Daicos returned from a corked calf and clearly looked uncomfortable and lacked his usual zip but pushed through to be one of the Magpies' best players, collecting 31 disposals in Friday night's 7.3 (45) to 5.9 (39) loss to Fremantle at Adelaide Oval.
"I think he's still sore. He doesn't quite have the same gait as he normally does," McRae said.
"You see how hard he works and then gets up sore and gets treatment on the fence. He's super critical to us though, that's stating the obvious.
"But hopefully he's got through this game well and we've got six days before we play the Blues. He's a pro, like I keep saying."
The Magpies will definitely be without Jordan De Goey (concussion) for the Carlton game next Thursday.
"He's a bit rusty, hopefully he's not too bad," McRae said.
Missing De Goey is another concern in attack for Collingwood. For while McRae was pleased with his side's effort, saluting the response after they "didn't do the jumper proud" in a thumping loss to Brisbane, Friday's defeat still felt like four points dropped.
The Magpies kicked just 1.2 from 18 inside-50s in the opening quarter while they butchered the ball both going into attack and around goal, especially when they had chances to seal the game late.
"We just didn't connect at times ... we're a bit messy forward of the ball, aren't we? Like that's real, we lack a bit of polish at times - I think we can all see that," McRae said.
"We'll keep getting to work on connection. It's hard when you're playing the game in your forward half so much and then we set the ground up so well defensively, and it's coming back.
"So when it's coming back, how do we get it back? Are we just gonna bomb it into undersized keys against (Alex) Pearce, who had five intercept marks and is really hard to play against?
"We need to keep evolving, but reality is, we did enough to win this game, I think everyone could see that. We just didn't quite grab our chances in tough conditions."
McRae took the positives, delighting in Angus Anderson's promising debut and Billy Frampton's shutdown job on Dockers spearhead Josh Treacy.
