Collingwood: An Analysis

SUPERFOOTY - Dermott Brereton

Collingwood v Port Adelaide Sunday August 3, 4.40pm MCG Fox Footy 4.30pm Weather: Min 3 Max 14 Chance of rain 5%: < 1mm Wind: NNW 18kph Betting: Collingwood $2.20 Port Adelaide $1.68

SOMETIMES it is nice to have just one big problem. As much as it may hurt, you can address it, do your best to fix it and simply move on by making a change or two.
Some would like to over simplify Collingwood’s problem as the Cloke issue and believe that if Travis just simply kicks goals, everything will be right. Unfortunately, that is not the case and it is a rookie error to suggest so.
Collingwood’s overall problem right now is that they have a bit of a problem everywhere.
A problem down back.
A bit of a problem up forward.
And a fairly hefty problem in the middle.
It is a horrible scenario for a coach. Because he robs one area to bolster another, but the original area he has robbed is already doing it tough. 

Let’s start with the problem down back:
No more Nick Maxwell. He defended well, he organised the others brilliantly and he led. His absence is huge.
Tom Langdon thrived in Maxy’s presence. Langdon is now being pressured to lift to another level as opposition forwards hunt him and attempt to work him over. Maxwell gave him coverage and also gave him time to do a partial apprenticeship.
Nathan Brown’s season-ending injury. Without Brown and/or Ben Reid for that matter, Lachie Keefe and Jack Frost have had to hold down the defensive posts. They have been fantastic for most of the season. Frost has edged ahead of Keefe. But just as a 22-game season spread over 25 weeks is too long for the two new franchise teams (Suns and Giants) with their young players. Frost and Keefe look weary.
Physically and emotionally, those key post positions can be soul destroying.
The two young lads have been wonderful against seasoned opponents that are usually mountainous men. They are running out of steam.
Alan Toovey’s absence in the second half of the season. Toovey’s ability to trouble shoot against any player ranging from Hayden Ballantyne to Jack Gunston gives Nathan Buckley a flexibility that is craved. He allows Buckley to move players forward and back to create mismatches.
Toovey also has the agility and speed to break free of the opposition’s forward press and initiate springboard attack from defence. 

The problems up forward:
Yes, Cloke is an issue, but even when he marked the ball strongly against Adelaide in the second half last week, he only did so because the Crows’ third man up defender didn’t quite make the contest. But they were close and closing.
Everyone knows that the Magpies’ midfield in the second half of recent games has fatigued badly. Their midfielders stop running and bomb it long to Cloke, hoping that he will do the rest. But it is rare that he can get isolation and work over his man in true one-on-one contests.
And if he does get the isolation, he is still a beast for any single defender to stop. Yes, a better return from him would be nice, but he is not the reason Collingwood has slumped.
Jesse White was contracted to the club as the extra key forward who could lead away from Cloke, yet still receive his fair share of the footy and be genuinely damaging. After a good start to the season, he has fallen away and so too has the number of times each match in which Cloke gets separation from a second or even third opposition defender.
White’s skill-set is through the roof. But his competitiveness rivals that of Bernard Tomic. We just have no idea which Jesse White will run out on any given day.
Tyson Goldsack’s switch to defence. He is the Magpies’ best pressure player in the forward half of the ground. He is this era’s version of Max Rooke. He can kick goals as well. But he has been required down back to add some steel against teams that have a third tall forward. Ideally, Buckley wants him forward, but necessity has him down back.
Reid’s absence has been costly. He as yet doesn’t have the match hardness or fitness to relieve one of either Frost or Keefe in defence. And he will need more time in the forward line to see and feel the angles of the incoming ball and Cloke’s whereabouts in relation to himself.
He is an excellent addition to either end, but he just might run out of time this season to run into top fitness and form. 

The problem with the midfield:
We know that Collingwood’s top flight mids aren’t great defensively. And we know that from the half back line through to the inside 50 delivery, some players are not great with their foot skills.
But Collingwood in Rounds 1 to 12 scored 43 goals from their five best midfielders — Dayne Beams, Scott Pendlebury, Dane Swan, Steele Sidebottom and Luke Ball. They delivered on average, a goal return of 3.6 goals per game.
But in the past six matches (Rounds 13 to 18) those five players, because of absence, injury and or form have yielded just 16 goals at an average of 2.6 goals per game.
Two of those six games were lost by a single-figure margin. In hard terms, the extra goal would have made the difference.
Sidebottom’s three-match suspension really hurt.
But the most pressing issue for me is not a statistical driven item, it is the tiredness and fatigue with which the mids appear to be lagging under.
As previously mentioned, the Magpies fatigue badly late in matches and their midfield is struggling to run out games. So much so, they had the following players starting inside the centre square in the last quarter against Adelaide — Pendlebury, Beams and Blair (all good and we’re comfortable with that) but the following players raised some eyebrows.
Heretier Lumumba (been an excellent outside the square winger or backman but can double grab under centre-square pressure). I also think Buck’s likes him on the wing, but he has had to go back and assist defence as well.
Tim Broomhead (lightly built and massively inexperienced) only his third game and he was thrust into the heat to try to save the match.
Jamie Elliott (Collingwood’s second most dangerous forward). He had to be taken away from the capabilities of his match winning usual position because the team was starving for midfield run.
Taylor Adams (tough kid who is a centre-circle player) but was only in his 11th game at the club and third season overall. It was a calculated gamble to have him in there at the death.
Kyle Martin (another good kid) only playing his first game of the year. On re-examination of the last half, these kids would have been described as herculean and wise beyond their years had they helped the Magpies get up.
Then there is Brodie Grundy and Jarrod Witts.
Witts has played just 22 games and is only 21. He shows some wonderful glimpses and will take more time. He is a ripper project player.
Grundy is even younger at 20 and has played even fewer games (19). To put the onus of first ruckman on him was, on reflection, a heavyweight burden. He slowly unravelled this season. He even showed signs of heightened immaturity way back in the pre-season NAB Challenge with an undisciplined free-kick spree that he seemed powerless to emotionally pull himself out of.
But the kid is an absolute corker as well. We and Collingwood unfairly expected too much too soon.
These two boys will become the best ruck duo in the competition in times to come, as long as at least one of them develops into a capable pinch-hit deep forward.
Ben Hudson has been required to at times relieve either of these two, but sadly he been out for much of the season.
The lads are screaming out for a Hudson, Darren Jolly or dare I say it, a Dean Cox type of elder statesman to show the way. 

HOLY MOLY
Collingwood’s many problems.
MAXWELL: leadership sorely missed.
BROWN & TOOVEY: absence has hurt Frost and Keefe in defence.
WHITE: the enigma.
MIDFIELDERS: where are the goals?
SIDEBOTTOM: suspension cut deep.
GRUNDY & WITTS: need time to develop.