A week's worth of questions won't deter Nick Maxwell from animated on-field displays towards teammates who are not pulling their weight.
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Having come under scrutiny after shoving and shouting at fellow defender Alex Fasolo during last Saturday's victory over West Coast, the 2010 premiership captain maintains he has no regrets about the incident.
"I'll probably do it again at some stage in the next few weeks – hopefully I don't but it may come to that," the Collingwood veteran said after training on Thursday.
"Out there we've got a job to do. I've got a job to do down back, and I need guys to be playing their role. We've got to be desperate down there, and at times aggressive, and people may think it can be over the top, but we've got to be demanding of each other."
Maxwell indicated that despite Fasolo being somewhat shocked initially, he had responded well to the bake.
"At first he was like a little kid, he thought I was going to crack him over the head," Maxwell joked.
"No, he was really positive. First thing I did from half-time was go to him and have a detailed explanation of it all, of what was required, and he was great, 'Mate, I want you to keep doing it to me.' "
The Magpies face St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, and not surprisingly the job of nullifying Saints captain Nick Riewoldt is at the top of the Pies' to-do list.
Maxwell flagged that Jack Frost and the likely-to-be-recalled Lachlan Keeffe would be the two players charged with trying to keep up with the champion forward.
"I don't think these days you can play one guy on Nick the way he plays, he just runs everyone around all the time, so we're going to have to make sure that we have a couple of options there," Maxwell said.
The in-form defender hinted that despite St Kilda's reliance on Riewoldt, Collingwood would be unlikely to resort to "double-teaming" him at any point, and would rather rely on swapping opponents throughout the evening.
Maxwell has long been a leader of the Magpies' defence, but his experience and leadership qualities have taken on added importance this year following a spate of injuries in the side's back line, including most recent casualty Nathan Brown, whose shoulder dislocation recurrence will keep him out for the remainder of 2014.
Maxwell spoke like a proud father figure when highlighting how resilient the defensive group had been under duress.
"If you'd have told me at the start of the year the players we'd have out of the team and the guys we'd be relying on to get the job done, I might have said, 'Well, I'm not sure where we'll be at.'
"To see Frost come in and play the way he's played, to see [Tom] Langdon come in and play the way he's played, obviously Marley [Williams] has come back in the past few weeks, Clinton Young added another string to his bow playing half-back, which is not something he'd been renowned for, so all of these guys have come in and played a role for us."
Having struggled in the round one defeat against Fremantle, Maxwell's place in the team had been called into question. However, rumours of his football demise have proven to be greatly exaggerated, with the mid-sized defender enjoying a renaissance in his role as a marshalling loose man down back.
Nevertheless, Maxwell is not re-assessing his longevity in the game. "I'm just trying to get through the next training session, to be honest."