Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell has described the past month as "disappointing", but is buoyed by their outlook heading into the AFL mid-season break.

While Maxwell rates himself a 50-50 chance to recover from a calf-muscle injury for the June 26 game against Sydney, he said Luke Ball, Ben Johnson and Alan Didak are all set to return.

Monday's draw against Melbourne meant the Magpies are third after 12 games with eight-and-a-half wins.

However they have won only one of their past four games.

The Magpies dominated early on Monday, but could only manage 9.22 and the Demons finished much stronger.

"It (the second half) wasn't good," Maxwell said.

"The first quarter, we played a lot better than we did for the rest of the game and just didn't take our chances.

"Having said that, we've turned at a good position. If at the start of the year we'd said this is the position we'd be in at the halfway mark, sitting third (and) entrenched in that top four, we'd be happy.

"While we've had a disappointing month, we're going to get some guys back next week in, (Luke) Ball and (Ben) Johnson and (Alan) Didak and they're going to have a big impact.

"They're crucial players to our success this year - they're a lot more likely than unlikely."

Maxwell went for scans on Tuesday afternoon after suffering his calf-muscle injury in the second term of the Melbourne game.

It is the first time he has suffered the injury and is hopeful to be available for the ANZ Stadium game against the Swans after the break.

"I spoke to the doc ... it's just a minor calf," he said.

"Given we have a week off this week, I'm probably 50-50 for Sydney - given that we did get it early and I actually did go down and do a bit of running in the rooms.

"Had it been a grand final, I might have been a chance to go back out there and do something."

Maxwell suffered impact to the same calf muscle last week and he suspects that bruising might have contributed to the new injury.

Calf-muscle problems often afflict older players and they can take a long time to heal.

"I turned 27 last week, so I'm a bit worried about that - (former player) Jimmy Clement made sure he sent me a text to remind me of that," he said.

"He had about a 12-week calf in his last year."

The skipper strongly defended Leon Davis, who only had nine disposals against the Demons.

"He was one of the best on ground last week and maybe down a little bit on the weekend. Everyone is on him," Maxwell said.

"He handles it (criticism) fine. It's disappointing everyone is always knocking him on the head."

Maxwell also laughed off the forwards' inaccuracy, an ongoing problem for Collingwood.

"You probably should swap it over, put the forwards in the back line and put the backs up forward," he said.

"I'm pretty good on my set shots, I reckon.

"No one means to miss a goal. That's not a cop-out, they work very hard on it."

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