Collingwood News and Views

REAL FOOTY In his first game in a year Lachlan Keeffe landed awkwardly on another player and bruised his kidneys. The injury will put the key position player out of the VFL for another week and so also set back his availability to the senior side. Collingwood's key defenders, Ben Reid and Nathan Brown, have been labouring and would likely have been dropped were it not for the absence of alternative players such as Keeffe or injured youngster Jack Frost. In the aftermath of the Sydney match the racism issue overshadowed analysis of the 47-point drubbing Collingwood received. On Tuesday coach Nathan Buckley admitted the match reinforced several facts. Heath Shaw will need to lift his game. First, it revealed Collingwood does not have the battery of elite, quick endurance runners to match the best. "I don't know what their endurance profile is, but from the outside in it looks like they've got six, seven, eight elite endurance runners that can run at pace up and back," Buckley said. "We don't have the capacity to match that at the moment with our personnel . . . if we make it a running battle it's probably going to be harder for us to win. "We acknowledge the strengths in our group – we're a hard, contested-ball side. When we put pressure on as a team on the opposition, we create opportunities for ourselves and we defend well. That's what we saw two weeks ago [against Geelong] and that's utopia, that's what we're looking for." Collingwood on Friday was missing Dayne Beams, Dale Thomas, Heath Shaw, Tyson Goldsack, Clinton Young, Alan Toovey and Alex Fasolo. Of those, Toovey and Fasolo will not return this year; Thomas might. Young has not been sighted yet but is likely to play senior football in about round 14 or 15. Shaw will return this week after Buckley admitted he had been left out with hamstring tightness. High skinfolds also did not help his cause, Buckley said. The Sydney loss also magnified other issues, such as Quinten Lynch's loss of form in the past month. The introduction of ruckman Jarrod Witts had meant Lynch was no longer relieving Darren Jolly in the ruck. Being kept out of the play had seemingly hurt his form, Buckley admitted. Managing the older players such as Alan Didak and Ben Johnson and striking a balance between them and emerging talent was a challenge for the club, he said. "We are still in the process of finding out what our best 22 looks like. We have some players who have been there and done that and you get the opportunity to prove if your best is still good enough. Then we have got young players who are hungry to take that next step . . . we are finding a balance between those two." The Pies do have young talent in the VFL. Rookie Kyle Martin has impressed all season and booted six goals last weekend, Jackson Paine kicked six a fortnight ago in his first good game of the year and followed it up with good effort last week, Josh Thomas has been "excellent", while Buckley also praised another rookie in Adam Oxley. Thomas would appear certain to return to the side after being unfortunate to miss last week. Buckley said there would likely be significant changes this week in the team to play the Brisbane Lions. "If you perform at senior level you will be supported but clearly there need to be some changes after a performance like that and we need to keep our individuals held to account for that performance," he said. "We were beaten by last year's premiers playing their best footy in 2013, so we have had a really good look at what the very best looks like this year. Sydney are the best side we have played this season." Sydney had, like Hawthorn, exposed Collingwood at stoppages and in defence by winning the ball at stoppages. Then, having sucked the Collingwood defenders up the ground, they hurt them with pace when they turned them around and had them running back towards goal. Buckley said this was an issue of the total team defence, not just the back line. "We have to move the ball better but our main focus is on how we defend, we need to be able to run hard enough and defend well enough," he said. "There's a lot of things that aren't clicking for us at the moment off one performance but when it does click you can see how damaging we can be and how hard to beat we can be, but we need to be more consistent. "We think we are going to be a better football side in the second half than we have been in the first half."

SUPERFOOTY HISTORY says Collingwood and Richmond are fighting for one finals berth. Only three times in the past decade has more than one team forced its way into the eight after this stage of the season. Richmond and Collingwood are 10th and 11th respectively, while the historical hurdle is even worse news for North Melbourne, currently 13th. Collingwood great Peter Daicos yesterday said he was sure the Magpies would come good, despite their bad loss to Sydney on Friday night. "No doubt, like a lot of teams, they rely on playing at their very best," Daicos said. "But at their best they're one of the best teams and I've got no doubt about that." Richmond's 1980 premiership coach Tony Jewell said the Tigers were on track, despite a last-start loss to Essendon. "They ran Fremantle to a point over there and beat Carlton," Jewell said. "And all of a sudden they've got two young blokes who have emerged, (Brandon) Ellis and (Nick) Vlastuin, and I reckon they're genuine players. "You add those to (Trent) Cotchin, (Brett) Deledio, (Dustin) Martin and (Nathan) Foley and I've just got a good feeling. "If their centre half-forward, (Tyrone) Vickery - he's only young and I'm a bit of a wrap for him - can really start influencing games then they're in with a chance." Only twice in the past 11 years have three teams climbed in to the eight after Round 9 - in 2009 and 2012. On both occasions those teams filled spots nine, 10 and 11 on the ladder after Round 9 and trailed eighth spot by a game or less. Daicos said the Pies' true standing would be clearer once they had played every team. Collingwood is yet to play Brisbane Lions (Friday), Melbourne (Rd 11), Western Bulldogs (Rd 12), Port Adelaide (Rd 14), Gold Coast (Rd 17), Greater Western Sydney (Rd 18) and meets both Adelaide (Rd 16) and West Coast (Rd 22) at the MCG. "Clearly the draw is going to be in their favour," Daicos said. "And the one thing that stands out having still to play those teams at the lower end of the ladder is that you could easily run in to some consistent football week-in, week-out. "I think it's a favourable run home for them. They've had a couple of their key players out as well." TAB has Collingwood $1.25 to make the finals, and Richmond a $1.75 chance - ahead of Adelaide (seventh) $1.80 and North Melbourne $5. Peter Daicos