Taylor Adams (left), Alex Fasolo and Alan Toovey were among the wounded Photos: Getty Images
Collingwood were ravaged by injury in Sunday's loss to the Western Bulldogs, but coach Nathan Buckley thought his side's failure to make the most of early opportunities proved more costly.
The Pies lost a concussed Alan Toovey before half-time at the MCG, with Taylor Adams hobbling off with a high left hamstring injury early in the third quarter and Darcy Moore suffering collarbone damage.
Alex Fasolo failed a fitness test at three-quarter-time and sat out the final term with a sore shoulder, meaning the Pies were unable to rotate anyone onto the ground for the last half hour of the game.
Having led for much of the day, they fell behind early in the last quarter and were overrun by the Bulldogs, losing by 21 points.
Buckley said that in creating just six goals from 44 inside 50s during the first three quarters, the Pies had failed to make the most of their early dominance and put enough of a gap between themselves and the Dogs.
Collingwood, who kicked 1.6 in the second quarter, finished with 7.11 from 52 inside 50s, three more than the Bulldogs.
Buckley said the coaching staff had tried to help players preserve energy by rotating a number of them through deep forward and up onto a wing throughout the final term.
"You can start trying to possess the ball, but in the end you end up kicking it back. If you become too slow you can just give up field position," he said.
"In the end, the last quarter went the way you'd expect it to. Having said that we were right in it until we missed a couple of opportunities going inside 50, gilt-edged opportunities, which had been happening for most of the game.
"We just need to take those chances most of the time."
Buckley said he had told the players at three-quarter-time to simply keep playing the way they wanted to play and had been playing, pleased until then with their "really good" effort.
The Pies managed just one goal to five in the final term, having led by three points at the final break.
"We didn't talk about who wasn't there. We weren't sure on Faz at the time," he said.
"In the end that toll told on us ultimately but as I said, there were plenty of areas we were in control of early on.
"We needed to find that gap and we weren't able to do it. As much as we lost soldiers, we could have been more effective and more efficient in those first three quarters on the scoreboard."
Buckley expected the final quarter workload to influence the work the group will be able to do at training this week, leading into Sunday's game against Port Adelaide at the MCG.
"When you start tipping in game day, the week becomes management. The week becomes getting blokes back to scratch and giving them the chance to empty out again on the weekend," he said.
"You always adjust and tailor your training for what the evidence of the game is telling you, whether it's strategic or tactical or whether it's management or load.
"We'll tailor our training for our next opponent and for our own physical status."
Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury was proud of the way his teammates tried to run out the game, but also rued miss chances early in the match.
"As midfielders and as a side we knew we didn't have the rotations that last quarter, so we tried to keep taking the game on and in the end they used the footy a lot better than us in the last quarter and really spread us around and made us work," Pendlebury said on 3AW.
"They're a quality side so credit to them, they played well but in the end I think it's a lot about opportunities.
"In that second quarter we completed dominated that game of footy, and myself, Fasolo and Darcy Moore missed really gettable shots at goal to put a break in the game."
"Maybe we would have been able to hang on a bit better in the last quarter if we were up four or five goals."
