Melbourne Demons coach Simon Goodwin says Clayton Oliver will play against Hawthorn Hawks; Carlton Blues star Charlie Curnow suffers knee blow at training

Curnow declared fit to face Saints, despite training mishap

Danny Russell

A cagey Michael Voss has declared Charlie Curnow “fine” to take on St Kilda at the MCG on Friday night despite the star forward being crunched in a training collision with ruckman Tom De Koning.

The Carlton coach denied that Curnow had injured his troublesome knee in the Wednesday night mishap but refused to elaborate further on whether the dual Coleman medallist had been hurt.

“The last 30 seconds of the drill, him and Tom had a nice little collision,” Voss said on Thursday morning.

“So it’s not exactly what you want to see in the last 30 seconds, but he’ll be fine.”

Voss was asked what went through his mind when he saw his key forward go down clutching his knee.

“I tried to have a bit of a laugh to fob it off, but holding his knee is incorrect. But he’s fine,” he said.

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Voss also flatly denied a suggestion that Curnow had been having injections in his knee before training.

“Before training? No, no, that’s not the case at all,” he said.

When asked to expand on what happened to Curnow when he collided with De Koning, Voss said that “it was just a knock”.

“You don’t need to know specifics. Let’s just say he’s playing,” Voss said.

Curnow did not appear restricted in his movement during a light training session at Ikon Park on Thursday morning before being named in the Carlton line-up later that day.

Curnow had a disrupted pre-season after surgery on his ankle and then his knee in December.

He missed the first two games of the season before returning in round three against Hawthorn.

Carlton brought back defender Jack Silvagni just a week after undergoing surgery to repair a broken hand as part of three changes at the selection table.

They dropped veteran Sam Docherty, axed Matthew Carroll and lost Lochie Fogarty to a hamstring injury. As well as Silvagni, the Blues brought in Jaxon Binns and Francis Evans.

Voss expected goals to be hard come by on Friday night, considering the Ross Lyon-coached Saints were “strong defensively behind the ball”.

“We just have to be able to be patient and wait for our opportunities,” he said.

Voss said the prospect of nullifying destructive St Kilda defenders Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and Jack Sinclair would be on the table.

“They’re obviously very, very important players. They’ve got a few of them,” Voss said.

“So we’ve got a few challenges down there, but, you know, it’s a little bit about them, but it’s a lot about us.

“And off the back of last week [losing to Adelaide], we’ve seen when we don’t get our system in play, and we’re not bringing the right effort around the contest, and we get beaten around the ball, it’s a hard day.

“So we’ll look to get that right first, and then we’ll sort of see how the game unfolds from there.

The Carlton coach also said the club agreed in principle with the prospect of a State of Origin game being played next February.

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