COLLINGWOOD 5.4.34 10.6.66 11.9.75 13.15.93
NORTH MELBOURNE 2.3.15 5.3.33 5.7.37 8.10.58
SCORERS - Collingwood: Cloke (4.4), White (2.2), Elliott (2.1), Beams (2.0), Pendlebury (1.2), Goldsack (1.1), Lumumba (1.0), Blair (0.1), Fasolo (0.1), Sidebottom (0.1), Swan (0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Sidebottom, Swan, Lumumba, Pendlebury, Cloke, Elliott
INJURIES - Collingwood: Nil
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Luke Ball replaced Jarrod Witts in the fourth quarter
REPORTS: Scott Thompson (North Melbourne) reported for striking Travis Cloke (Collingwood) in the first quarter
OFFICIAL CROWD: 57,116 at the MCG
| 1. The return of the Great Dane There was one piece of play, in the third quarter, that epitomised Dane Swan's return to the sort of form everyone expects of the Brownlow medallist. The Pies' champion received a one-two on the half-back flank and then put his head down and charged forward, sprinting 150m to join up with the ball on the half-forward flank and then delivered the footy inside 50 to Jamie Elliott. Footy looked easy for Swan again, but most importantly he was enjoying it. Swan finished with 35 disposals and five tackles in a wonderful display of hard-running football. 2. The best mode of attack is from defence The Kangaroos allowed Steele Sidebottom and Alex Fasolo to roam free and were made to pay dearly for their mistake. Sidebottom acted as the Magpies' 'plus-one' – a role he played with aplomb. His job was to outnumber the Roos at the contest and then switch modes to provide attack on the rebound. Time and again, Fasolo sat behind the footy, where the Pies put his exemplary foot skills to good use. The Magpies had a deliberate ploy to spread the field and, combined with their superb pressure, made North Melbourne look second-rate. Sidebottom (34 disposals) and Fasolo (32) were crucial to that. 3. Cloke with the dagger From the first quarter, something had clicked for Travis Cloke. He had forgotten that he had kicked just two goals in four rounds of football. Instead, his focus was only on the game at hand. At half-time, Cloke had four goals and 10 marks (five contested) to his name. He was swarmed by numbers in the second half, but he had done his job. For a short period, it looked like he had regained the title of the most dangerous forward in the AFL. If Cloke can replicate that first-half burst in games for longer stretches this season, the Magpies are going to be difficult to stop. |
4. Macaffer goes unnoticed Nathan Buckley's assertion that the umpires' eyes would be trained on Brent Macaffer from the opening bounce, may have been stretching the truth. Plenty of talk in the lead up to the game centred on Macaffer's tagging tactics and how he was "illegally" holding players off the ball. The Magpie stopper was assigned North midfielder Nick Dal Santo and did an impressive job, limiting him to 21 touches. But after giving away five free kicks to Trent Cotchin last week, he cleaned up his act and conceded none against the Roos. 5. The rise and rise of Cunnington It was a dismal day for North Melbourne; there's no getting around that fact. But the fight shown by midfielder Ben Cunnington was another tick for a player whose mental aptitude had been questioned in the past. Cunnington was one Kangaroo player who worked right up until the final siren. He buffeted his way through packs and showed courage in marking contests. His fight was visible right until the end of the game, where he dived head-first into the unknown only to clean up teammate Lindsay Thomas – who hurt his knee – in the process. Cunnington's overall game would have pleased coach Brad Scott no-end, even if little else did.
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| THE MEDIA | |
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BILLED as the battle of the midfields, this was a no contest. Collingwood dominated a lacklustre North Melbourne to win the Easter Saturday clash at the MCG by 35 points. The Magpies finished with 13.15 (93) to the Roos’ 8.10 (58). Collingwood outran and tackled harder than North Melbourne and used the ball better too. The game was effectively over as a contest at half-time when the Magpies led by 33 points, a margin that flattered the Kangaroos. Steele Sidebottom dominated on the wing, Alex Fasolo and Heritier Lumumba rebounded hard and fast, Dane Swan returned to his ball-winning best and key forward Travis Cloke started taking marks inside 50. By half-time, Cloke had taken seven marks inside 50 and kicked 4.3 (he added one more behind in the second half). Collingwood had applied 37 tackles to North Melbourne's 27. And at the long break Collingwood had six players with more disposals than North’s leading possession getter, Ryan Bastinac, who had just 11. When Collingwood charged at North Melbourne early and denied its runners time and space, the Kangaroos fell away quickly. The Magpies forced turnovers and capitalised on them. They denied North Melbourne the ball and kicked long and deep inside 50. And they broke North Melbourne's belief in themselves and in each other. For much of the game the Kangaroos were as predictable as a knock-knock joke. North Melbourne coach Brad Scott admitted Collingwood's pressure overwhelmed the Kangaroos and affected their ball use. "We had a plan in place particularly after half-time to use the ball a bit better and we didn't so it wasn't as if we didn't have our hands on the ball," Scott said "I think we controlled time in possession so we just weren't efficient going forward." Brent Macaffer took Nick Dal Santo and quelled his influence without having to be quite as negating as he had been in previous weeks when his tagging tactics have attracted headlines. Buckley said the tagger was more critical of his own effort than the coach. But it wasn't a performance that rested on one player. It was satisfying for the coach because each player contributed. And when North Melbourne tried to respond Collingwood was good enough to adjust. "I thought it was a really consistent performance. I feel like we had to win the game twice," Buckley said. "We put a hole in North in the first half, but then they changed the way they wanted to move the ball which forced us to adjust our defensive attitude and we were able to do that really strongly." The reality was North Melbourne's runners did not appear to want to work as hard as the Magpies' midfield when not in possession, and it was only a couple of Collingwood mistakes that allowed the Kangaroos to stay in touch. Two late goals in the second quarter saw the half-time margin reduced to 33 points and give the Kangaroos' supporters some hope of a second-half revival. However the third quarter saw the same pattern replayed – perhaps with a little less intensity – and players such as Sidebottom and Swan just kept racking up touches. Collingwood should have put North Melbourne away but only held the line, kicking 1.3 to 0.4 for the quarter. Sam Gibson battled hard and Ben Cunnington was industrious, but they did not get much support. In fact, the Roos struggled to find a winner at all for the afternoon. The Magpies started Luke Ball as the substitute after he suffered a bout of gastro during the week and he was introduced late. By that time the job was done, as Collingwood toyed with the opposition and North Melbourne's structure fell apart. The Magpies ended with 34 more disposals than North (412-378) and took 14 more marks inside 50 (21-7), as Nathan Buckley’s men stamped themselves as likely finalists. Their win was even more resounding than the margin suggested. "There wasn't much of a spectacle after half-time, but that's irrelevant," Buckley said. "We played the game on its merits and that was pretty pleasing for the coaches. During the week, Collingwood's coaches sat down with Travis Cloke and reviewed about 20 one-on-one contests in which he had engaged, and mainly lost, during his indifferent first four matches. The Pies recognised, like all of us, that marking contests were being adjudicated more liberally this year; initially, they had grumbled about Cloke's treatment by the likes of Tom Lonergan but after his strike-out against Richmond, his third goalless game in four matches, the remedy changed: Cloke was told to get physical. The thinking was logical: if Cloke was permitted to wrestle, his massive 106-kilogram frame would put him in pole position in most aerial contests. But he would have to deploy more aggression. The umpiring had permitted his opponents to push the envelope. ''The on-on-one contests this year are being umpired differently and he was probably playing like he would last year,'' said Collingwood forward coach Matthew Lappin, ''whereas there's a bit more room to be aggressive in marking contests. We challenged him in that area, we showed him the vision and challenged him and he had a clear focus on that and picking up his intensity, particularly on the lead.'' In the Collingwood coach's box, Lappin and Nathan Buckley knew Cloke was in the right frame of mind - read aggressive - in his first contest. ''I saw exactly what we'd asked to see during the week, in terms of being a bit more physical in the contest and he was able to shift his opponent off the ball,'' Lappin said. ''So when we saw that we thought, 'We're a chance here'.'' Cloke's duel with Scott Thompson, hitherto the game's in-form defender, would turn into a first-half rout. Cloke grabbed 10 marks - five contested, and by sheer weight of scoring opportunities, managed to boot four (4.3). By following Lappin's instructions, and finding his mark, he became the match's decisive forward influence. His productivity was a marked contrast with North's forward duo of Drew Petrie and Aaron Black, both of whom had stinkers. ''His first half was sensational, set the game up for us,'' Lappin said. That Cloke did not add to his goal tally in the second half, or that his profligacy (4.4 from 10 shots at the end) cost him a six or seven-goal haul, was relevant only to Collingwood's margin, not the outcome. The suspicion is that the first-quarter incident, in which Thompson was reported - from a cumbersome spoil near the boundary - also held significance for the Cloke-Thompson duel. Cloke had marked 55 metres out, in front of the Southern Stand, on the boundary; but the spoil was judged, rightly or wrongly, to be both reportable and warranting a 50-metre penalty. Brad Scott, unsurprisingly, thought a defender ''would be shattered'' to receive a week for Thompson's spoil. Cloke, who had already missed a shot on goal from a strong mark, would be kicking from five metres, on an angle. History hinted that if he converted this one, his confidence would soar, bearing in mind his tendency to catch the yips, but also his past ascendancy over a smaller Thompson. In the days before his 200th against the Tigers, Cloke had revealed that a poor start could dent his confidence and output. Lappin's theory on Cloke's conversion is that it's shots that go way wide, not the near misses, that cause concern. ''If he just misses we know he's tracking well, at least we know he's tracking well. It's when he has the howler and it comes off the side of the boot, that's when we say, 'OK, there's some issues with his goalkicking'.'' By nailing this easy one - insofar as there is an easy conversion for Cloke - he was on his way. His next shot, from the edge of 50 metres, sailed through. Thompson, who had successfully nullified Buddy Franklin on a soggy SCG six days ago, had not the size for Cloke. |
Collingwood has surged into the top eight with a dominant 35-point win against North Melbourne at the MCG on Saturday. The Kangaroos were looking for their fourth win in a row, but they wilted under the Pies' superior pressure and had few winners as Nathan Buckley's men notched back-to-back wins for the first time this season. The form of Travis Cloke and Dane Swan has been a hot topic over the first month of the season, but both found some touch, with Swan amassing 35 possessions and Cloke netting a four-goal bag that could easily have been six as the Pies ran out winners 13.15 (93) to 8.10 (58) in front of 57,116 fans. It was a scoreline that flattered the Kangaroos in some ways as Collingwood largely picked apart the North midfield, which was missing Andrew Swallow and Jack Ziebell, with Steele Sidebottom and Scott Pendlebury getting plenty of the ball. In-form defender Scott Thompson went to Cloke from the start and the pair shared an engrossing battle, but it was Cloke who carried the day, with Thompson too often left one out on the hulking forward. At the other end of the ground, Lachie Keeffe was rarely left to his own devices as he minded Drew Petrie, who finished goalless. Pies tagger Brent Macaffer, the subject of much scrutiny for his tactics against Trent Cotchin last week, went to Nick Dal Santo, but his efforts won't draw nearly as much attention because the pair largely nullified each other's influence. Ryan Bastinac got North off to a flyer with a nicely snapped goal inside the first minute of play, but it was Collingwood with the momentum for most of the first term. The Pies made their intentions known early, getting plenty of numbers back in their defensive half and hurting the Roos on the counter with their superior spread. The Kangaroos didn't do themselves any favours with their sloppy ball use as the Magpies' first three goals came from turnovers. With Petrie still struggling to find the ball inside their attacking 50, Lindsay Thomas was North's biggest threat, but his goal halfway through the first quarter came against the flow as the Pies pressed home their advantage. Cloke's woes in front of goal so far this season have been well-documented, but the Pies' spearhead quickly got the better of Thompson and kicked two goals in the dying stages of the term to double his tally from the four previous games. His first goal may well have ramifications for Thompson and the Kangaroos next week as the key defender was reported for a late hit on Cloke that also drew a 50-metre penalty. Petrie's own troubles continued at the other end when he missed a regulation set shot with just seconds left in the opening term, which allowed the Pies to take a well-earned 19-point lead into the first break. Collingwood threatened to take the game away from North in the second quarter as Jesse White and Cloke hit the scoreboard to stretch the margin, with the news getting worse for the Roos as a groggy Leigh Adams was helped from the field, and he stayed away for the rest of the term while he was assessed for concussion. Collingwood's lead got out to 45 points as Cloke asserted his dominance over Thompson with his fourth major, but the Kangaroos rallied late with goals to Sam Gibson and Daniel Currie making the margin a more manageable 33 points at half-time. The Pies' ability to pick apart their opposition in the first half was in evidence in the marks, with Collingwood more than doubling the Roos: 69-34. Nathan Buckley's men also layed 10 more tackles as they sought to pile on the pressure. North was under siege early in the second half, with Collingwood's inaccuracy in front of goal the only thing keeping the Roos in the match. Seventeen minutes elapsed without a major score thanks to the Pies' inaccuracy and the Roos' inability to find a reliable avenue to goal. Tyson Goldsack finally broke the drought when he got on the end of a string of hand passes to kick an important team goal. Once again, it was the Pies' superior pressure that led to the turnover, which saw Swan link up with Sidebottom who found Goldsack in the goal square. At the other end, Petrie and Dal Santo spurned chances to narrow the gap, with Ben Jacobs subbed on for Currie late as Brad Scott searched for more run and carry. North has developed a reputation for finishing off games well this season, but they had a mountain to climb as they started the final term 38 points in arrears. The Pies booted three behinds to start the quarter and leave a glimmer of hope for North, but that was snuffed out when Jamie Elliott finished a good day out with successive goals. Insult was added to injury for the Roos, with Thomas limping from the ground as the Collingwood song played, after Ben Cunnington collided heavily with his left leg inside the last minute."
SPORTAL
The game was effectively over as a contest at half-time when the Magpies led by 33 points, and although North never allowed the margin to blow out, it was never in the hunt on a disappointing day for the top-four aspirants.
Travis Cloke booted four goals and
five Magpies had 30 touches or more as Collingwood thrashed North
Melbourne by 35 points in front of 57,116 fans at the MCG.
Ryan Bastinac kicked the first goal of the match, but from there it was all the Pies. Cloke has struggled for form this year, but hit his straps against the Roos, grabbing 11 marks for the game to reinforce his superstar status. The win lifts Collingwood into the top eight for the first time this year. The Magpies and Kangaroos are both 3-2 to start the season. It was a dirty day all round for the all-too-predictable Kangas. The Magpies ended with 34 more disposals than North (412-378) and took 14 more marks inside 50 (21-7). Tagger Brent Macaffer followed Nick Dal Santo for the day and did a good job quelling his influence within the rules. Making matters worse, full back Scott Thompson was reported for striking Cloke in the first quarter and can expect some heat from the match review panel. Steele Sidebottom and Dane Swan had days out for the Magpies with 34 touches each, while Ben Cunnington and Brent Harvey were the busiest Kangaroos. It doesn't get any easier for North, with a trip to Perth ahead of the Roos next round. They play the Dockers at Patersons Stadium on Friday night. Collingwood meets Essendon, at the MCG on Anzac Day, of course. "... Cloke was told to get physical. |
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