Collingwood v Essendon
Sunday July 13, 3.20pmMCG Fox Sports 3.00pm Weather: Min 6 Max 13 Chance of rain 30%: < 1mm Wind: W 20kph Betting: Collingwood $1.52 Essendon $2.55 |
They should make finals, they might even go better than last year and win one, but the continued assertions that Collingwood are top four contenders can now stop.
Now I admit, it’s strange to write a eulogy for a team who are still alive and kicking, but the Suns gave us our last rights on the weekend.
First, it’s worth pointing out the herculean task that the Suns had in front of them in the last quarter. Garry Ablett Jr, their star, captain and the best player in the competition went down with a dislocated shoulder in the third quarter.
A raft of injuries left them with nobody available to interchange for the majority of the final term.
Eighteen young guys stayed out there for most of the quarter and scraped out a win. It’s a famous victory for the franchise, and rightly so. It builds a narrative for the team going ahead and forges an identity of hard working, never say die players.
All credit to the Suns, last Sunday’s game is the reason we watch footy.
Now let’s turn to Collingwood. Pedestrian observers will say that Clinton Young lost this game for us. Dropping an uncontested mark right in front of goal with three minutes remaining is not a good look, but laying blame solely at Young’s feet is ridiculous.
It’s a team sport and it took a team effort to lose. It may come as a surprise to some, but it was lost mostly in the midfield.
Collingwood were taken to pieces by a more enthusiastic Gold Coast midfield, who were without Ablett for just under a half of footy. The Pies were smashed in the clearances (39-30) and were made to work hard to win the ball back.
The centre clearances, especially in the second half of the match were one way traffic going the way of Gold Coast. Collingwood’s ‘elite’ midfield has been pummelled all season long around centre bounces and they sit sixteenth in the league for centre clearances.
In the halcyon days of Collingwood back in 2010-11, they ranked first and second for first use of the ball in those seasons.
In a game obsessed with statistics, it’s often the naked eye that can be a more telling indicator of performance. Watching Collingwood games this year, I’m genuinely surprised when we clear the ball from the centre square.
Taking a quick glance back at the stats, it’s easy to see that Collingwood’s midfield, particularly the core-four of Scott Pendlebury, Dayne Beams, Dane Swan and Luke Ball who starred in the premiership season of 2010, are either in decline or not being used correctly.
When examining clearance statistics, Dane Swan’s figures stand out. In 2010 and 2011 he had 141 and 147 clearances respectively. After last night, Swanny has 43 for the season. It isn’t hard to figure this one out – Swan has been posted in the forward line much more this season.
This may be a tactical move by Nathan Buckley, wanting to inject a sure pair of hands into a dysfunctional forward line, but in all likelihood it’s probably just the natural decline of an ageing star.
Swan is 30 and doesn’t look like he has the tank to gut-run through the centre corridor like he used to. He’s also accumulating the ball less, down from a league leading 31.5 touches a game in 2010 to 25.8 this year.
It is tough to come to terms with, but it looks like Dane Swan is on the downhill slope of his marvellous career.
Luke Ball is well down on his grand final era production too, with stats similar to Dane Swan. 2010 saw Luke Ball join the Pies from St Kilda, who they would go on to defeat in the second 2010 grand final.
Ball accumulated 117 clearances in the premiership year and 104 the year after. In 2014, the Xavier graduate has produced just 40 clearances.
Captain Scott Pendlebury, who I’m loathe to criticise in any way because of stature in the game, has had 73 clearances this year. He had 97 in 2010 and 130 in 2011. Looking at the numbers, he probably won’t match his 2010 total this year.
Dayne Beams has been trying to carry the load of the lost clearances and is up on his 2010-11 numbers this year. He has 77 clearances to date and finished with 52 and 51 in 2010/11 respectively.
A rough calculation shows us that the core-four of Collingwood’s midfield have lost about 140 clearances a year (at this point in the season) to old age and midfield rotation since the glory days of 2010/11. That’s an amazing statistic.
Kiss goodbye to the 46 and 78 clearances Dale Thomas brought to the table in those years and things start to look bad. Even if you ignore the fact that Steele Sidebottom is down to 27 from 79 and 44 in 2010 and 2011 respectively, Collingwood supporters should still be very worried.
Collingwood aren’t winning the ball from the stoppages and it’s because their midfield greats aren’t performing any more. The Magpies may be first in the league tackle count, but one wonders what state their win/loss record would be in if they weren’t.
Clearances do not occur in isolation however and Collingwood’s ruck department has undergone an overhaul in the last few years. In my memory, Darren Jolly, premiership player for Sydney and Collingwood, used to be a stalwart presence at the stoppages. The truth is that Collingwood have been average ruck performers for some time and the midfield picked up the slack.
Darren Jolly led Collingwood to ninth and twelfth for hit-outs in 2010 and 2011. This year Collingwood are fifteenth with developing stars Brodie Grundy and Jarrod Witts taking turns to learn their craft. By way of comparison, Collingwood’s grand final rivals in 2010 and 2011, St Kilda and Geelong, both ranked fifth for hit outs in their respective years.
At this point, I’m going to return to my earlier qualm about Collingwood’s dysfunctional forward line. As a Collinwood supporter, I haven’t been comfortable with the forward structure for a long time.
Even in 2010 when we won the premiership with Travis Cloke, Chris Dawes and the incredibly useful Leigh Brown playing the utility role, inaccuracy in front of goal always had me holding my breath whenever one of the above three took a set shot. Luckily for us, we had a very productive midfield, who were happy to kick us to the Premiership.
It wasn’t uncommon in those days to see 10 individual goal kickers. Collingwood are a better side when we do not rely on Travis Cloke to do all work in front of the sticks and it shows in our record.
Returning to the core-four, we examine their goal output.
Dane Swan, despite spending much more time in the forward line, isn’t producing at his 2010-11 levels where he had 24 and 32 goals. He has 10 goals in 2014 so far. Luke Ball, who has never been a prolific goal kicker, is performing admirably with six goals beside his name this year.
He kicked seven in 2010 and 18 in 2011 and should finish somewhere between those two numbers this year. Pendlebury had 17 and 24 in 2010-11 and has 12 so far this year. Beams is on a similar track, if not a little behind on his expected totals. He produced 26 and 21 in 2010-11 and has kicked 17 so far this year.
While these statistics aren’t as damning as the clearances in and of themselves, it is tough to argue that the small decline in output isn’t significant. Travis Cloke no longer has Chris Dawes or Leigh Brown backing him up and has been left to do most of the hard work as the lone tall forward.
Quentin Lynch and Jesse White have both been brought in to play the second tall forward and backup ruckman, but neither have impressed on either front. Ben Reid, once an All-Australian full-back has shown some accuracy in front of goals, but has been unavailable most of this season.
Ultimately, Collingwood’s forward line has been woefully inconsistent for years and without the midfield picking up the slack (or doing the hard work for them) the goals just aren’t coming. The Magpies have dropped from second on the goal tally in 2010 and 2011 to seventh in 2014. They are within three missed kicks of 12th position on the goal kicking ladder this year.
The conclusion of this article is fairly predictable: Collingwood’s midfield isn’t elite anymore. Reasonable minds will differ on the reasons for this decline. It is tough to argue that Dane Swan is in a form ‘slump’ and might bounce back to his best next year.
He’ll be 31 in the 2015 season, which is ancient by football standards. Similarly, Luke Ball, who made a name being a hard nut with his head over the footy looks like he has been put in bubble-wrap away from the maul as he also approaches 31 next year.
The drop off from Pendlebury and Beams, while not as drastic, needs a reversal. As leaders of the club in the prime of their careers, they need to start producing at the elite level Swan and Ball were at in 2010 before the Pies get set for another tilt at the flag.
It is worth mentioning that this article is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of the Collingwood midfield. It is narrow in scope and nitpicks useful statistics to compare with a bygone era.
However, many Collingwood supporters are still clinging to that era, and hopefully we can now get together and collectively appreciate that those days are over. Collingwood are a rebuilding side, allowing a few players to grow old gracefully while grooming the next generation of stars. If we are lucky, we can rebuild on the run like Geelong has successfully been able to do over the last few years.
Nine consecutive seasons in the finals is nothing to scoff at, and hopefully we can keep that streak running while a young midfield learn their trade.
The more likely scenario is that we will have to go backwards in order to go forwards. And maybe, two or three years down the track when Gold Coast are really hitting their stride we’ll all be able to look back at Sunday’s game as the start of a rivalry between two great clubs who will go on to compete for premierships in the years to come.
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