COLLINGWOOD 3.4.22 7.6.48 10.15.75 14.20.104
CARLTON 1.2.8 1.5.11 2.7.19 10.10.70
SCORERS - Collingwood: Beams (4.1), Elliott (3.0), Cloke (2.4), Witts (2.0), Dwyer (1.1), Ball (1.0), Grundy (1.0), Blair (0.2), Kennedy (0.1), Langdon (0.1), Pendlebury (0.1), Sidebottom (0.1), Swan (0.1), Williams (0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Langdon, Beams, Blair, Elliott, Pendlebury, Frost, Witts
INJURIES - Collingwood: Nick Maxwell (back) replaced in selected side by Ben Kennedy, Clinton Young (calf) replaced in selected side by Taylor Adams, Sam Dwyer (knee)
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Sam Dwyer replaced by Ben Kennedy at three quarter-time
REPORTS: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 68,251 at the MCG
| 1. Daisy's got the blues Once a much-loved Magpie, marquee Carlton recruit Dale Thomas would have been expecting a hostile environment when he faced off against his former side for the first time. The occasion was not lost on Daisy, whose very first kick of the game was a shot on goal 35m out that dropped a good 10m short of the goal line. Bronx cheers echoed around the MCG and the black and white army continued to boo the former Pie every time he went near the ball. Thomas had five touches at half-time and finished the game with 14 disposals, several of which were gained by playing on at kick-ins, in a game he would rather forget. 2. Blues down on pressure In their past two wins, the Blues have averaged 80 tackles. They had a season-high 88 against the Western Bulldogs in round five, and 72 against West Coast last Saturday. But against the Pies, Carlton's pressure was almost non-existent. After laying 13 tackles in the opening term, the Blues dropped off completely to register just seven in the second term as the Pies stretched their lead to 37 points at half-time. They finished the game with 49, their worst tackle count for the season. 3. Carlton's longest hour Two minutes in, Mitch Robinson leaped on to the shoulders of Tyson Goldsack to take a brilliant hanger inside Carlton's attacking 50. Robinson went back and kicked truly to give the Blues the opening goal of the game. But it wasn't long before Carlton's deficiencies up forward began to show. The late withdrawal of Jarrad Waite left the Blues lacking a key target, with Lachie Henderson well held for most of the game by Pies youngster Jack Frost. Collingwood piled on seven unanswered goals, while the Blues didn't kick their second goal until the nine-minute mark of the third term. Carlton produced an eight-goal final term once the sting was out of the game. It was their best quarter for the year, but one that came far too late. |
4. Macaffer v Murphy As predicted, Collingwood's Brent Macaffer went straight to Blues skipper Marc Murphy at the opening bounce. Macaffer has limited the influence of some of the game's best players this season, with scalps famously including Richmond skipper Trent Cotchin. The Collingwood tagger's close-checking tactics have been a talking point and the umpires made it clear from the start they were keeping an eye on the Macaffer-Murphy duel, awarding a free kick for holding to the Carlton midfielder early in the first term. Murphy worked hard to get himself free, finishing with 20 disposals for the game to be one of the Blues' few shining lights. Murphy worked hard to get himself free in the first half with 13 touches, but Macaffer tightened his grip on the Carlton skipper in the second half. 5. Young Pie runs hot Tom Langdon continued his stellar start to his AFL career with another brilliant game against Carlton. After the withdrawal of Nick Maxwell, Langdon was handed the role of floating across half-back, and he impressed. In his seventh game, Langdon had 23 disposals (10 contested) at 91 per cent efficiency, eight marks, three tackles and four inside 50s. So far in season 2014 he has averaged 18 touches per game and six marks, and is well on his way to permanently cementing his place in the Collingwood side. Not bad for a fourth-round draft pick in his first season on the list. "Tom Langdon continued his stellar start to his AFL career with another brilliant game against Carlton. After the withdrawal of Nick Maxwell, Langdon was handed the role of floating across half-back, and he impressed." |
| THE MEDIA | |
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Collingwood has waltzed to its fourth straight win and demoralized arch-enemy Carlton, cruising to a 34-point victory at the MCG on Friday night. Aside from a late rally from the Blues, the Magpies were left to do as they pleased in their third straight victory over Mick Malthouse's men, controlling every aspect of the game to win 14.20 (104) to 10.10 (70). With the result beyond doubt, the Blues kicked eight of the last 12 goals to trim the final margin, which had blown out to 56 points by three quarter-time. It was a clash full of pre-game storylines, but the upshot on Friday night was that Collingwood (5-2) looms as a top-four team, while the Blues (2-5) are fast losing relevance in 2014. High-priced recruit Dale Thomas also remained a talking point, but not for the right reasons after a flat game that saw him finish with 14 possessions against his former team. The Blues were uncompetitive for three quarters, before producing their best term of the season, kicking 8.3 after the last break. The first three quarters, however, quickly wiped out any optimism back-to-back wins had generated for Carlton. It was hardly Collingwood's finest performance of the season, but coach Nathan Buckley would have been pleased with the form of young players Tom Langdon, Jamie Elliott, Jarrod Witts and Jack Frost. In his first game for the season, Marley Williams also made an impressive return slotting into the back six, holding Jeff Garlett to one goal and seven possessions. Playing against his premiership teammates for the first time, Thomas had just five possessions in the first half, including a mis-kicked set shot from 40 metres that didn't make it to the goal line. Indeed, poor kicking from both sides was an unwanted feature in a flat match played out in front of 68,251 fans – the lowest crowd between these teams since 2007. Through a scrappy first half, young Magpie Langdon stood up and used the football better than anyone as Collingwood kicked seven unanswered goals before half time to build a 37-point lead. The Magpies continually did the disciplined things while the Blues took low percentage shots from the boundary, entering the main break with a score of just 1.5 (11), their lowest first-half score since 2009. Perhaps more damning was a measly tackle count of 21, with six Blues failing to wrap up an opponent in the first half. Carlton faces St Kilda at Etihad Stadium next week, while the Magpies have a bye. Carlton and Collingwood had all the ingredients, but as a dish it failed to rise. Anyone who has watched one of myriad cooking shows – probably those who switched over to one before half-time – would know that you can have all the ingredients and still make a bland little dish. This was a game that had all the components for great sporting drama: a rivalry; an element of personal animus; a star defection; a crowd of 68,251; a Friday night showcase game. But it still lacked tension. In fairness, some of the expectation was punctured before the contest began when Jarrad Waite and Andrew Carrazzo were late withdrawals from an already depleted Carlton side. Collingwood, too, had its late outs in Nick Maxwell and Clinton Young, but save for the fact they both resided in the same area of the ground and left the callow backline forced to retool, the Magpies had more depth to cover them. Carlton began brightly with a goal in the opening few minutes when Mitch Robinson straddled Tyson Goldsack's head, but then the Blues failed to goal again for an hour. For three quarters they kicked two. On a clear night. The Blues finished with a final-quarter eight-goal flurry, but the contest was never alive. It was like reading the last pages of a book then flicking back to the start. Carlton was undermanned and played poorly. Collingwood did not play especially well, yet belted Carlton and should have won by a lot more except for wasteful kicking at goal. Collingwood had what Carlton didn't across each line of the field: ascendancy in the ruck, more numbers through the middle, a tight and organised defence and multiple options in the forward line. Carlton was forced to manufacture what it could. At one point in the second quarter Mick Malthouse emptied the forward line, sent Lachie Henderson to defence and tried to run the ball in to a short forward line. Jeff Garlett was not the man to be able to entrust with this task in the way Eddie Betts might have been. But Malthouse had to try something. Through the middle of the ground, the Blues had Dylan Buckley and Zach Tuohy trying to carry the ball and Andrew Walker playing loose, but while they ran the ball up the wings they had nothing inside 50 to kick to and no one to trap it in. Collingwood, in contrast, ran in waves. Marley Williams, brought back into the team after one VFL game, showed his worth. He has a step in his game and a cleverness by foot. He was rusty and will improve, but he holds his own in the meantime. Tom Langdon surprised even the coaches on Anzac Day when he reversed a tapering of his form and in this game he took that Anzac form further. He has an old head about his play, a calmness born of an assuredness that he can take his time because he trusts his skills. Partly this is because he has learnt that refusing to rush enables him to invariably make the correct decision. Sam Dwyer, as a relative fringe player, also has that about him. Dwyer was a creative presence on a wing for the three quarters he was on the ground before being subbed out in the third quarter with a pain in the knee that he had only just returned from injuring. The main moment of worry and anxiety for Collingwood was not about the play at all but the visits to the bench by Travis Cloke to have his knee iced after he cracked it into Heath Scotland's head early on in a marking contest. Still, after the misery of the first-round loss, Nathan Buckley's side is now 5-2 and entrenched in the top four with a week off. And, as perfunctory as much if it might have felt, it also beat Carlton. |
IT SAYS a lot about footy tribalism that Marly Williams copped less boos than Dale Thomas last night. The former was found guilty of grievous bodily harm, while the latter switched clubs. But if that sounds like rough treatment, it was nothing compared to how Mick Malthouse would have felt watching his Blues humiliate themselves against Collingwood. Carlton was an embarrassment for long periods last night. The club celebrating its 150th year was as uncompetitive in the first three quarters as it has ever been against its arch enemy. It is important to note that there is a distinct class difference between these two sides. But when it comes to this game, effort has never been dictated by ability. The Blues laid a season-low 49 tackles last night after 72 last week and 88 the week before that. They were averaging 38 tackles inside their forward 50m alone, but by half way through the last night’s last term they had just 12. Heath Scotland’s six tackles were the most by a Carlton player. Three - Zach Tuohy, Levi Casboult and Lachie Henderson - didn’t lay hands on a Collingwood player with the ball. Expect to see vision of this game all week. It was a football analysts dream - little to no accountability, desire or pressure. Carlton kicked the first goal of the game after Mitch Robinson’s hanger. It then went some 60 minutes before getting its second. At three-quarter time the Blues had 2.7 on the scoreboard and trailed by 56 points. Only Collingwood’s shoddy kicking for goal - 14.20 - saved Carlton from oblivion. The irony was that Carlton’s best last quarter of the season coming after three of its worst. But the fact the Blues kicked eight goals to four in a last quarter in which the Pies went onto auto-pilot would not camouflage a performance that would deeply concern the navy blue hierarchy. Collingwood, particularly in quarters one and two, were allowed to take the ball forward with ridiculous ease. The fact the Pies weren’t exactly scintillating themselves only served to highlight the lack of fight in Carlton jumpers. When they did have the ball, the Blues kicked into the man on the mark, missed targets by hand and foot and gave away silly frees with false bravado. The midfield was understrength and overwhelmed. Marc Murphy fought bravely again and Dylan Buckley offered zip and drive, but this was a side that lost all structure and composure when the heat was on. They had won two in a row, Carlton, but this was a loss that ensures the spotlight will return to Visy Park next week. Nathan Buckley says the inexperience of Collingwood's young backline was to blame for the final-term fadeout in Friday night's 34-point win over Carlton at the MCG. Buckley's side dominated the contest for three quarters and headed into the final break with a 56-point lead, but the Blues found a belated avenue to goal with the sting out of the game, booting eight of their 10 goals in the last quarter. The Pies' defence has resembled a casualty ward so far this season, with former skipper Nick Maxwell (back), Clinton Young (corked leg) and Alex Fasolo (toe) joining Nathan Brown on the sidelines this week. With 36 games of experience between them, Lachlan Keefe and Jack Frost were once again left to hold down key positions in defence. The duo did their jobs admirably, holding Carlton forwards Levi Casboult and Lachie Henderson to three goals between them, all of which came in the final term. Youngsters Marley Williams (23 games), Tom Langdon (seven) and Taylor Adams (35) joined more experienced heads Tyson Goldsack and Heritier Lumumba in a defence that surrendered just two goals in the first three quarters. "At three-quarter time, that's a pretty impressive performance," Buckley said after the win. "When we got to three-quarter time, we'd controlled the game thoroughly. There wasn't one facet of it that we hadn't had on our terms. "We had eight players out there who have played less than 25 games, so they haven't even played a season of football yet. "That probably explains a little bit of what you got in the last quarter." Friday night wasn't the first time the Pies have leaked goals in the final term this season, a similar story unfolding in the round four victory over Richmond, where the Tigers piled on seven goals in the last quarter. "It's as simple as we don’t have the experience across our whole group tonight to handle that situation," Buckley said. "It's another part of our maturation and improvement that we need to attend to if we want to be the team we want to become." Langdon, the 65th pick in last year's National Draft, was impressive for the second week in succession. The 19-year-old had 23 disposals (10 contested) at 91 per cent efficiency in the win over the Blues, and has been Collingwood's best intercept player in the past two games. "We've found a player that's still got a lot to learn and will still have his ups and downs, but he's showing us that he's capable at the level," Buckley said. "He's been passed over, so I think he's got resilience in him and a drive. I don't think he wants to prove people wrong, but he wants to embrace his opportunity and take it with both hands. I think he reads the game particularly well. "He's certainly got a long way to go on his journey, but what we've seen at the moment is pretty encouraging." Buckley also praised the work of Williams, who returned for his first game of the year after avoiding a jail term for grievous bodily harm just 10 days ago. "He's got some qualities that we've missed in the early part of the season – speed in the back half for one, just that grunt and drive to put his head over it and drive his legs out of a contest or into a tackle," Buckley said. "He impacts every time he's around the ball, so I thought it was a pretty fair game first up." |
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