THE BOOKIES and St Kilda coach Ross Lyon have the Magpies as favourites ahead of Saturday night’s first semi-final, but Collingwood skipper Scott Burns is having none of it.

Burns, who has missed the last two matches with a calf injury before being selected for the Saturday night clash with the Saints, says that finals footy is a whole new ball game.

"I don't think anyone's favourite this weekend – I think we're all a flip of the coin," he said after training on Friday.

"Any of the four teams playing this weekend would be confident in themselves, knowing that if they did everything right to restrict the opposition in what they want to do and in the majority of the game get things in place that they want to do offensively, then they'd be confident they could win.

"But look, if you come just that little bit off you're in trouble.

"So I just reckon both games this weekend are a flip of the coin, and we just hope that at the end of the game, we've got our noses in front."

Burns said he expected the match to be close.

""We're confident that if we do everything right that we can get the result, but having said that, the last few times we have played them there hasn't been too much in it.

"That Telstra Dome one early in the year, we kicked two goals after the siren and won by nine points.

"They've been pretty tough, close games and we expect that again, we just hope that we get over the line when the final siren sounds."