FREMANTLE 2.3.15 8.7.55 14.10.94 17.14.116
SCORERS - Collingwood: Young (1.1), Elliott (1.0), Macaffer (1.0), Pendlebury (1.0), Swan (1.0), Sidebottom (0.3), Ball (0.1), Beams (0.1), Grundy (0.1), Sinclair (0.1), Witts (0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Pendlebury, Beams, Langdon
INJURIES - Collingwood: Nil
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Ben Kennedy replaced Martin Clarke in the third quarter
REPORTS: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 37,571 at Etihad Stadium
| - Collingwood's 5.16 (46) was the team's lowest score since its loss to St Kilda in the third round of 2010 when it kicked 4.17 (41). Prior to that, its next lowest score is 5.10 (40), also against the Saints, this time in round seven, 2009. It's interesting to note that all three of these scores were kicked against Ross Lyon-led teams and all were recorded at Etihad Stadium. - Tom Langdon showed great poise on debut, but it was his 24 disposals that stood out on the stats sheet. For the record, it's the highest disposal tally record by a Magpie debutant since Jaxson Barham won 28 touches on debut against Brisbane at the Gabba in round four, 2009. Steele Sidebottom (22 in round seven, 2009) and Tom Young (23 in round 22, 2011) are other recent debutants to get their hands on the Sherrin with similar regularity. - The 70-point loss marked Collingwood's heaviest first round defeat since the first round of 1987 when Sydney belted the Magpies by 91 points. That match saw the beginning of Tony Shaw's reign as captain and heralded the debuts of Gavin Brown, Gavin Crosisca, Michael Christian and Craig Starcevich. | - Scott Pendlebury's 26 disposals in his first outing as skipper compares favourably with other recent captains. Tony Shaw won the ball on 30 occasions during the aforementioned loss to the Swans in round one, 1987, while Gavin Brown (24 disposals), Nathan Buckley (26 disposals) and Scott Burns (28 disposals) also got their hands dirty in the midfield. Defender Nick Maxwell had only 12 touches in his first official outing as the team's leader in round one, 2009, but he still managed to push forward for two goals. - The 5.16 (46) scoreline is Collingwood's lowest in the 25 meetings between the two clubs. It fell short of the 7.12 (54) the Magpies of 2004 managed against the Dockers in round four at the same venue. For the record, fifth gamer Dane Swan is the only surviving member from that afternoon. "Collingwood's 5.16 (46) was the team's lowest score since its loss to St Kilda in the third round of 2010 when it kicked 4.17 (41)." |
| 1. Fremantle's ball movement has become more dangerous Fremantle spent more time on practising ball movement in the pre-season than stoppages and defensive aspects of the game. Results of that hard work were on display in the second quarter when the team went coast-to-coast and Danyle Pearce goaled. Stephen Hill carved Collingwood up with his sweeping runs through the middle and the overlap handball was precise. It kicked two coast-to-coast goals and if Ryan Crowley had not dropped a mark in attack it would have kicked three. Fremantle aim to average two more goals a game this season and were on target in round one after averaging 91 points in 2013. 2. Ross Lyon might be a round one specialist. It's probably no surprise given his strong winning record but Ross Lyon coached teams have now won seven of the past eight seasons in round one. This season he faced more challenges than ever with the team coming back from a Grand Final and the pre-season shortened. However Lyon was confident pre-game that they had made the most of every available minute. Twenty of the 2013 Grand Final team played for the Dockers in round one while Collingwood had just 14 players in the team that were also part of its elimination final loss to Port Adelaide last season. 3. The Gentle Giant Sandilands is a huge weapon. The hype surrounding the 211cm Sandilands has been somewhat muted until now because of injury. However, following his outstanding finals series in 2013 and an uninterrupted pre-season, the expectations were as high as he looks when he stands at the back of a team photo. Collingwood's Brodie Grundy tried hard but he was soon overwhelmed and Sandilands began to feed his on-ballers, as well as standing tall to mark. He took seven marks and gave off a certain goal to Crowley. | 4. Collingwood appear a long way off the best teams. Things are often never as bad as they might appear after a round one shellacking but few teams with top eight pretensions have been so easily dismantled as the Magpies were against the Dockers. Fremantle kicked 12 unanswered goals from 18 minutes into the first quarter to the 21-minute mark of the third quarter. Conventional wisdom says good sides don't allow that to happen. Collingwood was beaten at the basics and outworked after an initial burst of pressure. Its disposal was poor. The Magpies can only hope they won't be the only team that cops a hiding from Fremantle and they perform better against teams in their class. It was the Magpies' lowest score against the Dockers. 5. Nathan Fyfe had three Brownlow medal votes in bag…then he was subbed. It will be interesting on Brownlow medal night to see whether Nathan Fyfe manages to earn three votes for his three-quarter performance in the opening round. After getting a knock late in the third quarter Lyon made the prudent decision to take him off. Given Fyfe had been a doubtful starter at one stage during the week it was a no-brainer, but at the time he had 15 contested possessions and 20 disposals as well as one magical snap goal. He had got to work underneath the packs in the second quarter and pushed momentum Fremantle's way. ".... few teams with top eight pretensions have been so easily dismantled as the Magpies were against the Dockers. Fremantle kicked 12 unanswered goals from 18 minutes into the first quarter to the 21-minute mark of the third quarter." |
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Nathan Buckley says Collingwood's dismal start to the 2014 season puts selection heat on its senior players and has called on his team not to forget the pain of the 70-point thumping from Fremantle. The Magpies were belted by the Dockers at Etihad Stadium on Friday night despite leading at quarter-time on the back on an almost complete dominance of clearances (12-3) and fanatical defensive pressure. Buckley said the Dockers' ability to turn the game on its head, to the extent they piled on 12 consecutive goals in little more than two quarters, was a concern. "When there's such contrasts in the way that you perform from quarter to quarter it puts heat on everyone," Buckley said. "We will more than likely sit at the bottom of the ladder with our percentage at the end of round one, but we will be four points away from the top team. "So it's a loss, it's a poor loss, but you don't wrap the season up. "We've clearly got some players who performed really well...but we just didn't have enough support, there weren't enough troops, there wasn't enough weight of numbers for long enough. "So the heat goes on if you don't perform – players and coaches and administrators alike." Buckley said he had told his players after the game to take a positive out of troubling one of 2014's flag fancies for a quarter, but they had to learn to sustain that effort for longer. "The churning in the guts that we're all feeling at the moment is not something you just ignore," Buckley said. "We had the game on our terms, we were pretty happy at quarter-time with how we approached it. "We did not take our chances and we could not have spent more time on that over the off-season in regards to our set-shot goalkicking and conversion. Quite easily we could have been three or four goals up at half-time. "Really the message was we had 30 minutes of footy that worried a Grand Final side, that worried the premiership favourites for the year. But if we're going to be a good side we've got to be able to do that for longer." Buckley dismissed suggestions selecting experienced pair Ben Hudson and Quinten Lynch would have bolstered the Pies' ruck division as it took on Aaron Sandilands and his sidekick Jack Hannath. The Pies coach praised the efforts of ruckmen Brodie Grundy, who does not turn 20 until next month, and Jarrod Witts, 21, saying they "broke even at worst" against the Freo duo. The Magpies were also without key forwards Ben Reid and Jesse White due to calf injuries, but Buckley said the pair were expected to be available for their round two clash against the Sydney Swans in a fortnight. Buckley said the Pies remained confident they had completed a strong pre-season and were "up and about" for 2014, but just had no answer to Freo's "aggressive" ball movement and greater experience. "We had a young side. We would have liked to have more experience...but in the end we played a side that had 20 of their Grand Final side from last year in and if that's where we're at that's where we're at," Buckley said. Post match interview with Scott Pendlebury: Will the players and coaches look to forget the match and start afresh or analyse it forensically? Pendlebury: “We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board, review that and learn from it. If we just brush that aside, we don’t learn from it.” The team needs to wait another two weeks before playing against Sydney in round two. Is this a positive or a negative? Pendlebury: “I think like most players, you’d love to play again straight away and get that bad taste out of your mouth, but we’ve got to use it. We’ll review the game heavily and take some good learnings. We’ve just got to keep chipping away, it’s the start of a journey tonight.” How big an impact was the loss of Ben Reid and Jesse White in the days leading up to the match? Pendlebury: “We’re not going to use players as an excuse. We had 21 fit guys and our sub. As you saw in that first quarter we were more than capable. We played patches where we looked sharp but we just struggled to tonight trying to enter the ball into the forward 50. They seemed to get back well, which is a strength of theirs, we knew that, but on the flipside they did hurt us with 65 inside 50s which is just not good enough.” How did Collingwood look to combat Fremantle's vaunted defensive abilities? We knew they rolled back well. We tried to find other avenues to goal but they seemed to cover those off. They’re a strong defensive side and it’s where we’d like to get to. I think we were prepared to roll back hard but they forced us tonight to turn the ball over. They shut down down the line so you try and do that corridor kick but they turn it over and they’re open, and it looks like they’re working hard but they’re probably just working smarter.” Surely it's not panic stations already? “There’s no panic. It’s the start of a journey. They’re on four points, we’re on nil. We’ve got to butter up.” Has Fremantle added more of an attacking flair to their game? “Not really, they're still a great defensive side. The basis of their game is on defence and then they try and hurt you when you turn the ball over.” " Quick $100 for anybody that can tell me what Buckley's game plan is? "
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Indecision, poor kicking, awful goal kicking, an inexperienced side playing against a very, very good opponent. They were all reasons for Collingwood being slaughtered “pantsed” over three quarters coach Nathan Buckley said. Collingwood was “slaughtered” by 70 points after kicking a horrendous 5 goals 16 – and five more out on the full – in a woeful display of goal-kicking that capped a dreadfully fumbly night with the ball. Collingwood’s scoreline was their equal poorest conversion rate since 2007 – the other two occasions they kicked as poorly were also against Ross Lyon-coached teams. “We did not take our chances and we could not have spent more time on that over the summer in relation to our set shot goal kicking and conversion and quite easily we could have been three or four goals up at quarter time and that has a massive difference,” Buckley said. Collingwood led the match by a point at quarter time but conceded 12 unanswered goals and booted only three goals in three quarters as they submitted to aside that was cleaner, stronger and more efficient than they were. “We played the grand finalist from last year and got pantsed in the last three quarters,” Buckley said. “We had some chances but our ball handling was woeful after quarter time. All the numbers in contested possession and clearances were even but we were not able to hold the tide back.” Buckley said that once Fremantle scored a couple of goals in the second quarter his players lost their nerve and became confused and tentative about whether to go forward or back and in the end got caught in between. Collingwood fielded a young side with injuries to a number of key players – notably Ben Reid and Jesse White - and Buckley said with two weeks break until the next match a range of players would be available to come into the team. Both Reid and White will be recovered from calf soreness to play Sydney. Jarryd Blair, Sam Dwyer, Kyle Martin, Josh Thomas all returning from injury will play VFL on Saturday along with others in contention to come into the side like Ben Hudson, Quinten Lynch and Lachie Keeffe“We have still got a lot of blokes outside of this 22 who would lay claim to being in the best 22 and when you see a performance like that it can shift pretty quickly,” Buckley said. “It has to put heat on selection. When there is such contrast in the way you perform from quarter to quarter it puts heat on everyone. “We will more than likely sit at the bottom of the ladder with our percentage at the end of round one but we will be four points away from the top team. It is a loss. It is a poor loss but you don’t wrap the season up.”Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury said Fremantle had shown Collingwood the difference between working hard defensively and working smart defensively. “I think we were prepared to roll back hard but they forced us to turn the ball over, they shutdown down the line so you try to hit a corridor kick and you turn that over and they are open. They are probably not working harder, they are working smarter than us,” he said“We just got shown pretty quickly how high the standard is. It’s a quick reminder there is a lot of work to be done. “They forced us into turnovers into rushed decisions, we were trying to do that but they kept their composure better than we did.”Pendlebury reasoned that despite the loss he felt the gulf between the side was not as wide as the scoreline suggested, with Collingwood having significant room for improvement. “There’s no panic, it’s only the start of the journey, if we dish that up again next week then there is panic but they are on 4 points we are on nil,” he said. CULTURE has been the buzzword all summer at Collingwood. When it came to a major personnel clean-out at the end of last season, rightly or wrongly personalities mattered. But as Pies fans trudged out of Etihad Stadium last night, they might have thought that even if there was a scallywag element at the club last year, at least they could kick the footy. That’s what mattered most when the season-opener swang decisively in Fremantle’s favour last night. The Magpies’ ball use bordered on horrendous at times in the second quarter when Fremantle stitched this contest up, kicking seven straight goals leading up to the main change. Officially, the Pies’ efficiency by foot was 44 per cent in the second quarter, taking in crucial botched set shots on goal by Luke Ball and Steele Sidebottom. By three quarter, the Pies had more than double the Dockers’ number of kick clangers. Yes, Collingwood’s forward structure was at skim milk strength after calf injuries ruled out prized big men Jesse White and Ben Reid. But coach Nathan Buckley said this week the absence of the big blokes would hardly matter. Rather “it would be how we approach the contest” that would decide things. To be fair, Fremantle brought its trademark frenzied defensive pressure after quarter time, but the Pies looked equally shaky when they had time and space, as well. Travis Cloke would have felt one-out all night stationed deep forward, with full-back Luke McPharlin attached to one side of him and Michael Johnson floating in from the other. There were few trademark hit-up leads on the chest. Buckley’s new-look Collingwood is missing two of its main ballcarriers in Dale Thomas in Heath Shaw.How the coaches replace that line-breaking drive from the departed pair, especially on the wings and forward and back flanks, will be pivotal. By foot, Shaw (76.9 per cent) and Thomas (67.9) were two of the sharpest ball-users at the club. Collingwood had no problems getting its hands on the ball in the clinches, racking up 21 to 10 clearances at half time, despite the height and might of Fremantle ruckman Aaron Sandilands. But there was a lack of poise with the footy thereafter, especially on the outside, that cost the Pies. “There are too many players fumbling the footy and making poor decisions,” Hawthorn champion forward Jason Dunstall said of Collingwood on Triple M. By late in the third quarter, it was 12 consecutive goals to the visitors, leaving coach Buckley with his head in his hands in the box. Maybe the kicking errors and lack of composure was just Round 1 ring rust, he will hope. Big men Reid and White may be back in a fortnight against Sydney, by which time the team’s confidence must be restored. They can watch videotape of the first quarter. Collingwood’s defensive pressure was magnificent early, forcing the Dockers to retreat into their back half and cough the ball up themselves.But the Pies, for all their early possession dominance, did not make it count on the scoreboard as much as they should have. Collingwood has a particularly tough first third of the AFL draw. Last night was a spluttering start. |
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