Collingwood vice-captain Scott Pendlebury will not play against Carlton on Friday night with the Pies erring on the side of caution and giving him another week off.

Pendlebury was poised to return from the leg he fractured against Gold Coast in round 10.

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He said on the weekend he was ready to play but failed to be cleared by the club's doctors on the eve of the blockbuster clash with the Blues.

"He had some extra investigative work done this morning and the docs just decided to give him one more week," forward line coach Matthew Lappin said on Thursday morning.

"We've taken the precautionary approach with Scott and he'll train over the weekend and make sure he's right to go next weekend."

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Lappin said there had not been a setback in Pendlebury's recovery and it was more a precautionary move to hold him back until their round 16 clash with Geelong next Saturday night.

"At the start, the docs said it would be six weeks and I think this is week six now," he said.

"Nothing's gone wrong or anything; we've just decided that we need to give him that extra week to make sure he's 100 per cent right to go, and he'll play for us next week.

"He's a little bit disappointed. He wanted to play, he's been training hard for a couple of weeks but at the end of the day, the doc has the final say on that and we support him fully with that decision."

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Chris Tarrant and Alan Didak are nearing a return from a shoulder problem and adductor tear respectively but it won't be in the seniors this weekend.

"Hopefully we'll get a VFL game into them. They've still got a training session to get through before our VFL side play on Sunday but they're not too far away now," Lappin said.

Young forward Ben Sinclair will be named in the squad and is expected to face the Blues, while Martin Clarke is in the frame after a strong performance in the VFL last week.

Sinclair has missed the past two games with an ankle injury.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs.

Jennifer Witham is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.