Collingwood will unleash Finlay Macrae against West Coast but coach Nathan Buckley says the Magpies won’t simply “play the kids” to reinvigorate their AFL season.

Pick 19 in last year’s draft, Macrae - the younger brother of Western Bulldogs player Jack - will replace midfield bull Taylor Adams, who is out for 10 weeks with a knee injury.

“Fin Macrae will play his first game and through our VFL practice matches over the last month he’s been really consistent,” Buckley told reporters.

“He was leaning in against Paddy Dangerfield in the midfield (in a VFL practice match) last week, which is a good heads-up for him because there’s some strong bodies he’s going to have to contend with.”

Macrae is Collingwood’s third debutant in 2021 after Ollie Henry and Beau McCreery and while Buckley acknowledged Essendon and Sydney had been sparked by young guns he was wary of simply turning to youth.

“’Play the kids’ is a common refrain at the moment,” Buckley said.

“If I was sitting watching the footy with my grandpa back in the day, he’d yell ‘kick it’, ‘play the kids’ makes about as much sense.

“If they’re ready they’ll play... One of my reasons for my post-match comments around needing to change is if something’s not working you can’t stick with it.

“But you also need to have something to go to.

“The expectation of just throwing young players in, especially when a lot of them haven’t played for 18 months, they didn’t get a lot of games in ... or any footy in last year with COVID.

“The Swans have an academy that they’re running their young players through for the last two or three years before they come of age and are drafted, we don’t have that luxury or capacity.

“So it is a little bit different but when the young fellas are ready they’ll play.”

Meanwhile, Buckley wouldn’t rule out throwing star defender Darcy Moore forward against the Eagles.

“Darcy’s an elite, All-Australian key defender. So we understand the commentary about his aerial possibilities forward but that’s still a maybe,” he said.

Ruck-forward Darcy Cameron could be called upon to support Brodie Grundy against Nic Naitanui - as was the case in last year’s elimination final.

“No one’s ever been able to find a way to get above (Naitanui’s) hand in the centre-bounce in particular,” Buckley said.

“So blunting that is half of the battle, so we will look at being better in centre bounce.”