COLLINGWOOD captain Nick Maxwell is unlikely to face Hawthorn in Friday night's highly-anticipated round one clash, says teammate Heath Shaw.
Maxwell rolled his right ankle in the Pies' 33-point win over St Kilda in the final round of the NAB Cup on March 16 at Visy Park.
"Maxy is pretty doubtful, I think," Shaw said on Monday at the Westpac Centre.
"We've got our main session tomorrow and I'd say if he doesn't get through that, then he won't play.
"He's keeping everyone guessing and he gives himself every chance to play and he will, like he always does, prepare as well as he can but if he doesn't train tomorrow I'd say he'd be very doubtful."
Shaw said Chris Tarrant, Alan Didak, Nathan Brown and Ben Johnson were likely to play in the VFL against Geelong on Saturday at Simonds Stadium.
Cameron Wood and Dayne Beams are expected to join them after getting through Friday's VFL practice match against the Bendigo Bombers at Gosch's Paddock.
All of them have had injury-interrupted pre-seasons and missed all of the Pies' NAB Cup matches.
The Pies are remaining cautious with the crop of experienced players, despite having Andrew Krakouer (knee), Brent Macaffer (knee) and Sharrod Wellingham (club suspension) also listed as non-starters.
Shaw said the club remained optimistic it wouldn't start the season slowly despite the lengthy list of unavailable players.
"I hope we're ready to go Friday night but obviously those guys over time will come back into the side," he said.
"We've played the whole NAB Cup program without them and our performance I think against St Kilda gave us a lot of confidence coming into the Hawthorn game.
"We pretty much had the team that we thought might be selected for round one playing against St Kilda and we played really well, so that's going to hold us in good stead against the Hawks."
Shaw named emerging Magpies Jackson Paine, Peter Yagmoor, Jamie Elliott and Jarrod Witts as players who could potentially debut this week.
Witts appears the least likely after suffering a corked thigh in the win over Bendigo last week.
The absence of Tarrant, who has endured a foot issue over the pre-season and has had his training load carefully managed since overcoming it, leaves the role of facing Hawthorn forward Lance Franklin wide open and up for debate.
Shaw said it was most likely already determined who would line up on Franklin.
"I think that lies with Ben Reid. He's played on 'Buddy' bits and pieces before and with Taz out, he's the obvious pick," Shaw said.
"Reidy's had a pretty solid pre-season as well and he's looking forward to the challenge.
"Buddy's in some pretty hot form coming into round one so Reidy's going to have his hands full but hopefully the midfield and a couple of his backline teammates can help him out as well."
Reid missed the Pies' first NAB Cup match after hurting his shoulder in Thailand over the New Year period but returned to play every game after that.
Shaw has set his sights on playing every game this season after a strong pre-season following successful hip surgery designed to alleviate back and groin soreness in October last year.
Heath Shaw is a $454,000 defender in Toyota AFL Dream Team. Register your team here.
Jennifer Witham is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.
