Burns ready to play for Collingwood - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Burns ready to play for Collingwood

12/09/2008 01:50:46 PM Comments (0)

Collingwood captain Scott Burns has declared himself a certain starter for Saturday's AFL semi-final against St Kilda, saying he is 100 per cent fit.

The tough midfielder moved freely at training on Friday and will come into the side for Rhyce Shaw, who was dropped.

Burns has missed the last two games with a calf muscle injury.

"A solid week of training is always a good sign and I've been pulling up pretty well," he said.

"So unless I wake up tomorrow walking on eggshells ... I will be playing.

"Everything has gone to plan, which is great."

Asked to put a percentage on his fitness ahead of the game, Burns replied: "Anything less than 100, I wouldn't even think about playing."

Defender Simon Prestigiacomo hurt his shoulder in last Saturday's elimination final over Adelaide, but he also trained and Burns was hopeful he would be fit for the Saints.

"I'm not sure with `Presti', obviously he's trained pretty well," he said.

"I think he'll play ... we need him, he's a pretty important player in terms of that complete stopper.

"We want him to play, absolutely, and I don't see why he wouldn't be, he's trained well and he's certainly starting in the team this morning."

Burns then laughed off a rumour circulating around Melbourne that key forward Travis Cloke has glandular fever.

Cloke had a light run on Friday after being rested from Wednesday's training session.

Burns added last week's win would be a strong confidence boost for the `Pies ahead of the Saints clash.

St Kilda are coming off a big qualifying-final loss to Geelong and went down to Collingwood twice this year in close matches.

"It's a good feeling - even during the minor round games, when you go away interstate and you get a good win, you're pretty buoyant for a week or two, that momentum can carry you," Burns said.

"We're confident that if we do everything right, 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 ... we expect that again."

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