for scans on Saturday morning to determine if there is any damage to his hamstring.

Moore strained his calf in January, which took longer than first expected to recover from, forcing him to miss both practice matches and the first two games, with a hamstring scare just before the round one game against Adelaide.

McRae backed the high performance departments decision to put Moore back on the ground, but the short turnaround and the travel to Queensland would count against him in round four.

"It is hamstring awareness, and for those following his rehab back to play, he had this about 10, 12 days ago and he didn’t play, it was no risk, but when you’re in the game, it was can he play some minutes? Because it’s important in terms of rotations," McRae said.

“I backed in the high performance department, but he’s not right. Has he done a hamstring? I’m not sure. I don’t think so, but we’ll do the investigation and find out. I would say he is unlikely in six days for Brisbane with travel.”

Collingwood still hasn’t registered 100 points since July last year, but the Magpies were far more efficient moving the ball on Friday night. Tim Membrey cashed in with four goals, while Dan McStay finished with multiple goals for the first time since round 17 last year.

After waiting more than 1100 days for a debut after being signed at the start of 2023 via the pre-season supplemental selection period, Oscar Steene showed that he has a future at the highest level, producing an impressive first up performance against GWS.

The 22-year-old was dominant at centre bounce, especially early, registering 20 hit-outs – the most on the ground – seven hit-outs to advantage and a goal from a contested mark on the line, which resulted in every Collingwood player getting to him.

“I had conversations with Oscar really early days, ‘let’s go mate, we’ve opened the door for you’. That was early in pre-season, so pushing and prodding and encouraging,” McRae said.

“Then you get to the early rounds and we played Adelaide and they picked a guy [Lachlan McAndrew] that can jump at centre bounce and makes a difference. We’ve got a guy that we know can jump at centre bounce and can get first hands on the ball. That changes the dynamic of the midfield.”

Greater Western Sydney is 1-3 after the first month of the season and reaches the bye in desperate need of replenishment, which it will get for Gather Round.

But despite eight first choice players missing, including key defenders Sam Taylor and Jack Buckley plus midfield stars Tom Green and Josh Kelly, who are out for most if not all of 2026, Giants coach Adam Kingsley doesn’t believe personnel is the problem.

“I still think we had a good enough team to compete and win tonight,” Kingsley said.

"We're good enough to be better than what we're showing at the moment. We're not quite getting our connection done, and we're not quite getting a full game of centre bounce; we got half a game, we got a half a game last week; we need a full game out of sync and so they're our issues, not personnel."

Greater Western Sydney expects to regain Aaron Cadman, Brent Daniels, Toby Bedford and Buckley when it travels to South Australia to play in the Barossa after the bye, while Taylor won’t be far away.

Ryan Angwin is also set to face Richmond in round five, despite perforating his eardrum against Collingwood on Friday night.

“He just got hit on the side of the ear and burst his eardrum,” he said. “I don't think it's significant, even though it sounds pretty significant to me.”