COLLINGWOOD 3.4.22 5.7.37 10.10.70 15.13.103
ST KILDA 3.2.20 5.5.35 8.9.57 11.11.77
SCORERS
Collingwood: Cloke (4.5), Pendlebury (2.1), Jolly (2.0), Seedsman (2.0), Blair (1.0), Clarke (1.0), Dwyer (1.0), Krakouer (1.0), O'Brien (1.0), Elliott (0.1), Lynch (0.1), Shaw (0.1), Sidebottom (0.1), Thomas (0.1)
BEST
Collingwood: Thomas, Pendlebury, Swan, Macaffer, Cloke, O'Brien, Shaw
INJURIES
Collingwood: TBC
SUBSTITUTES
Collingwood: Ben Kennedy replaced Jarrod Witts in the third quarter
REPORTS
Collingwood: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 40,071 at Etihad Stadium
| THE MEDIA | ||
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It will not go down as the most brilliant performance under Nathan Buckley's watch, but Collingwood has bounced back from its Anzac Day defeat with an important 26-point win over St Kilda. In a scrappy, and at times ugly, contest at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, the Magpies did what they needed to do against an injury-hit St Kilda line-up to record their fourth win of the year. St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt threatened to turn the game his side's way with a brilliant last term but it was not enough, with Collingwood running out 15.13 (103) to 11.11 (77) victors. Dale Thomas was a standout for the Magpies, with 34 disposals (at 85 per cent efficiency) and eight marks in a new role off half-back. Having lost running defender Alan Toovey to a season-ending knee injury last week against Essendon, Buckley shifted Thomas to defence, and the move paid immediate dividends. Alongside Heath Shaw (22 touches), Thomas created, set up the play, organised his teammates, rebounded and cut off some of St Kilda's forward forays. When Scott Watters' side was pressing in the fourth term, the premiership midfielder was calm under pressure and offered a cool head. Thomas and Shaw were two of few Magpies to stand out in the game, with St Kilda's defensive press restricting the Magpies' renowned drive. The Saints' game style had undertones of Ross Lyon's coaching stint at the club, but it worked, and cut down the Magpies' propensity to use the middle of the ground as a springboard to attack. Gradually the Magpies wore down that wall, and despite four goals, 11 marks and 19 disposals to Riewoldt, the Saints didn't have the polish to stick with Buckley's side. Their fifth loss of the season is also likely to come at a cost. Not only was veteran midfielder Lenny Hayes a late withdrawal after complaining of calf tightness in the warm-up, but defender Sam Gilbert was helped from the ground in the third term after appearing to hyperextend his left knee. Gilbert went straight down to the rooms and was subbed out of the game shortly later. Forward Justin Koschitzke is also set to face scrutiny from the match review panel for an off the ball high hit on young Magpie Jamie Elliott in the second term. Elliott was grounded by the blow and left the field for medical attention on the bench, and on Twitter Elliott's injured teammate Dayne Beams described the incident as "fairly weak." A week after suggesting some of his teammates were "cheating" with their work-rate, Scott Pendlebury collected 28 disposals, while key target Travis Cloke kicked 4.5 in a powerful showing against Rhys Stanley. Jack Steven (21 disposals) continues to show encouraging signs for the Saints while former Fremantle defender Dylan Roberton had 21 touches as he impresses at his new football home. Notable - Dale Thomas' 34 possessions is his equal-highest tally since he debuted in round one, 2006. In his 156 games since, he has only nudged the 34 possession mark twice. He first reached it in the eight point loss to Brisbane at the Gabba in round 10, 2010. On that occasion he had 21 kicks and 13 handballs, while on Friday night he had 16 kicks and 18 handballs. He polled two Brownlow votes four years ago despite playing in a losing team. Can he nab the three this year? - Now that he is playing a little higher up the ground, it makes sense that Harry O'Brien is starting to register higher possession tallies than in years gone by. His renascence on centre wing was best illustrated by his performance on Friday night when he gathered a season-high 27 disposals (a mark he has only bettered on four occasions in his career) and kicked one of the goals of the night in the second quarter. It was the 20th goal of his career and his fourth against St Kilda (including two in each Grand Final back in 2010). - St Kilda coach Scott Watters showed Steele Sidebottom the ultimate sign of respect when he sent tagger Jarryn Geary onto the Magpie playmaker early in the night. His ploy worked with Geary holding Sidebottom to only 10 possessions (after recording 21, 25, 14, 21 and 31 in his first five games). It was Sidebottom's lowest possession count since he returned only eight touches against Port Adelaide in round 15, 2010, at AAMI Stadium. - The match was Marty Clarke's first against St Kilda since round seven, 2009. On that occasion, the Magpies were thumped by 88 points on a dismal Monday night at Etihad Stadium. Four years later he returned to the same venue to take on the Saints, gathering 18 possessions, laying two tackles and kicking his third goal of the season en route to a 26-point win. - The crowd of 40,071 was the lowest between Collingwood and St Kilda since round 15, 2000, a year in which the two teams eventually occupied the last two places on the AFL ladder. For the record, Collingwood won that encounter by 33 points with Nathan Buckley awarded the three Brownlow votes for his 35 possessions and six rebound 50s. - The win is Collingwood's fifth in a row against the Saints. The Pies have not lost to the Saints in their seven matches against them since round 16, 2010. The seven game stretch includes the famous 2010 Grand Final draw. Collingwood's last loss to the Saints was back in round three, 2010, when St Kilda restricted the Magpies to 4.17 while kicking 10.9 to run out 28 point victors on a spiteful Friday night at Etihad Stadium. |
Nathan Buckley talked tough after Anzac Day and was even tougher at selection. The team that Scott Pendlebury bagged for its defensive slackness was re-shaped radically for this game. Five changes was a greater statement than anything Pendlebury or Buckley said. Alex Fasolo was dumped for apparent laziness, while Buckley took a significant gamble by bringing in not one, but two ruckmen to replace the old man with a beard, Ben Hudson. The promotion of 208-centimetre giant Jarrod Witts for his first game saw Buckley depart from his one ruckman policy. Witts would play in the same side as Darren Jolly AND forward ruck Quinten Lynch. Collingwood's intent, aside from blooding a youngster (another first gamer, Ben Kennedy, was the substitute), was clearly to stretch the undersized Saints' defence, which didn't have an appealing match-up for Travis Cloke and one sensed would struggle to spoil if the Pies could get one-out match ups in their taller forward line. But Buckley's best laid plan went badly astray in the first half, when the Magpies found themselves oversized and sluggish at ground level in their attack. The return of Andy Krakouer was another punt that floundered, since Krakouer's complete lack of leg speed - and inability to do much - meant their attack was even less potent on the deck. The Saints, who put hard tags on both Pendlebury (Clint Jones) and, more tellingly, Steele Sidebottom (Jarryn Geary), played superb defensive football in that first half, but they were doubtless heavily assisted by Collingwood's excess of lumberers. That Witts showed some promise did not compensate for the fact that the Magpies were simply too big. Thus, it was no surprise when Buckley subbed Witts out in the middle of the third quarter, reverting to his conventional ruck system. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Collingwood had a mini-run almost immediately once they went small. They might have been assisted, too, by the Saints' loss of Sam Gilbert to a knee injury In another departure from traditional practice, Buckley assigned a hard tag to an opposition playmaker, deploying the unlikely Brent Macaffer to run with Nick Dal Santo. This experiment was a success, as Dal Santo - despite the acid being placed on him by his coach - had another sub par game. In yet another unorthodox move - this one forced by injury - Dale Thomas was placed across half-back, where the Pies had lacked speed and ground level nous in most games. Stastically speaking, the Thomas shift was productive - he had a heap of the ball and did quicken up a sluggish defence. Ultimately, these novel moves bore mixed results. Thomas back worked, Krakouer back in the team didn't. The two rucks failed - in the overall sense that they caused an imbalance and the odds would be short that the next Collingwood side has Jolly supported only by his Q Stick. This mostly awful and grungy contest was won, not by experimentation, but the simple fact that Collingwood's three premier players - Travis Cloke, Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan - became influential in the second half. Cloke's three goals in the last quarter, one from a curling snap near the boundary, negated the huge impact of his forward counterpart Nick Riewoldt, who isn't playing like a 30-year-old key forward should. Buckley's bravery at selection and in moving players mightn't have reaped what he sought. But his noveau Pies prevailed and, on that basis, the roulette spins weren't as costly as they threatened to become. Elliott / Koschitzke Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has declined to be drawn on the incident in which his small forward Jamie Elliott was collected by Justin Koschitzke, but his absent playmaker Dayne Beams has already condemned ''Kosi'' as ''weak'' for what seemed to be an elbow that caught Elliott high before half-time. ''I saw it very quickly during the play in the second quarter,'' Buckley said of the incident, which was one of the few talking points of a dreary game between the Saints and Pies. ''Last time I was in this room and commented on a tribunal appearance it was made a bigger story than it needed to be, so we'll just let the powers that be deal with that.'' Buckley was referring to his strong comments condemning North Melbourne's Lindsay Thomas, who bumped and Ben Reid in round one but was cleared by the match review panel because it found the high contact was due to a clash of heads. But Beams was not as reserved in his assessment as his coach. ''Fairly weak that by Justin Koschitzke,'' the 2012 all-Australian tweeted when the incident occurred. ''#Cyalater.'' Elliott left the field only briefly. Buckley, who re-shaped the side significantly by sending Dale Thomas, Tyson Goldsack and Marty Clark to defence, said the Magpies would continue to try different players in defensive roles as a result of injuries to Nick Maxwell and Alan Toovey. Buckley also played Brent Macaffer in a tagging role on Nick Dal Santo in another experiment. ''We're going to have to find different ways to defend, whilst our captain's out who's obviously a legitimate back side player and Alan Toovey, who won't be back for the rest of the year, who's our best small defender. So our defence is going to look really different in the rest of 2013 or definitely in the next couple of weeks, than it has in the past.'' Buckley said Thomas had ''still got a way to go. We've got to understand that Daisy's come off very little pre-season, you know, his application to his rehab and recovery has been excellent. ''He attacked well when we needed him to and that was the best thing about it.'' |
IN the cruel world that is footy, adversity always welcomes opportunity. For Collingwood, it is: Out Alan Toovey. In: Dale Thomas. The popular Toovey was replaced by the ever popular Thomas on a back flank, and it's a move which is could end up a permanent adoption. Thomas perhaps wasn't best afield in Collingwood's sluggish 33-point victory at Etihad last night, but he was damned close. Scott Pendlebury and Thomas were the class for the Pies, and Nick Riewoldt clearly was the inspiration for St Kilda, with support from Jack Stevens (10 clearances) and Leigh Montagna. Thomas finished with 34 touches and eight marks, playing on a combination of resting midfielders and no-one. He might not get it so easy again, in particular his want for the one-two running out of defence, but it worked well enough that coach Nathan Buckley will unquestionably go again with the move against Fremantle at Subiaco. The final score was: 15.13 (103) to 11.11 (77). In a bruising game, the Saints never allowed the Pies to escape, and the Pies couldn't do enough to shrug the Saints. The highest margin between the two teams was at the finals siren, and at the 20th minute of the final quarter, the Saints were still a chance to win. The Saints defensive measures in the first two quarters had a notable impact, and only at the end did the game really open up. Former coach Ross Lyon is long gone, but the game style employed was so Ross Lyon. Coach Scott Watters had four players under five games (Ross, Wright, Saunders and Murdoch), a relative newbie in Jack Newnes and lost Lenny Hayes in the warm-up, but Watters was able to conjure belief in an accountable, defensively sound game plan. It hounded the Pies into stationary footy, and plenty of backwards kicks. The Pies had Heath Shaw, Thomas, Marty Clarke, and Tyson Goldsack in the back half - three of the team's speedier players - but they weren't allowed to do too much damage. Thomas had 19 at the break, Shaw 18, Goldsack 12 and Clarke 12, but the numbers did not lend themselves to Magpies dominating. The reality was they won the ball in the back half, but weren't allowed to dominate between the arcs. The PIes had 23 inside 50s for 5.5 against St Kilda's 19 inside 50s for 5.7. In the second quarter, behinds to Cloke, Quinten Lynch and Josh Thomas hurt whatever advantage Collingwood had hoped for after having the upper hand. The initial break came at the start of the third quarter, when the Pies through Blair and Pendlebury, kicked the first two goals and three of the next five, but again the Saints hung tough. David Armitage kicked a goal just before the final break, to make the difference just two goals. The Saints, gallant last week against the Swans, once again were gallant. The problem is gallantry can give you a semi-satisfied feeling of giving effort, but it doesn't give you the four points. Nick Dal Santo has emerged as a problem child. Watters leaned on him during the week to lead, and Brent McCaffer leant on him for most of last night. Tagged out of the game again, Dal Santo had nine touches to three quarter-time, five of which were ineffective. He would finish with 16 touches and two clearances to McCaffer's 16 and six inside 50s. As his career meanders along, Riewoldt's doesn't appear to be slipping. Dominant against Sydney last week, Riewoldt last night threatened Collingwood's hopes with a powerful last quarter, which included two goals in two minutes. He narowly missed a third a minute later, which allowed Collingwood to take the initiative. But it was vintage from the skipper, and he finished with four goals and 11 marks. At the death, Travis Cloke twice won free kicks against Rhys Stanley, who was caught on the wrong side running towards goal, and twice Cloke goaled. Justin Koschitzke, meanwhile, had an ordinary night. At halftime, he had three touches, five hit-outs, two marks and one elbow. The elbow was his most memorable moment. The off-the-ball hit on Jamie Elliott will likely see him suspended. It remains to be seen if he gets back into a team, which is beginning its transition. Votes 3. Dale Thomas 2. Scott Pendlebury 1. Nick Riewoldt. Robbo's Best: Collingwood: Thomas, Pendlebury, Shaw, McCaffer, O'Brien, Swan, Jolly St Kilda: Riewoldt, Steven, Montagna, Roberton, Armitage Elliott / Koschitzke COLLINGWOOD coach Nathan Buckley last night refused to be drawn on St Kilda forward Justin Koschitzke's high contact on Magpie Jamie Elliott, saying he wanted to leave the incident in the hands of the match review panel. Speaking after the Magpies' hard-fought 26-point win over the Saints at Etihad Stadium, Buckley said his forthright post-match comments on Lindsay Thomas' clash with Ben Reid in Round 1 had taught him to keep his opinions to himself. "I saw it very quickly during the play in the second quarter," Buckley said of the incident in which it appeared Koschitzke's elbow made contact with Elliott. "Last time I was in this room (the post-match press conference room at Etihad Stadium) I commented on a tribunal appearance that was made (into) a bigger story than it needed to be. So I will just let the powers that be deal with that." Buckley said he had not heard about a tweet from injured Magpie Dayne Beams during the match in which he said: "Fairly weak that by Justin Koschitzke." The incident left Elliott in the hands of trainers and he was taken from the field. He resumed in the second half. |
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