COLLINGWOOD, already brimming with confidence after its elimination final win in Adelaide, is likely to welcome back captain Scott Burns for Saturday night's semi-final against St Kilda.

A club spokesman said yesterday that Burns was close to playing at the weekend, but fell just short of selection after failing a fitness test with a recurring calf injury.

If he returns, Burns will inject a dash of experience to a young Magpies outfit that has being performing well over the past month.

Defender Simon Prestigiacomo injured his shoulder in Saturday's win, and it will be scanned today for serious damage. But the club believes he, too, will be available for selection after playing out the rest of the game.

Prestigiacomo will be just one defender in the mix for selection after last week's omission of experienced defender Shane Wakelin reportedly split the Collingwood match committee.

Wakelin is returning from a quad strain and it is expected he will retire at the end of the season.

John McCarthy had not played a final before running out against Adelaide on Saturday. Four of his Collingwood teammates had never played a final for the club, or any AFL team, so there was nothing outrageous in that.

But McCarthy had never played any final, full stop, for any team at any level. Not one final since he began playing in primary school at Sorrento.

That takes the concept of finals experience to a new level. No matter what level of game you play, finals engender a new level of tension and apprehension in players.

"I know it was outrageous," McCarthy said after the game, seemingly delirious at the thought he was in the side at all.

"I couldn't believe it when they said: 'You will play the final.' I thought to myself: 'This will actually be the first final I have ever played,' so it was amazing. I was a bit nervous before the game and a few times during the game where the nerves probably got the better of me, but I sort of held it together.

"I was definitely more nervous for this game than I was for my first game or for the first four I had played.

"I had never played a final before today and I never even won a game in two years playing TAC for Dandenong Stingrays.

"I was going to school footy and winning games at school footy, but every time I would come back to Dandenong we never won a game in two years."

McCarthy was taken with Collingwood's first pick in the last draft — the second round of the national draft after the Pies traded their first pick for ruckman Cameron Wood — and entered the side through the Heath Shaw and Alan Didak vacancies.

A lean, medium-sized player, McCarthy has displayed a courage on the ball that has the club hopeful he can fill Scott Burns' warrior on-baller role when the captain retires.

With superior run compared with Burns, McCarthy might develop into a player with shades of previous captain Gavin Brown.