Collingwood are diverting money from their coaching division in order to put more resources into their medical, rehabilitation and conditioning regime, in recognition that the club's injury toll requires improvements.

The Magpies have not replaced key assistant coach Justin Longmuir, the new senior coach at Fremantle, and are re-deploying money saved (under the soft spending cap on football) from their coaching panel into physiotherapy and medical/conditioning after another strong season in which key players missed stretches of games.

The Pies have been struck down by a number of injuries across the last two seasons, including missing Jordan De Goey (right), for their finals campaign. Credit:Getty Images

Collingwood's review of their conditioning and injury-management found that there was a need for the players to have more access and potential contact hours with the club's physios, medicos and specialists.

In a post-season in which they have had little involvement in player trades and will have only three later selections in the national draft, this greater resourcing of injury management stands as probably Collingwood's most significant change.