2014 Season Preview: Collingwood

Collingwood v Fremantle Friday March 14, 7.50pm Etihad Fox Footy / 7mate 7.30pm Weather: Min 13 Max 27 Chance of rain 40%: < 1mm Wind: S 14kph Betting: Collingwood $2.15 Fremantle $1.70

The Guardian

Collingwood
Guardian writers’ predicted position: 10th
Last season: 8th
It hardly needs saying these days but the name of the game is defence. Even in attack, the best AFL sides are defending. Unfortunately, that is where the cracks might emerge in the Collingwood’s 2014 blueprint.
Coach Nathan Buckley says they’re contending for a premiership, though with 68,548 rabid members (and counting) breathing down his neck he would say that, wouldn’t he? Maybe the club actually believes it but most outsiders don’t. Football is a results business and though they could count on the Magpie Army no matter what, there is a sense of downward trajectory about the Pies at the moment.
With Heath Shaw, Dale Thomas, Alan Didak and Darren Jolly all either traded or delisted, the side continues to take shape in Buckley’s image, a departure from what he probably saw as the more troublesome remnants of the Malthouse era. Plenty of players remain from the latter’s 2010 Premiership side but this is now very much Buckley’s operation.
What you can see above the surface is a particularly strong midfield led by new skipper Scott Pendlebury, who can rely on bona fide stars Dane Swan, Luke Ball, Steele Sidebottom and impressive GWS recruit Taylor Adams for support. You can take it as a given that they will consistently match it with the best midfields in the competition but elsewhere things start to look troublesome.
Put plainly, Collingwood will struggle to beat the best sides in the competition. Buckley is yet to defeat Hawthorn in five attempts at the helm and it might be the same story this year and the likes of Fremantle, Sydney and Richmond. That either places them in the bottom half of the eight or more likely, battling to even make the finals.
The problems are at either end of the ground and the patchwork quality of Collingwood’s defence doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence. Unless Ben Reid can play at both ends simultaneously, you have to question which Pies will take on the monster forwards of the competition. Nathan Brown and Lachlan Keefe will have first dibs but might find the going tough. The demotion of Nick Maxwell from the captaincy might also signal the end of his days as an automatic selection and therefore the Pies will be sweating on the ability of Reid, Alan Toovey and Ben Sinclair to stay on the park.
Reid will start the season in attack but how long that policy lasts will probably tell a story of its own. The loss of Shaw will be felt less if his understudy’s can stand up, but with Heritier Lumumba moving into the midfield, Pies fans will soon notice their lack of consistent rebound from defence. Early signs suggest they’ll mitigate that problem by handballing at every opportunity.
Things are a little rosier up forward than some pundits will have you believe. Early signs are that the hulking pairing of Travis Cloke and discarded Swan Jesse White could be fruitful. Still, so much will hinge on the wayward boot of Cloke. White will fare better than last year’s model Quinten Lynch, who managed only 9 goals from 18 games in 2013. In truth Lynch was called upon as a Mr Fix-It to relieve Brodie Grundy in the ruck, where White will mainly roam the forward 50. White’s 5-goal pre-season effort against Geelong highlighted his untapped potential.
Goals are also likely to come from the next tier down, with Collingwood boasting a fleet of dynamic, versatile youngsters such as Jamie Elliott, Sam Dwyer and Alex Fasolo. The return of Fasolo and Dayne Beams from long-term injuries is a fillip for their side, which will benefit from their canny goal sense. Agiain the Pies will require their midfielders to hit the scoreboard regularly. Last year Pendlebury (18 goals), Swan (21) and Sidebottom (19) were all able to do so.
Within that midfield brigade, much responsibility will rest on the shoulders of young ruckman Brodie Grundy, who was genuinely excellent last season but can no longer call upon Darren Jolly for back-up, with grizzled veteran Quinten Lynch and Jarrod Witts his most viable cover.
Being turfed out of the 2013 finals by a youthful Port Adelaide side stung the Pies faithful. Only a year earlier they had reached a preliminary final and it’s hard to conclude that the downward trajectory will stop this year. Buckley admitted he didn’t see the Port Adelaide loss coming and added, “anyone who finishes the season without doing a lap of this ground is disappointed in some shape or form and we’ve clearly got a lot of work to do still”. An improvement on that 8th place finish will be contingent on their ability to limit scoreboard damage. It’s a big ‘if’.
Collingwood’s pre-season form, though never a fail-safe indicator of what’s to come, has been far from spectacular. A narrow loss to Geelong was followed by a belting at the hands of Richmond. Annihilated in the first half of their clash with Gold Coast, the Pies eventually prevailed by 14 points thanks to 6 goals from Cloke. After that near-miss, Buckley asked his players, “’'How do you want to go about it? What do you want to be seen as? What’s your brand of footy?’' It’s not the talk of a contender.