|
Collingwood Magpies Lachlan Keeffe and Josh Thomas have tested positive to a prohibited substance. The AFL confirmed the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) notified the league the pair's 'A' samples tested positive for clenbuterol, the same anabolic agent to which cyclists Alberto Contador and Australian Michael Rogers tested positive. They are provisionally suspended with their 'B' sample to be tested on April 14. An AFL statement said Keeffe and Thomas provided the samples on February 10 this year and ASADA informed the players, the club and the league of the presence of clenbuterol, a substance prohibited under the World Anti-Doping Agency code, on Friday. "Clenbuterol is not a specified substance on the AFL anti-doping prohibited list and as such, requires the players to be provisionally suspended," the statement read. "It's important to note that until the outcome of the 'B' sample is known, the commencement of the provisional suspension is not an admission of guilt or wrongdoing, but a procedural requirement under the AFL anti-doping code." Collingwood said in a statement "both players have sought independent legal advice through the AFL Players' Association". "It is important for Collingwood to communicate to its supporters that the club has conducted a forensic audit of its tightly controlled dietary and nutrition program and is completely satisfied the positive results are in no way connected to the program," the statement read. The Magpies open their season against Brisbane on Saturday, before their second-round clash with Adelaide on April 11. Collingwood chief executive Gary Pert and football director Neil Balme will front the media at 4:30pm (AEDT). The announcement comes one day before the AFL's anti-doping tribunal hands down verdicts on 34 past and present Essendon Bombers. Fremantle tagger Ryan Crowley is currently under provisional suspension for a positive test and his case is scheduled to go before the AFL anti-doping tribunal on May 1. Lachlan Keeffe At A Glance Junior Clubs: Nil Clubs: Collingwood (2008-2015) Debut: Round 16 2011 v North Melbourne Recruited From: Marist College, Brisbane Josh Thomas At A Glance Junior Clubs: Redland Football Club (QLD) Clubs: Collingwood (2013-2015) Debut: Round 1 2013 v North Melbourne Recruited from: Gold Coast U18 |
Club statement The Collingwood Football Club was advised on Friday by ASADA that two of its players, Lachlan Keeffe and Josh Thomas, are under investigation. The Collingwood Football Club was advised on Friday by ASADA that two of its players, Lachlan Keeffe and Josh Thomas, are under investigation. The pair have returned positive A samples to clenbuterol, a substance prohibited under the WADA anti-doping code. The players’ B samples are still to be analysed, which is currently scheduled for 14 April 2015. It is noted that until the outcome of the B sample is known, the commencement of the provisional suspension is not an admission of guilt or wrongdoing, but a procedural requirement under the AFL Anti-Doping Code. Both players have sought independent legal advice through the AFL Players Association. It is important for Collingwood to communicate to its supporters that the club has conducted a forensic audit of its tightly controlled dietary and nutrition program (which is overseen by its Integrity Officer) and is completely satisfied the positive results are in no way connected to the program. Collingwood is wholly committed to upholding the WADA anti-doping policy and the cause of eradicating performance enhancing drugs from sport. The club will continue to offer both players all of its support.
What is clenbuterol?
|
Monday, March 30, 2015
Keeffe, Thomas Test Positive To Clenbuterol
Saturday, March 28, 2015
2015 Season Preview
AFL
Best 22
B: Jack Frost, Nathan Brown, Alan Toovey
HB: Marley Williams, Ben Reid, Tom Langdon
C: Paul Seedsman, Taylor Adams, Steele Sidebottom
HF: Jamie Elliott,Travis Cloke, Alex Fasolo
F: Tyson Goldsack, Corey Gault, Jarryd Blair
Foll: Brodie Grundy, Scott Pendlebury,Dane Swan
I/C: Travis Varcoe, Ben Kennedy, Levi Greenwood
Sub: Tim Broomhead
Health of the list
Levi Greenwood's broken ankle is a massive blow keeping him sidelined half the season. Getting Ben Reid fit and match-hardened has been a priority this pre-season as his presence would improve the team significantly. .Paul Seedsman is recovering from hip surgery while Clinton Young appears to have ongoing hamstring problems. Nathan Freeman has progressed well after missing last year with soft tissue problems while Lachlan Keeffe had a minor hamstring injury but completed most of the pre-season although the club must wait for him to return to the best 22. Brent Macaffer could return soon after Anzac Day and Matt Scharenberg is ahead of schedule and about three weeks from playing a game. Both have been ruled out of best 22 calculations at this stage
The big questions
Can Collingwood create a forward structure that converts its opportunities?
Travis Cloke needs to get on the move more and this might help midfielders who too often lob the ball on his head making it impossible for the strong contested mark to take grabs. It would also give the defenders and midfielders a get out target when under pressure, and allow Alex Fasolo, Jamie Elliott and Travis Varcoe to work in space. Goldsack is a good pressure forward but only one inside-50 player of that type is needed. Collingwood has the talent but its forward line needs to open up more.
Can the Pies break even in the contested ball and possession count with the opposition and score from stoppages?
This is where the Magpies dropped off in the second half of 2014, putting pressure on the defence and making the forwards fight for the ball from disadvantaged positions. Greenwood's loss is huge so Taylor Adams and Josh Thomas need to step up as inside players. If they can win the ball inside the Magpies might be able to find more space for their runners and improve their kicking efficiency. I suspect the midfield is one short against the best but Nathan Freeman will be in the best 22 by season's end as will Jordan De Goey.
Can the club unearth a star among its talented group of youngsters?
The Pies are highly likely to find a very good player amongst Brodie Grundy, Jarrod Witts, Nathan Freeman, Matt Scharenberg, Alex Fasolo, Taylor Adams, Jordan De Goey, Darcy Moore, Ben Kennedy and Tim Broomhead. In fact, there should be more than one. Freeman has been impressive since overcoming hamstring problems while De Goey looks at ease. Broomhead is a Steele Sidebottom type while Grundy and Witts will still take time. It is a talented core that will take more than this season to emerge.
Summer standout
Alex Fasolo has had a frustrating two seasons since a foot injury struck him down but he looks set to fire in 2015. He has returned to his natural habitat inside the forward 50 and he is fit and confident. Fasolo's ball use is elite and he likes to find the goals. If he can average a couple of goals a game in 2015, the Magpies will be very pleased.
Sudden impact
Jordan De Goey has impressed with his pre-season and early NAB Challenge form. He looks a natural midfielder who still needs to learn some of the defensive aspects of that role. The No.5 selection in the 2014 NAB AFL Draft will spend more time in the seniors than the VFL.
It's crunch time for…
Clinton Young has not had a chance to show his wares due to soft tissue and foot injuries since arriving at Collingwood via free agency. Once again his pre-season has been interrupted. At his best he has a kick that can change the angles of the game although the effect of his kicking is sometimes overstated. A popular figure at the club, he has added much to the environment but he now needs to perform on the park.
Pivotal match
Round one v the Brisbane Lions is as far ahead as the Magpies can afford to look, given the transition they have gone through in recent seasons. Away from home at the Gabba, against a talented midfield, Collingwood remains an even money chance. If it can defeat the Lions, it will signal it is a worthy finals contender.
The Magpies will have a good year if…
They can harness the depth in the midfield to win around the contest more often than not. Collingwood only has one bona fide star in the midfield in Scott Pendlebury, with Steele Sidebottom and Dane Swan good support acts. However it needs Levi Greenwood to perform and Taylor Adams, Ben Kennedy and Brodie Grundy to take another step forward in their development to compete with the best midfields. Jarryd Blair needs a big year while finding someone to support Travis Cloke remains an open issue with Gault, Jesse White and Jarrod Witts all having similar claims.
AFL.com.au consensus predicted ladder finish: 11th
Premiership clock: Buckley's men seem to be slipping onto the wrong side of the clock, with a rebuilding period likely to come.
Collingwood v Brisbane
Saturday April 4, 7.20pmGabba 7mate / Fox Footy 7.15pm Betting: Collingwood $2.25 Brisbane $1.65 |
B: Jack Frost, Nathan Brown, Alan Toovey
HB: Marley Williams, Ben Reid, Tom Langdon
C: Paul Seedsman, Taylor Adams, Steele Sidebottom
HF: Jamie Elliott,Travis Cloke, Alex Fasolo
F: Tyson Goldsack, Corey Gault, Jarryd Blair
Foll: Brodie Grundy, Scott Pendlebury,Dane Swan
I/C: Travis Varcoe, Ben Kennedy, Levi Greenwood
Sub: Tim Broomhead
Health of the list
Levi Greenwood's broken ankle is a massive blow keeping him sidelined half the season. Getting Ben Reid fit and match-hardened has been a priority this pre-season as his presence would improve the team significantly. .Paul Seedsman is recovering from hip surgery while Clinton Young appears to have ongoing hamstring problems. Nathan Freeman has progressed well after missing last year with soft tissue problems while Lachlan Keeffe had a minor hamstring injury but completed most of the pre-season although the club must wait for him to return to the best 22. Brent Macaffer could return soon after Anzac Day and Matt Scharenberg is ahead of schedule and about three weeks from playing a game. Both have been ruled out of best 22 calculations at this stage
The big questions
Can Collingwood create a forward structure that converts its opportunities?
Travis Cloke needs to get on the move more and this might help midfielders who too often lob the ball on his head making it impossible for the strong contested mark to take grabs. It would also give the defenders and midfielders a get out target when under pressure, and allow Alex Fasolo, Jamie Elliott and Travis Varcoe to work in space. Goldsack is a good pressure forward but only one inside-50 player of that type is needed. Collingwood has the talent but its forward line needs to open up more.
Can the Pies break even in the contested ball and possession count with the opposition and score from stoppages?
This is where the Magpies dropped off in the second half of 2014, putting pressure on the defence and making the forwards fight for the ball from disadvantaged positions. Greenwood's loss is huge so Taylor Adams and Josh Thomas need to step up as inside players. If they can win the ball inside the Magpies might be able to find more space for their runners and improve their kicking efficiency. I suspect the midfield is one short against the best but Nathan Freeman will be in the best 22 by season's end as will Jordan De Goey.
Can the club unearth a star among its talented group of youngsters?
The Pies are highly likely to find a very good player amongst Brodie Grundy, Jarrod Witts, Nathan Freeman, Matt Scharenberg, Alex Fasolo, Taylor Adams, Jordan De Goey, Darcy Moore, Ben Kennedy and Tim Broomhead. In fact, there should be more than one. Freeman has been impressive since overcoming hamstring problems while De Goey looks at ease. Broomhead is a Steele Sidebottom type while Grundy and Witts will still take time. It is a talented core that will take more than this season to emerge.
Summer standout
Alex Fasolo has had a frustrating two seasons since a foot injury struck him down but he looks set to fire in 2015. He has returned to his natural habitat inside the forward 50 and he is fit and confident. Fasolo's ball use is elite and he likes to find the goals. If he can average a couple of goals a game in 2015, the Magpies will be very pleased.
Sudden impact
Jordan De Goey has impressed with his pre-season and early NAB Challenge form. He looks a natural midfielder who still needs to learn some of the defensive aspects of that role. The No.5 selection in the 2014 NAB AFL Draft will spend more time in the seniors than the VFL.
It's crunch time for…
Clinton Young has not had a chance to show his wares due to soft tissue and foot injuries since arriving at Collingwood via free agency. Once again his pre-season has been interrupted. At his best he has a kick that can change the angles of the game although the effect of his kicking is sometimes overstated. A popular figure at the club, he has added much to the environment but he now needs to perform on the park.
Pivotal match
Round one v the Brisbane Lions is as far ahead as the Magpies can afford to look, given the transition they have gone through in recent seasons. Away from home at the Gabba, against a talented midfield, Collingwood remains an even money chance. If it can defeat the Lions, it will signal it is a worthy finals contender.
The Magpies will have a good year if…
They can harness the depth in the midfield to win around the contest more often than not. Collingwood only has one bona fide star in the midfield in Scott Pendlebury, with Steele Sidebottom and Dane Swan good support acts. However it needs Levi Greenwood to perform and Taylor Adams, Ben Kennedy and Brodie Grundy to take another step forward in their development to compete with the best midfields. Jarryd Blair needs a big year while finding someone to support Travis Cloke remains an open issue with Gault, Jesse White and Jarrod Witts all having similar claims.
AFL.com.au consensus predicted ladder finish: 11th
Premiership clock: Buckley's men seem to be slipping onto the wrong side of the clock, with a rebuilding period likely to come.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
AFL 2015 Captains Survey
|
It’s Hawthorn’s flag to lose and Jarryd Roughead’s Coleman. That’s the view of the club captains in the AFL’s annual poll of on-field leaders, which has thrown up Nat Fyfe for the 2015 Brownlow Medal and Geelong livewire Nakia Cockatoo as the Rising Star. The Hawks’ ferocious 2014 grand final win over Sydney is clearly still ringing in the ears of the AFL captains, with 11 captains nominating Hawthorn to return to the grand final. With every club hoping to lift the premiership cup, captains are asked who will make the grand final rather than who they believe they will win. Only two other sides were nominated to make the October 3 decider, with Sydney (4) and Port Adelaide (3) joining the Hawks as leading contenders in the eyes of the 18 captains. They’ve plumped for Roughead (7) over his former teammate Lance Franklin (3) for the league’s leading goalscorer, with Tom Hawkins and Jack Riewoldt also attracting two nominations. No captain might have nominated Fremantle for a grand final berth but Fyfe is the clear favourite for the Brownlow with four nominations. Gary Ablett, Travis Boak, Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield also have two nominations. The NAB Challenge form of Cockatoo hasn’t gone unnoticed by captains, with the young Cat (4) favoured above Sydney academy product Isaac Heeny (3) and Jed Anderson (2) for the Rising star. Collingwood Collingwood didn’t feature prominently in the predictions but captain Scott Pendlebury believes their form has sown the seeds of what will be a successful AFL season in 2015. Collingwood began their pre-season matches with a morale-boosting defeat of premiers Hawthorn, before slumping to a 61-point loss to the Western Bulldogs last weekend. Their riches to rags build-up to the season, which begins with a trip to the Gabba to play Brisbane, has many predicting a dire year for the Magpies. But Pendlebury was keen on Wednesday to talk up the bright side of the club’s entire pre-season, which had included trips to Falls Creek, New Zealand and Tasmania. “We’ve got 42 or 43 blokes on the track so we’ve certainly got a healthy list,” he said. “Last year, we had about 28, 29 guys to pick from. “(Coach Nathan Buckley) was almost going to have to pull on the boots at one stage. It’s massive because, throughout the pre-season, you train so much ... to be able to have the whole list training and learning, it builds those bonds. “I feel like we’re a lot further developed than we were 12 months earlier.” Pendlebury’s assessment of the Magpies’ pre-season boils down to one key message: follow Buckley’s instructions. “In the NAB Challenge, we got a good snapshot of our best footy and our worst footy three weeks apart,” he said. “It just reinforces to the guys, if you don’t come to play AFL footy, you’ll get found out. On the other hand, if you come to play, you heed your structures and do the things coaches want you to do, it can be pretty rewarding.” |
AFL 2015 Captains Survey
The AFL has conducted its annual poll of 18 club captains. Votes are in brackets. Clubs to make top eight:
|
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
2015 Season Preview
SPORTAL
Eddie McGuire’s move to annex Mick Malthouse in favour of Nathan Buckley, was always a bold decision which would go one of two ways. It would be seen as the gamble to prune the tree before the smell of death rolled in, or the hasty interference of an individual who refused to see a club legend go elsewhere.
Perhaps this is unfair to McGuire, but the stakes have never been higher. Collingwood supporters do not fawn over Buckley like their Essendon counterparts and Hird, they merely respect him. The biggest team in the land also has almighty standards. If Buckley hampers or fails to meet those standards, there will be swift and violent retribution.
Collingwood in 2015 have entered the period of regeneration. There are still a swathe of players at their best (Reid, Sidebottom) or coming off their best football (Pendlebury, Swan, Cloke), but there are 29 individuals on the Pies roster who are yet to scratch fifty games of football.
The acquisitions of Levi Greenwood and Travis Varcoe are excellent stop gaps in bumping up the experiencearound the club, but both carry longer term question marks of if they’ll be around when the club peaks again.
When that peak will be, it’s hard to tell. The quality is there within the younger group, Brodie Grundy, Ben Kennedy, Tim Broomhead, Taylor Adams; not to mention debutants Jordan De Goey and Darcy Moore.
There is football pedigree within those mentioned, it’s all depending on how quickly and sustainably the Pies can tease it out of them. Whilst there will be patience from some of the supporter base, the club can’t slip further due to inflated expectations that comes with its reputation.
It may feel like a long year, but it’s all about the more important battle. Nathan Buckley’s job is to keep this team in touching distance of finals contention. Any lower than that and the alarm might start to sound.
Players to watch
Travis Cloke
Confidence is precious. Ever since the ink dried on his last deal, it’s come and gone radically. His goal kicking have been incredibly wayward and the seeds of doubt have been planted in his head. If Collingwood are to make an unlikely charge to the 8, Travis has to return to his best.
Jamie Elliott
The high-flying forward pocket could become a genuine midfield option if he can get over his reoccurring injuries. Could become an A grader on output if he can get consistency into his game.
Key games
Round 1 v Brisbane – Nice early test for Collingwood’s midfield post Ball and Beams. Apt the former Magpie will be there in what could be a heated contest.
Round 7 v Richmond – Sunday afternoon blockbuster against another club that will be striving for a position in the 8. Crucial game if both get off to uneven starts.
Round 15 v Port Adelaide – Daunting away trip on the run home to finals. Pies have had an excellent interstate record for a while and will need to draw on that experience to get the points here.
Finishing position – 10th
Collingwood v Brisbane
Saturday April 4, 7.20pmGabba 7mate / Fox Footy 7.15pm Betting: Collingwood $2.25 Brisbane $1.65 |
Perhaps this is unfair to McGuire, but the stakes have never been higher. Collingwood supporters do not fawn over Buckley like their Essendon counterparts and Hird, they merely respect him. The biggest team in the land also has almighty standards. If Buckley hampers or fails to meet those standards, there will be swift and violent retribution.
Collingwood in 2015 have entered the period of regeneration. There are still a swathe of players at their best (Reid, Sidebottom) or coming off their best football (Pendlebury, Swan, Cloke), but there are 29 individuals on the Pies roster who are yet to scratch fifty games of football.
The acquisitions of Levi Greenwood and Travis Varcoe are excellent stop gaps in bumping up the experiencearound the club, but both carry longer term question marks of if they’ll be around when the club peaks again.
Jordan De Goey
|
There is football pedigree within those mentioned, it’s all depending on how quickly and sustainably the Pies can tease it out of them. Whilst there will be patience from some of the supporter base, the club can’t slip further due to inflated expectations that comes with its reputation.
It may feel like a long year, but it’s all about the more important battle. Nathan Buckley’s job is to keep this team in touching distance of finals contention. Any lower than that and the alarm might start to sound.
Players to watch
Travis Cloke
|
Confidence is precious. Ever since the ink dried on his last deal, it’s come and gone radically. His goal kicking have been incredibly wayward and the seeds of doubt have been planted in his head. If Collingwood are to make an unlikely charge to the 8, Travis has to return to his best.
Jamie Elliott
|
The high-flying forward pocket could become a genuine midfield option if he can get over his reoccurring injuries. Could become an A grader on output if he can get consistency into his game.
Key games
Round 1 v Brisbane – Nice early test for Collingwood’s midfield post Ball and Beams. Apt the former Magpie will be there in what could be a heated contest.
Round 7 v Richmond – Sunday afternoon blockbuster against another club that will be striving for a position in the 8. Crucial game if both get off to uneven starts.
Round 15 v Port Adelaide – Daunting away trip on the run home to finals. Pies have had an excellent interstate record for a while and will need to draw on that experience to get the points here.
Finishing position – 10th
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
2015 Season Preview
|
"It's never too early and it's never too late." With those words at Collingwood's season launch, president Eddie McGuire put a premiership on the agenda for his club in 2015. Even the most ardent supporter probably found that lofty goal a touch optimistic, while the majority of neutral observers labelled it downright fanciful. Coach Nathan Buckley, however, has no problem having the bar set high for his team. "Without that 'aim high' mentality, without the courage to say that you're capable of something that other people don't think you're capable of, you're never going to find your best," Buckley said. "We certainly won't be aiming low. "In 22 games this year we expect to improve and we can improve drastically, so (as a player) if the President tells you that he's happy to aim high, the coach says there's no limits and we're not going to put a cap on what we're capable of, then I reckon that mentality is really important." After waving goodbye to a host of household names in the past three years, the Pies are widely thought to have a playing list in transition - one more likely to finish outside the eight than to play finals this year, let alone win the flag. Buckley concedes Collingwood have "lost thousands of games of experience" over the past three years, but he doesn't buy into the philosophy that the cyclical nature of the competition makes it necessary for clubs and their fans to be content with seasons spent consolidating their playing stocks rather than contesting finals. "Everyone wants to put a label on playing lists in some shape or form, whether it be contending, rebuilding or whatever," he said. "But I think the cycles in the game now turn quicker than they ever have. "We've got blokes between 10 and 35 games and that can be a millstone, but it can also be an opportunity if enough of those blokes stand up." The Pies have slipped from fourth to eighth and then 11th in Buckley's three seasons in charge. There will inevitably be a price to pay when any club attempts to re-position for another period of success, as Buckley has done after recognising that the 2010 premiership group didn't have another flag in it. His task hasn't been made any easier by a wretched run of injuries over the past two seasons that rarely allowed him to field his best 22. Ben Reid, Brent Macaffer, Nathan Brown, Dayne Beams, Lachie Keeffe, Dale Thomas and Clinton Young headlined the list of long-term casualties as the Pies slipped down the ladder. Of course, Thomas and Beams are no longer part of the mix, but Buckley has been buoyed by the number of players he's had at his disposal during a positive pre-season, which he believes will translate well into the home-and-away campaign. Reid, in particular, will be a welcome addition in the back half after a season ruined by soft-tissue injuries. Despite the remodelling of the past three years Buckley still has 10 members of the 2010 outfit at his disposal, but it's the gap between those players and the unproven part of Collingwood's list that is the concern outside the club. "I know there's not a lot of expectation externally," Buckley said. "We haven't set ourselves a certain number of wins - what we've set ourselves to do is to play our best footy as often as we possibly can and to improve as the season progresses. "We think we'll be better in '16 than we were in '15 and better in '17 than we were in '16 - there's a lot of natural growth and evolution that we're capable of taking. "Potential is a dangerous word, but we're no different from any other club in that we're trying to maximise that potential as early as we possibly can, so our expectations are high." |
The season hasn't even started and the heat has already been turned up on the competition heavyweight. Healy said Saturday's shock 61-point loss to the Bulldogs was a "lamentable performance" and one that should have alarm bells ringing within the club. "They were flat," Healy said on Sports Today. "The lacked intensity which was one of the bigger disappointments and in lacking intensity their skill level wasn't good enough. "It was as simple as that. "If they produce that throughout the season – they will finish bottom four." Former Essendon star Matthew Lloyd was also critical of the Pies' showing at Etihad Stadium. The news only got worse for Collingwood on Monday, with the club confirming key recruit Levi Greenwood had suffered a fractured ankle in the defeat. He is expected to miss at least six weeks. The home and away season is yet to begin but even now the pressure and expectation on Collingwood has reached fever pitch. Most experts have tipped the Pies to miss the top 8 once again with many suggesting they may fall even lower then their 11th position of 2014. Those within the club and the vast supporter group have higher hopes though with an injection of new players and very probable improvement of many retained players. That improvement is expected to come from the first to fourth year players on the Pies list with the likes of Grundy, De Goey, Witts, Langdon, Gault, Marsh, Kennedy, Freeman and Broomhead just a few of the young talent that exists on the list. That young talent has been on show in the pre season already with Corey Gault, a 199cm rookie listed ruckman/forward, really impressing in his two games. In fact Gault has shown so much progress that if either first choice ruckman, Grundy or Witts, aren’t available for round 1, the Western Australian 22 year old is likely to be playing in only his second senior game. " Without that 'aim high' mentality, without the courage to say that you're capable of something that other people don't think you're capable of, you're never going to find your best. "
Nathan Buckley
|
Injury List
Collingwood News
Collingwood will be without recruit Levi Greenwood in the early rounds of the 2015 home and away season after scans revealed the 26-year-old has sustained a fractured ankle.
Greenwood landed awkwardly on his right leg while tackling Western Bulldog Jarrad Grant during Saturday night’s loss at Etihad Stadium.
“Levi has a slight fracture in his ankle and that will mean that he will be off it for about six weeks,” Director of Football Neil Balme told CollingwoodTV.
“Then, after that, it will be however long it takes for him to run again, so it will be six-plus, which is disappointing for him but I’m sure he will overcome that.”
Greenwood arrived at the Westpac Centre in a deal that saw North Melbourne receive draft selection No. 25 during last October’s trade period.
He managed 74 senior games during his stint at Arden Street, highlighted by his breakout season last year in which he finished third in the Kangaroos’ best-and-fairest.
Ben Reid, Greenwood’s neighbour in the locker room, was one of several AFL-listed players to participate in a VFL match practice session at Olympic Park last Friday.
While Balme says Reid is progressing well, he is not a certain starter for the first round of the home and away season against Brisbane on 4 April.
“There’s so much talk about whether he will get up for round one, but we’re going to try to take that out of the equation,” Balme explained.
“Our issue with Reidy is to make sure he is ready for the season proper.
“He’s coming along very well. He has played about seven quarters in the last couple of weeks, so we will back him off for a day or two. He will probably be running a little bit later in the week just to build him up again.
“He may get there for round one but that’s certainly not the main objective.
“The objective is for him to play the season proper, so it is probably less likely than likely, but he is going very well.”
Of others to have recently frequented the medical office, hamstring concerns will keep Lachlan Keeffe and Clinton Young off the field in the short-to-medium term, while knee victims Brent Macaffer and Matthew Scharenberg are at different stages of their rehabilitation.
“Young had a pretty reasonable week last week with him hamstring but he’s still a little way away, as is Lachie Keeffe.
“Brent Macaffer is longer-term in that he is on the long-term injury list so he won’t play until just after ANZAC Day, but that is well within his program. He’s going reasonably well.
“Matthew Scharenberg is probably going a little bit quicker than that, but he is going to have that three-to-four weeks work into him when he plays.”
The best injury news of the week involves young trio Jonathon Marsh, Darcy Moore and Paul Seedsman, who returned in the VFL team’s match practice session last Friday.
Balme said all three are expected to line up for the VFL Magpies against Richmond at Punt Road Oval on Thursday.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greenwood landed awkwardly on his right leg while tackling Western Bulldog Jarrad Grant during Saturday night’s loss at Etihad Stadium.
“Levi has a slight fracture in his ankle and that will mean that he will be off it for about six weeks,” Director of Football Neil Balme told CollingwoodTV.
“Then, after that, it will be however long it takes for him to run again, so it will be six-plus, which is disappointing for him but I’m sure he will overcome that.”
Greenwood arrived at the Westpac Centre in a deal that saw North Melbourne receive draft selection No. 25 during last October’s trade period.
He managed 74 senior games during his stint at Arden Street, highlighted by his breakout season last year in which he finished third in the Kangaroos’ best-and-fairest.
Ben Reid, Greenwood’s neighbour in the locker room, was one of several AFL-listed players to participate in a VFL match practice session at Olympic Park last Friday.
While Balme says Reid is progressing well, he is not a certain starter for the first round of the home and away season against Brisbane on 4 April.
“There’s so much talk about whether he will get up for round one, but we’re going to try to take that out of the equation,” Balme explained.
“Our issue with Reidy is to make sure he is ready for the season proper.
“He’s coming along very well. He has played about seven quarters in the last couple of weeks, so we will back him off for a day or two. He will probably be running a little bit later in the week just to build him up again.
“He may get there for round one but that’s certainly not the main objective.
“The objective is for him to play the season proper, so it is probably less likely than likely, but he is going very well.”
Of others to have recently frequented the medical office, hamstring concerns will keep Lachlan Keeffe and Clinton Young off the field in the short-to-medium term, while knee victims Brent Macaffer and Matthew Scharenberg are at different stages of their rehabilitation.
“Young had a pretty reasonable week last week with him hamstring but he’s still a little way away, as is Lachie Keeffe.
“Brent Macaffer is longer-term in that he is on the long-term injury list so he won’t play until just after ANZAC Day, but that is well within his program. He’s going reasonably well.
“Matthew Scharenberg is probably going a little bit quicker than that, but he is going to have that three-to-four weeks work into him when he plays.”
The best injury news of the week involves young trio Jonathon Marsh, Darcy Moore and Paul Seedsman, who returned in the VFL team’s match practice session last Friday.
Balme said all three are expected to line up for the VFL Magpies against Richmond at Punt Road Oval on Thursday.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Pre-Season Round 3: The Washup
|
Greenwood was subbed out of the Pies’ NAB Challenge clash with the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night after injuring his ankle while tackling Jarrad Grant. The Pies tweeted yesterday that the club was “hopeful of a positive outcome”. Magpies president Eddie McGuire said Greenwood would undergo more scans on Monday, but the prognosis could be worse than first thought. “I think it’s going to be a lot longer than Round 1. I think he’ll be out for a fair bit of the early part of the season,” McGuire told Triple M. After his team’s loss to the Bulldogs, Pies coach Nathan Buckley said Greenwood was “likely to miss weeks”. “We just don’t know how many,” Buckley said. Collingwood secured Greenwood from North Melbourne for pick 25 during last year’s AFL exchange period, after the left-footer came out of contract at season’s end. Greenwood’s departure came after a career-best season for the Roos, where he played 22 games, averaged 25 disposals per match and finished third in the club’s Best and Fairest count. He was also North’s best player in its memorable elimination final win over Essendon, booting one goal from 32 disposals.  |
Buckley confirmed new recruit Levi Greenwood was in doubt for the season-opening clash against Brisbane after hurting his ankle in the 61-point loss. “We don’t know how severe it is but bad enough for him to not be able to play on,” Buckley said. “We will have to go and assess that but he is likely to miss weeks, we just don’t know how many.” Buckley said the team “would have liked to play better” and was adamant the performance “was not a reflection of the way we’ve trained and prepared” this pre-season. But several spots remain open to be filled with the Pies scheduled to put up to 16 players through their paces in a VFL game against Richmond on Thursday. “There is obviously a bit of work to do between now and April 4 to make sure we present in better nick than we displayed this evening,” he said. About his first-choice midfield line-up, Buckley said he was “less settled than we were a couple of weeks ago”. Another new recruit, Jack Crisp, is being investigated for a bet he placed last season at Brisbane. Buckley said the new Pie “made a blue” and was “embarrassed about it”. “He has been really open and transparent on his misunderstanding of his obligations,” Buckley said. Western Bulldogs forward Lachie Hunter could be back playing in the first part of the season despite his betting scandal, according to coach Luke Beveridge. “I’m hoping something that we can hang our hat on decision wise will happen by early next week and that’s up to the AFL,” he said. "I think he (Greenwood) will be out for a fair bit of the early part of the season.” - Eddie McGuire |
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Pre-Season Game 3: Western Bulldogs 115 Collingwood 54
THE FACTS
COLLINGWOOD 0.3.1.19 0.4.4.28 0.7.4.46 0.8.6.54
WESTERN BULLDOGS 0.6.2.38 0.10.4.64 0.12.5.77 0.18.7.115
SUPERGOALS - Collingwood: Nil
SCORERS - Collingwood: Cloke (0.2.1), Adams (0.1.1), Greenwood (0.1.1), Varcoe (0.1.1), Blair (0.1.0), Pendlebury (0.1.0), Swan (0.1.0), Elliott (0.0.1), White (0.0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Adams, Sidebottom, Elliott, Oxley, Greenwood
INJURIES - Collingwood: Greenwood (lower leg)
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Levi Greenwood (lower leg) subbed out for Jack Crisp in the third quarter, Alex Fasolo subbed out for Corey Gault in the third quarter
REPORTS - Collingwood: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 10,457 at Etihad Stadium
COLLINGWOOD 0.3.1.19 0.4.4.28 0.7.4.46 0.8.6.54
WESTERN BULLDOGS 0.6.2.38 0.10.4.64 0.12.5.77 0.18.7.115
SUPERGOALS - Collingwood: Nil
SCORERS - Collingwood: Cloke (0.2.1), Adams (0.1.1), Greenwood (0.1.1), Varcoe (0.1.1), Blair (0.1.0), Pendlebury (0.1.0), Swan (0.1.0), Elliott (0.0.1), White (0.0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Adams, Sidebottom, Elliott, Oxley, Greenwood
INJURIES - Collingwood: Greenwood (lower leg)
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Levi Greenwood (lower leg) subbed out for Jack Crisp in the third quarter, Alex Fasolo subbed out for Corey Gault in the third quarter
REPORTS - Collingwood: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 10,457 at Etihad Stadium
 |
 |
| THE MEDIA | |
|
Collingwood is likely to be without Levi Greenwood for at least its round one clash against the Brisbane Lions after the recruit suffered an ankle injury on Saturday night. Greenwood hurt his right ankle when it became trapped underneath Jarrad Grant as he tackled him in the third quarter of the Pies' 61-point loss to the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium Greenwood limped off, unable to put weight through it, and didn't return to the field. "We don't know how severe it is," Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley admitted afterwards. "It was bad enough for him to not be able to play on. "We'll have to go and assess that but he's likely to miss weeks - we just don't know how many." After a disappointing performance, Buckley conceded his midfield mix for the Lions' clash on April 4 was less settled than it had been a few weeks ago. As many as 14 players could play in a VFL practice match against Richmond on Thursday, including Saturday's omissions Ben Kennedy, Patrick Karnezis and Tim Broomhead. "When they (the Magpies not playing) look at the performances tonight, they might see a few opportunities and there will be – we're looking for blokes to step up," Buckley said. "I thought Tay (Taylor Adams) battled away inside really well, Swanny (Dane Swan) is starting to get some game time into him off a slow preparation pre-Christmas, Pendles (Scott Pendlebury) is two games in after not playing Hawthorn. "Steele (Sidebottom) is up and about, (he has) had a heavy load so he'll be right to go. "Jack Crisp did all right in that second half when required. "We've got plenty of blokes who can go through there, it's just about how effective we are in that midfield mix." Before his injury, Greenwood had been tasked with stopping star Bulldogs youngster Marcus Bontempelli. The new Pie had succeeded in briefly curbing the influence of Bontempelli, who started the game with a 15-disposal first quarter. Buckley said he would continue to experiment with who could take on the tagging role left vacant by the injured Brent Macaffer with Greenwood sidelined. "There might be a Jack Crisp, it might be a Taylor Adams … we'll need to have a look at that over that next month or so while Levi is likely to be out as well,” he said. Meanwhile, the midfield depth of the Bulldogs looked depleted three weeks ago when Tom Liberatore suffered a season-ending knee injury in Luke Beveridge's first game in charge. It meant the rookie coach's engineroom would be without last year's best and fairest winner - not to mention the off-season losses of the Dogs' former captain Ryan Griffen, who defected to Greater Western Sydney, and Shaun Higgins (North Melbourne) and Adam Cooney (Essendon). But Beveridge said on Saturday the form of Bontempelli and the willingness of Jack Macrae, Luke Dahlhaus and Mitch Wallis to stand up, plus the contributions from the likes of Brett Goodes and Mitch Honeychurch, helped cover the losses. "It's really encouraging," Beveridge said. "We're going to need to share the load and they did tonight. "That's crucial for us to get to where we want to go as quickly as possible, that we find more lads to stand up in through that midfield." Bontempelli finished with 29 touches and three goals in a performance Beveridge said could make him the marked man for taggers this season. "We all know he's a very talented player and we can't constrain him, we need to let him loose and explore where he can take his game," he said. "There's no doubt if he plays like he did tonight regularly then he'll receive adequate attention from the opposition. "But if his teammates are sharing the load with him and he can play anywhere - he's going to be a difficult challenge for most teams." Boom recruit Levi Greenwood will almost certainly miss Collingwood's season opener against the Brisbane Lions on April 4 after sustaining an ankle injury during their 61-point NAB Challenge loss to the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night. The former Kangaroo, who was signed by the Pies on a four-year deal, had to be helped from the ground by trainers in considerable pain during the third quarter and could not put any weight on his right leg as he hobbled to the rooms. The 26-year-old was injured when he tackled an opponent in the centre square. The Bulldogs player landed awkwardly on Greenwood's leg, twisting his ankle. Coach Nathan Buckley said the severity of the injury wouldn't be known for a few days at least. "We don't know how severe it is but [it was] bad enough for him to not be able to play on," Buckley said post-match. "We'll have to go and assess that but it's likely to [force Greenwood to] miss weeks – we just don't know how many." Buckley admitted his midfield was now less settled than it was a fortnight ago, and with Greenwood and Brent Macaffer unavailable to fulfil their tagging role due to injury, the Pies would probably turn to Taylor Adams or Jack Crisp to do so. An extended absence for Greenwood would be a huge blow for Collingwood with captain Scott Pendlebury earmarking him as a direct replacement for Dayne Beams, who went to Brisbane. It capped off a dirty night for the Magpies who were run off their feet by the Bulldogs. Luke Beveridge's men burst out of the blocks with five of the first six goals, including a pair to Brett Goodes, and by the time they piled on another five consecutive majors either side of quarter-time they held a 43-point advantage. Based on this performance, life without Tom Liberatore, Ryan Griffen, Adam Cooney and Daniel Giansiracusa might not be as gloomy for the Dogs as first thought. The victory was built on the efforts of back-to-back top picks Marcus Bontempelli, who had 29 touches, nine tackles and three goals, and Jackson Macrae (31 disposals). Both simply did as they pleased in the midfield and were instrumental in the Dogs' dominant first half, in particular. The Dogs were also well served by solid defensive performances from skipper Bob Murphy, Michael Talia and Jordan Roughead and rookie Goodes strengthened his case for an upgrade to the senior list in time for round one with 19 touches and two goals. Hard nut Lin Jong (two goals) and Luke Dahlhaus were also valuable contributors with 20 and 32 disposals respectively. Collingwood could not cope with the Bulldogs' pressure and of huge concern for coach Nathan Buckley is that the only top-liners missing were Ben Reid, Lachie Keeffe and Ben Macaffer. Taylor Adams (31 touches), Pendlebury (28) and Marley Williams (27) stood out for the Magpies while Jack Frost and Nathan Brown combined to limit the influence of Bulldogs key forwards Jack Redpath and Tom Boyd. But there wasn't a lot to smile about for Collingwood who were shaded by their hungrier opponents in disposals (418-382), clearances (45-39), inside 50s (54-49), contested possessions (164-155) and tackles (94-85). A DOMINANT first-half display from the Western Bulldogs propelled them to a 61-point AFL pre-season cup win tonight against Collingwood. Young Bulldog on-baller Marcus Bontempelli starred with 15 possessions in the first quarter and finished with 29 touches and three goals in the Dogs’ 0.18.7 (115) to 0.8.6 (54) win at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne. Collingwood took a strong side into the match, but it was the young Dogs who seized the momentum from the outset. Jack Macrae (31 disposals), Mitch Wallis (21) and Luke Dahlhaus (32) joined Bontempelli in helping to set up the win, with veteran skipper Robert Murphy also playing a pivotal role down back in the impressive performance. Collingwood stars Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan weren’t able to exert their usual influence early and Travis Cloke managed just one goal in the first half before finishing with two, but to put the result down to an off night for the Pies would do an injustice to the hardworking Dogs. Luke Beveridge’s men impressed with their slick ball movement and overlap run, but also pressured their opponents into costly turnovers and ran hard defensively when they didn’t have the ball. The margin blew out to 48 points in the third quarter before the Pies managed an unanswered three-goal burst, but the Bulldogs finished the match well with six goals to one in the final term. Will Minson was also a key factor for the Dogs with a dominant 50-hitout display. Steele Sidebottom (30) and Taylor Adams (31) worked hard throughout for Collingwood, while Pendlebury (28) improved as the game went on. Both sides leave the match with injury concerns with Levi Greenwood (ankle) and Jason Johannisen (head knock) both subbed out. |
NEW Collingwood midfield recruit Levi Greenwood is under an injury cloud for the Pies’ Round 1 clash against Brisbane after hurting his ankle on Saturday night. Greenwood limped off the ground in the third term after trapping his right ankle in a Jarrad Grant tackle, as the Western Bulldogs galloped to a 61-point win at Etihad Stadium. While the Dogs hailed the raw talent in their midfield, led by second-year sensation Marcus Bontempelli and Jackson Macrae, there were worrying signs for the Pies for a second-straight week. Collingwood will tackle Brisbane and ex-Magpie Dayne Beams in its season-opener in a fortnight with plenty to work on after managing only four first-half goals and eight for the game. While some Scott Pendlebury magic helped ice a run of three-straight Collingwood goals in the third term, the Pies’ new-look midfield failed to fire when the heat was on in the first half. Onballer Taylor Adams was the best of the Pies’ ball-winners with 17 touches at the main break, while Marley Williams, Adam Oxley and Jackson Ramsay stood up at times in defence. But the club’s plans to become the best transition side in the AFL looked a looked a distant dream as new recruit Travis Varcoe and veteran midfielder Dane Swan were kept quiet early. Greenwood was substituted off in the third term with nine possessions after being sent to shut down a rampant Bontempelli before quarter-time. Bontempelli, the man who fell only a whisker short of gun Lion Lewis Taylor for last year’s Rising Star award, set the Bulldogs alight with 15 first-term possessions, ripping the ball out of stoppages and running away from congestion. By the time the rangy onballer had kicked his second goal of the night from an overhead mark in the second term, ex-Richmond hard-nut Jake King said the young Dog looked like the complete package. He finished with 29 possessions and three goals. “What is he in his second year of football? How quickly can someone win a Brownlow?” King said on Triple M. But he wasn’t the only one who was raising eyebrows for the Bulldogs. For a club that lost ex-captain Ryan Griffen in last year’s exchange period and Tom Liberatore to a season ending knee injury, the signs from Macrae (31 possessions), Lin Jong (20), Luke Dahlhaus (32) and million-dollar man Tom Boyd (13) provided a bright end to a tough week dealing with Lachie Hunter’s betting controversy. But perhaps the most encouraging sign from Luke Beveridge’s perspective was the way the Dogs moved the ball. The Dogs were a defence-first, contested ball team under ex-coach Brendan McCartney but the new direction under Beveridge is to take the game with run and handball. Even without Liberatore, and ex-captain Griffen, the young pups controlled the flow of ball movement but still out-tackled the Pies, with nine more for the game. There was pressure and desperation, but also a sense of flair and excitement, kicking 11 of their first 12 goals from a position inside the corridor. The move to send Matt Boyd to a defensive position also looks a winner with the former skipper providing a cool head and strong body with Robert Murphy in the back line. RELENTLESS pressure was the dominant feature of the Western Bulldogs' 61-point win over Collingwood on Saturday night, with Luke Beveridge's men saving their best pre-season performance for last. The Bulldogs put a tumultuous three weeks that involved losing Tom Liberatore to a season-ending knee injury as well as the investigation in Lachie Hunter's betting activity behind them to leap into round one with winning form. They out-tackled the Magpies and forced them into turnovers, winning 0.16.7 (115) to 0.8.6 (54) after a dominant first half at Etihad Stadium. Despite being sorely beaten in centre clearances (6-17), the Dogs locked down across the field and strangled a broken-down Magpies' forward line. Marcus Bontempelli, Mitch Wallis and Luke Dahlhaus provided plenty of pressure – Wallis racking up an impressive 11 tackles – while Jack Macrae had 31 touches. "We put them under pressure and they gave the ball back a little bit, and I thought our defence set up extremely well," Beveridge said post-match. "We capitalised on some of those opportunities so to a man I thought all the boys really contributed in that area. "It was a pretty rounded performance. I was happy with most it. "There was a period in the third quarter where we lost our way a little bit … but we managed to compose ourselves." Along with exposing some concerning areas for Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, an ankle injury to recruit Levi Greenwood further soured the night. Greenwood was one of the Pies' best in the second quarter after being sent to cover Bontempelli, who had 15 disposals by the first break. But he didn't return after his right leg was trapped underneath him as he tackled Jarrad Grant in the third quarter and is likely to miss at least round one. Forward Tyson Goldsack was also treated for a shoulder concern in the fourth term but played out the game and is fine. Still, it was a disappointing performance from the Magpies, which Nathan Buckley said was contributed to by a six-day break. "We would have liked to have performed better," Buckley said. "That's not a reflection of the way we've trained and prepared. "There's obviously a bit of work for us to do between now and April 4 to make sure that we present in better nick than we displayed this evening. "We're not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater after the last two weeks. "We displayed some pretty good form and played how we wanted to play against Hawthorn and we've been satisfied with our training form. "We know exactly where we're at, we would have preferred to have performed better six days ago in Bendigo and tonight but we'll take lessons out of that." The Bulldogs' dress rehearsal mentality extended to their cheersquad, who took the opportunity to practice their banner-making one last time before the real thing starts in two weeks. In comparison, the Magpies made a low-key entry to the arena with no banner and little fanfare. It was the Dogs in the wars early with young defender Jason Johannisen taken from the field in a neck brace following a high-impact collision with Grant's hip. He returned to the bench later in the first term but was subbed out at quarter-time as a precaution after being one of the Dogs' best in the opening stages. Defender Easton Wood was also subbed out with concussion at the main break after a second quarter incident that left him noticeably groggy. But the loss of the two didn't affect the Dogs too much as they held off a spirited three-goal charge by the Pies late in the third quarter. A goal in the first minute of the final term to Jake Stringer kicked off a string of Dogs majors that put the result beyond doubt. Jack Redpath booted two late goals and took seven marks, which is sure to give Beveridge food for thought when picking his forward structure for round one with Tom Boyd contributing just one from his 13 possessions. Bob Murphy returned to the side along with Jordan Roughead, Liam Picken, Macrae and Dahlhaus, and was one of the side's best along with Matthew Boyd, who played across half-back. It was simply the Dogs' pressure that caught the Pies off guard. In the first half alone, they had seven more tackles and eight more contested ball wins. Jamie Elliot was the Pies' shining light after a week off, along with Taylor Adams who collected 31 possessions. It was a quiet first half from veteran midfielder Dane Swan, who had five touches in the first quarter and four in the second. He worked his way into the game, along with Steele Sidebottom after a slow start, but remained below his best. WHAT WE LEARNED Collingwood: There were a few worrying signs for the Magpies when the Dogs turned up the heat. Alex Fasolo had seven touches before being subbed off in the third quarter, and their forward line broke down and battled when the Dogs put the clamps on. Brodie Grundy, who was treated for a sore side last week against Carlton, was also monstered by Will Minson, who had 50 hit-outs to the young Pie's 22. NEW FACES Collingwood: Before going off in the third quarter, Levi Greenwood showed signs of just why the Pies signed him on a four-year contract. With Brent Macaffer out for a few more months while he comes back from a knee reconstruction, the Pies will be pleased to know they have someone they can task to nullify an opposition player who is threatening to blow a game apart - if he doesn't miss too much time with this new injury. |
Friday, March 20, 2015
2015 Season Preview
FOOTY15 - David King
COLLINGWOOD, and more specifically Nathan Buckley, will be the constant football conversation of 2015.
It has slid down the ladder from fourth to 11th in the space of two seasons, winning only 11 games in 2014 as Bucks put culture at the forefront of priorities for the Pies.
The strategy regarding player trading and acquisition will be under review as they appear to have taken a different direction to most.
The skill level of the Magpies let them down last season, ranked 16th for maintaining possession, and from what I’ve witnessed throughout pre-season, little has changed.
The acquisitions of Travis Varcoe, Levi Greenwood and Jack Crisp add depth but it’s more of the same.
All three statistically have poor effective disposal numbers so instead of treating the problem it appears to have been exacerbated.
The Magpies have had a high volume of talent in rehabilitation and managed programs throughout the early part of pre-season and immediately post-Christmas, which has alarm bells ringing.
The problem is those affected were the high-end talent including Ben Reid and Travis Cloke.
Nathan Brown played only three games in 2014 and will be a terrific boost for the young and inexperienced back six of last season.
Dane Swan played 17 games but none of them at full fitness and Reid’s season was a complete write-off.
Reid has been a conditioning nightmare after again suffering hamstring issues this summer — which is concerning given he was on a modified program when the injury occurred.
Collingwood’s biggest issue is converting an inside-50 opportunity into goals.
Cloke desperately needs Reid inside forward 50 to provide another target as Cloke’s impact fell dramatically last year.
They simply cannot win one-on-one contests in attack. Only Brisbane has a poorer percentage.
Sydney wins one in every three, the Pies one in every five.
Ball movement isn’t a major worry at Collingwood as it was fourth in the AFL with ball speed on counter attack but lacked a forward-50 spread of goalkickers, a true indicator of success.
It will welcome father-son selection Darcy Moore, who can take a contested mark inside 50, because the Jesse White project is taking the same path as the Quinten Lynch experiment.
Varcoe has completely taken ownership of some sessions and can create havoc off half-back with his run.
After a full pre-season he’s thriving in a change of environment.
Collingwood has a wealth of young first-round selections largely unsighted to date, but during the summer Nathan Freeman has shown he’s ready.
Eddie says the Pies can pinch a flag. Come on, Ed.
The Pies missed the finals last year for the first time in a decade and you feel their fortunes will be on the back of their skipper and best player, Scott Pendlebury.
A managed pre-season and entering his prime at 27, I believe he’ll challenge Gary Ablett as the AFL’s best.
A favourable early draw means Buckley and his troops can start the year well with Brisbane (away), Adelaide (home), and St Kilda at the MCG.
They could immediately cease any negativity aimed at the club.
So can Collingwood arrest the slide in 2015?
Maybe not this year.
DID YOU KNOW?
From round 1 to 12 the Pies ranked eighth for points for and third for points against. After that they ranked 15th for points for and 16th for points against.
PREDICTIONS
David King: 12th
Mark Robinson: 12th
Dermott Brereton: 10th
Pre-Season Game 3
Collingwood v W. Bulldogs
Etihad Fox Footy 7.00pm Weather: Min 10 Max 22 Chance of rain 5%: < 1mm Wind: S 19kph Betting: Collingwood $1.60 Western Bulldogs $2.30 |
It has slid down the ladder from fourth to 11th in the space of two seasons, winning only 11 games in 2014 as Bucks put culture at the forefront of priorities for the Pies.
The strategy regarding player trading and acquisition will be under review as they appear to have taken a different direction to most.
The skill level of the Magpies let them down last season, ranked 16th for maintaining possession, and from what I’ve witnessed throughout pre-season, little has changed.
The acquisitions of Travis Varcoe, Levi Greenwood and Jack Crisp add depth but it’s more of the same.
All three statistically have poor effective disposal numbers so instead of treating the problem it appears to have been exacerbated.
The Magpies have had a high volume of talent in rehabilitation and managed programs throughout the early part of pre-season and immediately post-Christmas, which has alarm bells ringing.
The problem is those affected were the high-end talent including Ben Reid and Travis Cloke.
Nathan Brown played only three games in 2014 and will be a terrific boost for the young and inexperienced back six of last season.
Dane Swan played 17 games but none of them at full fitness and Reid’s season was a complete write-off.
Robbo's view on Collingwood
The rebuild in team and culture is three years started, so youth is the key. That's exciting, but it is accompanied by inconsistency. Broomhead, Adams, Thomas, Seedsman, Kennedy, Frost, Williams, Langdon, Witt and Grundy will be enthralling to watch because they will decide games. Greenwood is a tick, not so sure about Varcoe, and Crisp will get opportunities. Darcy Moore will have expectations and let's hope they don't swallow him in just his first season. Especially can't wait to see Scharenberg. What I dislike List management hasn't been great. White, Armstrong, Young and Carnesis either haven't starred or played, Beams left and Lynch retired. And they forced the hands of Ball and O'Brien. Of those remaining, Cloke asked for the money and has not earned it, Blair dropped off, Grundy stagnated, Witts is young, O'Keefe was dropped from a poor performing team, Fasolo plays too much on his own terms, Seedsman can run and kick but needs more aggression, and too many players were injured. The Pies are not soft, but nor are they super aggressive and not many teams floating in between those two goalposts are preliminary final teams. Indeed, not many are finals teams. Final verdict All eyes are on the Magpies and don't think they are good enough to play finals. Too many questions. |
Collingwood’s biggest issue is converting an inside-50 opportunity into goals.
Cloke desperately needs Reid inside forward 50 to provide another target as Cloke’s impact fell dramatically last year.
They simply cannot win one-on-one contests in attack. Only Brisbane has a poorer percentage.
Sydney wins one in every three, the Pies one in every five.
Ball movement isn’t a major worry at Collingwood as it was fourth in the AFL with ball speed on counter attack but lacked a forward-50 spread of goalkickers, a true indicator of success.
It will welcome father-son selection Darcy Moore, who can take a contested mark inside 50, because the Jesse White project is taking the same path as the Quinten Lynch experiment.
Varcoe has completely taken ownership of some sessions and can create havoc off half-back with his run.
After a full pre-season he’s thriving in a change of environment.
Collingwood has a wealth of young first-round selections largely unsighted to date, but during the summer Nathan Freeman has shown he’s ready.
Eddie says the Pies can pinch a flag. Come on, Ed.
The Pies missed the finals last year for the first time in a decade and you feel their fortunes will be on the back of their skipper and best player, Scott Pendlebury.
A managed pre-season and entering his prime at 27, I believe he’ll challenge Gary Ablett as the AFL’s best.
A favourable early draw means Buckley and his troops can start the year well with Brisbane (away), Adelaide (home), and St Kilda at the MCG.
They could immediately cease any negativity aimed at the club.
So can Collingwood arrest the slide in 2015?
Maybe not this year.
DID YOU KNOW?
From round 1 to 12 the Pies ranked eighth for points for and third for points against. After that they ranked 15th for points for and 16th for points against.
PREDICTIONS
David King: 12th
Mark Robinson: 12th
Dermott Brereton: 10th
2015 Season Preview
SUPERFOOTY - Andrew Rule
Can Nathan Buckley get the Pies heading back up in 2015?
FACT: The year before Nathan Buckley became coach the Pies played in a Grand Final − their second in a row
FACT: Under Buckley the Pies have slipped further down the ladder each year
FACT: Last year the Pies didn’t make the eight
FACT: All eyes outside Collingwood’s inner sanctum are on Nathan Buckley
IN SOME countries, football starts wars. In Australia, it starts arguments and the greatest argument starter of all is Collingwood.
Love them or loathe them, the Magpies have a grip on the public imagination that other AFL clubs — and other sports and businesses — can only dream about. They are that rare thing in sport, competitors that transcend the game.
“The Club” pushes cricket off the back page in summer, the same with horseracing in spring. Almost anywhere that Australians gather around the globe, the Pies get a guernsey in the conversation.
For football purists, that conversation is about Collingwood the team: how it plays, the game and the politics of winning and losing. But Collingwood the club means more than just footy for some. Its president Eddie McGuire sees its financial dominance not just as proof of skilled housekeeping but as a force for social good, helping plug the gap between haves and have-nots.
The Collingwood camp has plenty of have-nots. McGuire wants them to feel they have a stake in Australia’s version of Manchester United, the King Kong of world sport.
Football is a broad church. For years in Victoria, it has jokingly been called a religion. But for many Collingwood followers, it’s no joke: belonging to the black-and-white tribe gives their lives meaning.
The club’s 1890s origins are Irish, Catholic and working class. Their faith is fierce and one-eyed.
The people who run the fast-food caravans outside the MCG know about this. When they arrive at midday on Fridays and Collingwood is drawn to play that night, early bird Magpies are already waiting.
This doesn’t happen with other clubs’ supporters.
“They’re the biggest diehard enthusiasts you’ve ever seen,” says one food vendor about the Magpie army. “It’s what they live for. On game day they are by far the best spenders outside the ground.”
In fact, when the Magpies are playing well, the caravans take more money outside the gates than caterers do inside the MCG. The caravans serve 3000 jam doughnuts at a big Collingwood game, compared with “maybe 1200 for other clubs”.
The difference between Collingwood supporters and others, he says, is that Magpie fans identify so strongly with each other.
“They’re different. They’re a tight-knit family and they all talk to each other about footy. Fans from other clubs are not really socialising with each other the same way.”
But the tribalism has an edge.
“If they’re winning, they’re great, but if they’re losing they will turn dirty in a heartbeat.”
That wouldn’t surprise Nathan Buckley as he readies for his fourth season in one of sport’s toughest jobs — that of Pies senior coach.
Some see this year as Buckley’s make-or-break season. Several former AFL coaches and club officials reckon Collingwood is as likely to finish 12th as fifth in September.
If that happens, closet Buckley knockers will start sniping openly.
After Buckley swapped his boots for a clipboard, he was Mick Malthouse’s loyal assistant, then his successor, a transition planned as carefully as a royal wedding.
Collingwood finished 11th last season, only a few kicks out of the eight but outclassed by the top four — and below half a dozen second-tier teams.
It’s no disgrace but if it happens again, all eyes will be on Buckley. Including some, maybe, in the boardroom and coterie groups.
If that happens the question the knockers will ask is whether ‘Eddie’ will stick with ‘Bucks’.
McGuire says he will. Only a complete cynic would suspect he wouldn’t. He has invested in Buckley and won’t be tearing up contracts just to please those who don’t share his faith.
Unless, that is, the coach — rather than injuries or recruiting — is clearly to blame.
EVEN years after a treacherous hamstring did what his opponents could not, the best Collingwood player in a century still looks as if scientists designed him to combine speed, endurance and strength.
From the jutting jaw to the squared shoulders to the locomotive legs, Nathan Buckley radiates natural athleticism: part bruiser, part ballet dancer. If footballers were sold like yearling racehorses, he’d have topped the sales.
Unlike most sale toppers and No.1 draft picks, Buckley performed as well as he looked. But, as a coach, maybe he still faces the dilemma of the gifted player he used to be.
Brent Crosswell, one of the most gifted of all, once explained that the gifted player is often disappointed “because of the compromise he has to make with the fact it’s a team game”. Meaning, at least 15 teammates struggle to do things “the natural” does as easily as breathing.
Such talent can attract criticism as well as admiration. From Buckley’s first season in black and white after coming from Brisbane in 1994, he was sneered at behind his back. It was the price he paid for not making light of his ability, instead always trying to improve on it.
Two decades on, Buckley the calm perfectionist has brought his thoughtful attitude to coaching. It’s who he is. Watch him at a big function, even out-of-season, and he isn’t busting to crack jokes and have beers with the boys.
At one event where most guests party hard all afternoon, you see Buckley off to the side in deep conversation with another of the game’s more serious graduates, AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick. Both are friendly and have a sense of humour but neither tends to waste time on small talk or feels the need to suffer fools.
Back when football (and coaching) was a simpler game, the likes of Barassi, Sheedy — and Malthouse — could tear strips off players in a rage or as part of a calculated “tough love” stratagem. But they’d have a drink and a laugh with them after the game, burying the hatchet until next time.
Buckley strikes some watchers as cooler and drier than that, a grown-up among excitable boys. This is no criticism. He has also had to face the extra hurdle of coaching players he’s played with or knows well, something that didn’t help other favourite sons such as Francis Bourke, Wayne Schimmelbusch and Michael Voss.
If football coaches are not weird or wired when they start in the big league, they can soon get that way. The reason, a coach once confided, is that everyone from the junior cheersquad to the old folks’ home is a footy expert.
“If you coach the Australian hockey team,” he said, “there’s maybe half a dozen people in the country who know as much about the game as you do — and they don’t interfere. But if there are 90,000 people at a football game, they all think they know better.”
Among the critics, of course, are rivals with a vested interest in making mischief.
The pressure cooker effect gets to some coaches.
When Ross Lyon turned on a Dockers supporter brash enough to touch him as he strode past at three-quarter time in a losing finals match last year, it showed how intensely even cool heads can react.
The punter might be lucky he didn’t cop a whack. Football lore has it that a teenager playing kick-to-kick at the Western Oval in the Mick Malthouse era wasn’t so lucky after he offered the then-Bulldogs coach some free advice as he stalked across the field after a loss.
Malthouse, the tough-as-nails defender from Ballarat, has never been a soft touch. His exit from Collingwood after coaching the team to the 2010 premiership and the 2011 Grand Final is one of the great plot twists of modern Australian sport.
The estranged Malthouse gave a long interview on The Footy Show claiming he’d been pressured into handing over when he wasn’t really ready. If there was a moment when some club insiders fell out of love with their premiership coach, it was then — more so because they realised rank-and-file followers would take Malthouse’s part and disrupt the club.
McGuire had virtually staked his presidency on hiring Malthouse from West Coast in 2000. But the mateship cooled as Buckley took up the coach-in-waiting spot. It didn’t improve when Malthouse seemed to step up hostilities from the sidelines. The pair reputedly haven’t spoken since Malthouse went to Carlton after the 2012 season.
Malthouse is set to break Jock McHale’s coaching record of 714 games on May 1 — against Collingwood. Both his friends and enemies use this extraordinary longevity to back opposing views.
His supporters point to his long list of finals appearances; his critics say in coaching the 1990s West Coast Eagles he had an elite “state team” and should have won six flags, not two.
Sour Carlton supporters now tell each other Malthouse’s average over 30 years is exactly that: average. Carlton and Collingwood fans don’t agree on much, but find common ground in the man they now jokingly call “Not-my-Faulthouse”.
Malthouse’s default position is to attack, which has earned him enemies in the media. A former newspaper editor (and Collingwood fan) speaks for many when he says that interviewing Malthouse “is like being punished for a crime you didn’t commit”.
But all of his supposed flaws would go unnoticed if his team started winning. In footy, victory ensures forgiveness for nearly anything.
Even taking home loaves of bread from the club canteen, as one premiership coach reputedly did every day.
Even drinking two bottles of wine before training, as another legendary coach reputedly did for a few seasons before the axe fell. Then there were the gamblers and the lechers and the thieves.
Compared with some of the giants of his craft, Buckley is a cleanskin. But as the months tick past, he is getting closer to the point where either he vindicates the patience shown in him — or it runs out.
IF Nathan Buckley feels the pressure, he doesn’t show it. He looks as composed — and nearly as fit — as he was on the field.
In his office at the Westpac Centre, he’s calmly listing reasons to be cheerful about Collingwood’s prospects.
On the list is the fact that Neil Balme agreed to return from Geelong to take over as head of the football department from Rodney Eade, who left to coach the Gold Coast Suns.
Re-calling Balme wasn’t spur-of-the-moment: Collingwood keeps a short list of “wanted” people to slot into gaps that appear.
Why Balme? Buckley says: “He brings experience and intelligence. He played and coached. He was relatively successful as a coach. He knows how football clubs work. He’s the perfect foil.”
He doesn’t need to add that Balme has the clout to work with one of the most decorated players of all time and perhaps the most mercurial and powerful president since the John Wren era.
Buckley is unruffled discussing Collingwood’s prospects, stressing the depth and potential of the list rather than stars.
“It doesn’t matter how good Pendles (Scott Pendlebury) is if the bottom 12 of the 22 don’t play well,” he cautions. “That’s why we give ourselves a chance this season. We’re not really thinking about 2017 or 2016 — or even round 10 this year. Just concentrating on what’s next.”
He isn’t spooked by the F-word.
“That sort of blue sky is exciting for us.”
He brushes off rumours of unrest, saying he wishes supporters could spend 24 hours with him, Balme, chief executive Gary Pert and the football talent at the Westpac Centre, which must be among the best sports facilities in the land.
But he’s a realist. “A 20kg weight is the same here as it was at Victoria Park — and it doesn’t lift itself.” In the end, the buck stops with coaches and players.
Buckley, Balme, McGuire, recruiting manager Derek Hine — and no doubt Pert — are in furious agreement about what Balme bluntly calls “quite a lot of necessary change” to the list Buckley inherited.
Unstated, but obvious, is that the loss of Dayne Beams to his native Queensland hurt the team. Balme says they are relaxed about the rest who have gone — Heritier Lumumba, Heath Shaw, Alan Didak, Darren Jolly, Chris Tarrant, Leon Davis and others.
“Players get older and retire. No one has the patience to do what Geelong did and get a heap of kids and wait ... but we still essentially have to draft good kids, put them in a good program and build a team. It takes time. But you’re not allowed to use the term ‘re-build’,” he adds.
Meanwhile, to stay competitive while recruits learn their jobs, the club has to juggle its list and haggle for “made” players on the free agency market.
Balme hadn’t thought about returning to Collingwood but jumped at it when the call came.
“One more decent tilt at another windmill” is how he puts it. Collingwood, he says, is a “pretty good windmill” — one of few capable of luring him from Geelong. A vote of confidence.
“Collingwood is always at the crossroads except in the summer after a flag,” Derek Hine says.
Every drama, every success, is magnified by the intense public interest.
“You can never use injuries as an excuse — but,” he says, then points to a run of injuries so unprecedented in the past two seasons that “we never had a clear run at our best 22”.
As fans go, few know more than club historian Michael Roberts (not the former VFL player). He might be expected to be a bit sentimental about departing players but, barring Beams’s exit, he’s content.
“Didak, Jolly, Tarrant and Davis were finished,” he says. “And Heritier Lumumba and Heath Shaw were necessary moves to reinvigorate the culture.” This is code for weeding out players perceived to have had a free hand under Malthouse.
“It feels like a systematic approach, but there just haven’t been the results on the field yet.
Another Shaw, Heath’s uncle, premiership captain and former coach Tony, concedes that supporters don’t “run” clubs the way they once did but he forecasts a storm of criticism for Buckley if the team fades this season.
“The club is going brilliantly off the field ... but the greatest pressure on a coach is scoreboard pressure,” Shaw says. “You’ve gotta win, gotta make finals ... It’s harder than being Prime Minister, I can tell you.”
Collingwood’s “Prime Minister”, Eddie McGuire, is happy with his Budget. The club is financially stronger than it has ever been.
By Christmas, memberships had topped 60,000, well on the way to beating last season’s record of 80,793 — double the 2007 figure.
McGuire bristles at what he sees as premature criticism. He says battlers like Richmond, Melbourne and St Kilda “have got three years into five-year plans for the last 30 years” whereas Collingwood, Hawthorn and the Swans see things through.
Buckley has coached three years. This season and next will get the Magpies ready for 2017, the club’s 125th anniversary — “and the centenary of winning the premiership in 1917”, McGuire points out.
It sounds like a plan. The message to supporters seems clear: Stick with the program.
Pre-Season Game 3
Collingwood v W. Bulldogs
Etihad Fox Footy 7.00pm Weather: Min 10 Max 22 Chance of rain 5%: < 1mm Wind: S 19kph Betting: Collingwood $1.60 Western Bulldogs $2.30 |
FACT: The year before Nathan Buckley became coach the Pies played in a Grand Final − their second in a row
FACT: Under Buckley the Pies have slipped further down the ladder each year
FACT: Last year the Pies didn’t make the eight
FACT: All eyes outside Collingwood’s inner sanctum are on Nathan Buckley
IN SOME countries, football starts wars. In Australia, it starts arguments and the greatest argument starter of all is Collingwood.
Love them or loathe them, the Magpies have a grip on the public imagination that other AFL clubs — and other sports and businesses — can only dream about. They are that rare thing in sport, competitors that transcend the game.
“The Club” pushes cricket off the back page in summer, the same with horseracing in spring. Almost anywhere that Australians gather around the globe, the Pies get a guernsey in the conversation.
For football purists, that conversation is about Collingwood the team: how it plays, the game and the politics of winning and losing. But Collingwood the club means more than just footy for some. Its president Eddie McGuire sees its financial dominance not just as proof of skilled housekeeping but as a force for social good, helping plug the gap between haves and have-nots.
The Collingwood camp has plenty of have-nots. McGuire wants them to feel they have a stake in Australia’s version of Manchester United, the King Kong of world sport.
Football is a broad church. For years in Victoria, it has jokingly been called a religion. But for many Collingwood followers, it’s no joke: belonging to the black-and-white tribe gives their lives meaning.
The club’s 1890s origins are Irish, Catholic and working class. Their faith is fierce and one-eyed.
The people who run the fast-food caravans outside the MCG know about this. When they arrive at midday on Fridays and Collingwood is drawn to play that night, early bird Magpies are already waiting.
This doesn’t happen with other clubs’ supporters.
“They’re the biggest diehard enthusiasts you’ve ever seen,” says one food vendor about the Magpie army. “It’s what they live for. On game day they are by far the best spenders outside the ground.”
In fact, when the Magpies are playing well, the caravans take more money outside the gates than caterers do inside the MCG. The caravans serve 3000 jam doughnuts at a big Collingwood game, compared with “maybe 1200 for other clubs”.
The difference between Collingwood supporters and others, he says, is that Magpie fans identify so strongly with each other.
“They’re different. They’re a tight-knit family and they all talk to each other about footy. Fans from other clubs are not really socialising with each other the same way.”
But the tribalism has an edge.
“If they’re winning, they’re great, but if they’re losing they will turn dirty in a heartbeat.”
That wouldn’t surprise Nathan Buckley as he readies for his fourth season in one of sport’s toughest jobs — that of Pies senior coach.
Some see this year as Buckley’s make-or-break season. Several former AFL coaches and club officials reckon Collingwood is as likely to finish 12th as fifth in September.
If that happens, closet Buckley knockers will start sniping openly.
After Buckley swapped his boots for a clipboard, he was Mick Malthouse’s loyal assistant, then his successor, a transition planned as carefully as a royal wedding.
Collingwood finished 11th last season, only a few kicks out of the eight but outclassed by the top four — and below half a dozen second-tier teams.
It’s no disgrace but if it happens again, all eyes will be on Buckley. Including some, maybe, in the boardroom and coterie groups.
If that happens the question the knockers will ask is whether ‘Eddie’ will stick with ‘Bucks’.
McGuire says he will. Only a complete cynic would suspect he wouldn’t. He has invested in Buckley and won’t be tearing up contracts just to please those who don’t share his faith.
Unless, that is, the coach — rather than injuries or recruiting — is clearly to blame.
EVEN years after a treacherous hamstring did what his opponents could not, the best Collingwood player in a century still looks as if scientists designed him to combine speed, endurance and strength.
From the jutting jaw to the squared shoulders to the locomotive legs, Nathan Buckley radiates natural athleticism: part bruiser, part ballet dancer. If footballers were sold like yearling racehorses, he’d have topped the sales.
Unlike most sale toppers and No.1 draft picks, Buckley performed as well as he looked. But, as a coach, maybe he still faces the dilemma of the gifted player he used to be.
Brent Crosswell, one of the most gifted of all, once explained that the gifted player is often disappointed “because of the compromise he has to make with the fact it’s a team game”. Meaning, at least 15 teammates struggle to do things “the natural” does as easily as breathing.
Such talent can attract criticism as well as admiration. From Buckley’s first season in black and white after coming from Brisbane in 1994, he was sneered at behind his back. It was the price he paid for not making light of his ability, instead always trying to improve on it.
Two decades on, Buckley the calm perfectionist has brought his thoughtful attitude to coaching. It’s who he is. Watch him at a big function, even out-of-season, and he isn’t busting to crack jokes and have beers with the boys.
At one event where most guests party hard all afternoon, you see Buckley off to the side in deep conversation with another of the game’s more serious graduates, AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick. Both are friendly and have a sense of humour but neither tends to waste time on small talk or feels the need to suffer fools.
Back when football (and coaching) was a simpler game, the likes of Barassi, Sheedy — and Malthouse — could tear strips off players in a rage or as part of a calculated “tough love” stratagem. But they’d have a drink and a laugh with them after the game, burying the hatchet until next time.
Buckley strikes some watchers as cooler and drier than that, a grown-up among excitable boys. This is no criticism. He has also had to face the extra hurdle of coaching players he’s played with or knows well, something that didn’t help other favourite sons such as Francis Bourke, Wayne Schimmelbusch and Michael Voss.
If football coaches are not weird or wired when they start in the big league, they can soon get that way. The reason, a coach once confided, is that everyone from the junior cheersquad to the old folks’ home is a footy expert.
“If you coach the Australian hockey team,” he said, “there’s maybe half a dozen people in the country who know as much about the game as you do — and they don’t interfere. But if there are 90,000 people at a football game, they all think they know better.”
Among the critics, of course, are rivals with a vested interest in making mischief.
The pressure cooker effect gets to some coaches.
When Ross Lyon turned on a Dockers supporter brash enough to touch him as he strode past at three-quarter time in a losing finals match last year, it showed how intensely even cool heads can react.
The punter might be lucky he didn’t cop a whack. Football lore has it that a teenager playing kick-to-kick at the Western Oval in the Mick Malthouse era wasn’t so lucky after he offered the then-Bulldogs coach some free advice as he stalked across the field after a loss.
Malthouse, the tough-as-nails defender from Ballarat, has never been a soft touch. His exit from Collingwood after coaching the team to the 2010 premiership and the 2011 Grand Final is one of the great plot twists of modern Australian sport.
The estranged Malthouse gave a long interview on The Footy Show claiming he’d been pressured into handing over when he wasn’t really ready. If there was a moment when some club insiders fell out of love with their premiership coach, it was then — more so because they realised rank-and-file followers would take Malthouse’s part and disrupt the club.
McGuire had virtually staked his presidency on hiring Malthouse from West Coast in 2000. But the mateship cooled as Buckley took up the coach-in-waiting spot. It didn’t improve when Malthouse seemed to step up hostilities from the sidelines. The pair reputedly haven’t spoken since Malthouse went to Carlton after the 2012 season.
Malthouse is set to break Jock McHale’s coaching record of 714 games on May 1 — against Collingwood. Both his friends and enemies use this extraordinary longevity to back opposing views.
His supporters point to his long list of finals appearances; his critics say in coaching the 1990s West Coast Eagles he had an elite “state team” and should have won six flags, not two.
Sour Carlton supporters now tell each other Malthouse’s average over 30 years is exactly that: average. Carlton and Collingwood fans don’t agree on much, but find common ground in the man they now jokingly call “Not-my-Faulthouse”.
Malthouse’s default position is to attack, which has earned him enemies in the media. A former newspaper editor (and Collingwood fan) speaks for many when he says that interviewing Malthouse “is like being punished for a crime you didn’t commit”.
But all of his supposed flaws would go unnoticed if his team started winning. In footy, victory ensures forgiveness for nearly anything.
Even taking home loaves of bread from the club canteen, as one premiership coach reputedly did every day.
Even drinking two bottles of wine before training, as another legendary coach reputedly did for a few seasons before the axe fell. Then there were the gamblers and the lechers and the thieves.
Compared with some of the giants of his craft, Buckley is a cleanskin. But as the months tick past, he is getting closer to the point where either he vindicates the patience shown in him — or it runs out.
IF Nathan Buckley feels the pressure, he doesn’t show it. He looks as composed — and nearly as fit — as he was on the field.
In his office at the Westpac Centre, he’s calmly listing reasons to be cheerful about Collingwood’s prospects.
On the list is the fact that Neil Balme agreed to return from Geelong to take over as head of the football department from Rodney Eade, who left to coach the Gold Coast Suns.
Re-calling Balme wasn’t spur-of-the-moment: Collingwood keeps a short list of “wanted” people to slot into gaps that appear.
Why Balme? Buckley says: “He brings experience and intelligence. He played and coached. He was relatively successful as a coach. He knows how football clubs work. He’s the perfect foil.”
He doesn’t need to add that Balme has the clout to work with one of the most decorated players of all time and perhaps the most mercurial and powerful president since the John Wren era.
Buckley is unruffled discussing Collingwood’s prospects, stressing the depth and potential of the list rather than stars.
“It doesn’t matter how good Pendles (Scott Pendlebury) is if the bottom 12 of the 22 don’t play well,” he cautions. “That’s why we give ourselves a chance this season. We’re not really thinking about 2017 or 2016 — or even round 10 this year. Just concentrating on what’s next.”
He isn’t spooked by the F-word.
“That sort of blue sky is exciting for us.”
He brushes off rumours of unrest, saying he wishes supporters could spend 24 hours with him, Balme, chief executive Gary Pert and the football talent at the Westpac Centre, which must be among the best sports facilities in the land.
But he’s a realist. “A 20kg weight is the same here as it was at Victoria Park — and it doesn’t lift itself.” In the end, the buck stops with coaches and players.
Buckley, Balme, McGuire, recruiting manager Derek Hine — and no doubt Pert — are in furious agreement about what Balme bluntly calls “quite a lot of necessary change” to the list Buckley inherited.
Unstated, but obvious, is that the loss of Dayne Beams to his native Queensland hurt the team. Balme says they are relaxed about the rest who have gone — Heritier Lumumba, Heath Shaw, Alan Didak, Darren Jolly, Chris Tarrant, Leon Davis and others.
“Players get older and retire. No one has the patience to do what Geelong did and get a heap of kids and wait ... but we still essentially have to draft good kids, put them in a good program and build a team. It takes time. But you’re not allowed to use the term ‘re-build’,” he adds.
Meanwhile, to stay competitive while recruits learn their jobs, the club has to juggle its list and haggle for “made” players on the free agency market.
Balme hadn’t thought about returning to Collingwood but jumped at it when the call came.
“One more decent tilt at another windmill” is how he puts it. Collingwood, he says, is a “pretty good windmill” — one of few capable of luring him from Geelong. A vote of confidence.
“Collingwood is always at the crossroads except in the summer after a flag,” Derek Hine says.
Every drama, every success, is magnified by the intense public interest.
“You can never use injuries as an excuse — but,” he says, then points to a run of injuries so unprecedented in the past two seasons that “we never had a clear run at our best 22”.
As fans go, few know more than club historian Michael Roberts (not the former VFL player). He might be expected to be a bit sentimental about departing players but, barring Beams’s exit, he’s content.
“Didak, Jolly, Tarrant and Davis were finished,” he says. “And Heritier Lumumba and Heath Shaw were necessary moves to reinvigorate the culture.” This is code for weeding out players perceived to have had a free hand under Malthouse.
“It feels like a systematic approach, but there just haven’t been the results on the field yet.
Another Shaw, Heath’s uncle, premiership captain and former coach Tony, concedes that supporters don’t “run” clubs the way they once did but he forecasts a storm of criticism for Buckley if the team fades this season.
“The club is going brilliantly off the field ... but the greatest pressure on a coach is scoreboard pressure,” Shaw says. “You’ve gotta win, gotta make finals ... It’s harder than being Prime Minister, I can tell you.”
Collingwood’s “Prime Minister”, Eddie McGuire, is happy with his Budget. The club is financially stronger than it has ever been.
By Christmas, memberships had topped 60,000, well on the way to beating last season’s record of 80,793 — double the 2007 figure.
McGuire bristles at what he sees as premature criticism. He says battlers like Richmond, Melbourne and St Kilda “have got three years into five-year plans for the last 30 years” whereas Collingwood, Hawthorn and the Swans see things through.
Buckley has coached three years. This season and next will get the Magpies ready for 2017, the club’s 125th anniversary — “and the centenary of winning the premiership in 1917”, McGuire points out.
It sounds like a plan. The message to supporters seems clear: Stick with the program.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Injury List
Collingwood News
On 19 March, Director of Football Neil Balme provided an update on the injury status of the following players.
Lachlan Keeffe (hamstring)
"Lachlan is short-term. He’s still got a bit of a hamstring issue, I’m not quite sure when he will be able to play. He’s probably a week or so, but he’s certainly short-term. He’ll be fine."
Brent Macaffer (knee)
"Brent is in the same boat. He’s still recovering from his knee reconstruction and is genuinely long-term at this stage."
Jonathon Marsh (hamstring)
"Good news for Jonathon him, as he will play in the VFL next week. He's in full training and is pretty well ready to go."
Darcy Moore (toe)
"Darcy, with his toe, is in a similar boat to Jonathon Marsh. We’re really pleased with both of those guys. They are both available to play (in the VFL next week)."
Paul Seedsman (hip)
"Paul’s not that far away. He’s coming along pretty well. We’re just a touch slow with him so he’s short-term. We’re just not sure if we have got quite enough work into him as yet."
Matthew Scharenberg (knee)
"As I said last week, he’s going very well. We just need to get three or four weeks of genuine full footy training into him before we take a risk of playing him but in a physical sense he’s probably ready to go. Watch this space with him. It’s really good news."
Clinton Young (hamstring)
"Clinton is coming along OK, but it’s still a medium-term recovery from his hamstring injury."
Collingwood's injury list explained
In 2015, Collingwood will be using the following method to categorise its injuries:
Short-term
A short-term injury indicates that there is some chance a player will play in the VFL or AFL on the coming weekend, but it is more likely that they won't.
Medium-term
If a player has sustained a medium-term injury, it is considered that he will require more than a two weeks to return to the VFL or the AFL, but the club is unsure exactly how long it will be.
Long-term
If a player has sustained a long-term injury, that means it will be more than six weeks until they play football at either VFL or AFL level.
"We normally talk about how many weeks players are going to miss, but we never know for sure," Director of Football Neil Balme explained.
"It’s always a bit of a guess. This stops us from saying two-to-three weeks, which then turns into 18 weeks, which can quite often happen."
Pre-Season Game 3
Collingwood v W. Bulldogs
Etihad Fox Footy 7.00pm Weather: Min 10 Max 22 Chance of rain 5%: < 1mm Wind: S 19kph Betting: Collingwood $1.60 Western Bulldogs $2.30 |
Lachlan Keeffe (hamstring)
"Lachlan is short-term. He’s still got a bit of a hamstring issue, I’m not quite sure when he will be able to play. He’s probably a week or so, but he’s certainly short-term. He’ll be fine."
Brent Macaffer (knee)
"Brent is in the same boat. He’s still recovering from his knee reconstruction and is genuinely long-term at this stage."
Jonathon Marsh (hamstring)
"Good news for Jonathon him, as he will play in the VFL next week. He's in full training and is pretty well ready to go."
Darcy Moore (toe)
"Darcy, with his toe, is in a similar boat to Jonathon Marsh. We’re really pleased with both of those guys. They are both available to play (in the VFL next week)."
Paul Seedsman (hip)
"Paul’s not that far away. He’s coming along pretty well. We’re just a touch slow with him so he’s short-term. We’re just not sure if we have got quite enough work into him as yet."
Matthew Scharenberg (knee)
"As I said last week, he’s going very well. We just need to get three or four weeks of genuine full footy training into him before we take a risk of playing him but in a physical sense he’s probably ready to go. Watch this space with him. It’s really good news."
Clinton Young (hamstring)
"Clinton is coming along OK, but it’s still a medium-term recovery from his hamstring injury."
Collingwood's injury list explained
In 2015, Collingwood will be using the following method to categorise its injuries:
Short-term
A short-term injury indicates that there is some chance a player will play in the VFL or AFL on the coming weekend, but it is more likely that they won't.
Medium-term
If a player has sustained a medium-term injury, it is considered that he will require more than a two weeks to return to the VFL or the AFL, but the club is unsure exactly how long it will be.
Long-term
If a player has sustained a long-term injury, that means it will be more than six weeks until they play football at either VFL or AFL level.
"We normally talk about how many weeks players are going to miss, but we never know for sure," Director of Football Neil Balme explained.
"It’s always a bit of a guess. This stops us from saying two-to-three weeks, which then turns into 18 weeks, which can quite often happen."
Pre Season Game 3: The Squad
Collingwood News
Collingwood will pump vital game time into the legs of several senior players when it meets the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium this Saturday.
In their final official tune-up for the home and away season, the Magpies’ match committee has opted to add senior quintet Steele Sidebottom, Jamie Elliott, Jack Frost, Jesse White and Taylor Adams to the 27-man squad.
Onballers Sam Dwyer and Jordan De Goey and ruck prospect Mason Cox are the men to make way this week as the club seeks to manage each individual players’ workload on the eve of the season proper.
The Magpies will field a 24-man team against the Bulldogs, featuring four men on the interchange bench and two substitutes.
Ruckman Brodie Grundy has been named in the squad and is set to take to the field after sitting out the second half of Sunday’s loss to Carlton with a sore side.
“Brodie was a little bit sore after the game but he should be fine,” Director of Football Neil Balme told CollingwoodTV’s Blackmores Injury Update.
“Jack Frost is also ready to go,” Balme continued.
“He was really precautionary with his ankle last week.”
Neither Ben Reid or Jarrod Witts were selected in Saturday’s line up.
The pair returned from long-term injuries in the VFL against Geelong last Saturday and Balme expects them to continue their comebacks through the state league.
The match will be Collingwood’s first in Melbourne for 2015, and its first against a Luke Beveridge-led Bulldogs outfit.
Beveridge, who was appointed by the Bulldogs last November, was a development coach at the Westpac Centre in 2009 and 2010.
Squad
1. Alex Fasolo
4. Brodie Grundy
5. Jamie Elliott
6. Tyson Goldsack
7. Ben Kennedy
8. Tom Langdon
9. Jesse White
10. Scott Pendlebury (captain)
11. Jarryd Blair
13. Taylor Adams
16. Nathan Brown
18. Travis Varcoe
19. Levi Greenwood
22. Steele Sidebottom
24. Josh Thomas
25. Jack Crisp
26. Marley Williams
28. Ben Sinclair
29. Tim Broomhead
31. Jackson Ramsay
32. Travis Cloke
33. Patrick Karnezis
34. Alan Toovey
36. Dane Swan
43. Adam Oxley
44. Corey Gault*
45. Jack Frost*
*Denotes rookie
IN: Taylor Adams, Jamie Elliott, Jack Frost, Steele Sidebottom, Jesse White
OUT: Mason Cox, Jordan De Goey, Sam Dwyer
Pre-Season Game 3
Collingwood v W. Bulldogs
Etihad Fox Footy 7.00pm Weather: Min 10 Max 22 Chance of rain 5%: < 1mm Wind: S 19kph Betting: Collingwood $1.60 Western Bulldogs $2.30 |
In their final official tune-up for the home and away season, the Magpies’ match committee has opted to add senior quintet Steele Sidebottom, Jamie Elliott, Jack Frost, Jesse White and Taylor Adams to the 27-man squad.
Onballers Sam Dwyer and Jordan De Goey and ruck prospect Mason Cox are the men to make way this week as the club seeks to manage each individual players’ workload on the eve of the season proper.
The Magpies will field a 24-man team against the Bulldogs, featuring four men on the interchange bench and two substitutes.
Ruckman Brodie Grundy has been named in the squad and is set to take to the field after sitting out the second half of Sunday’s loss to Carlton with a sore side.
“Brodie was a little bit sore after the game but he should be fine,” Director of Football Neil Balme told CollingwoodTV’s Blackmores Injury Update.
“Jack Frost is also ready to go,” Balme continued.
“He was really precautionary with his ankle last week.”
Neither Ben Reid or Jarrod Witts were selected in Saturday’s line up.
The pair returned from long-term injuries in the VFL against Geelong last Saturday and Balme expects them to continue their comebacks through the state league.
The match will be Collingwood’s first in Melbourne for 2015, and its first against a Luke Beveridge-led Bulldogs outfit.
Beveridge, who was appointed by the Bulldogs last November, was a development coach at the Westpac Centre in 2009 and 2010.
Squad
1. Alex Fasolo
4. Brodie Grundy
5. Jamie Elliott
6. Tyson Goldsack
7. Ben Kennedy
8. Tom Langdon
9. Jesse White
10. Scott Pendlebury (captain)
11. Jarryd Blair
13. Taylor Adams
16. Nathan Brown
18. Travis Varcoe
19. Levi Greenwood
22. Steele Sidebottom
24. Josh Thomas
25. Jack Crisp
26. Marley Williams
28. Ben Sinclair
29. Tim Broomhead
31. Jackson Ramsay
32. Travis Cloke
33. Patrick Karnezis
34. Alan Toovey
36. Dane Swan
43. Adam Oxley
44. Corey Gault*
45. Jack Frost*
*Denotes rookie
IN: Taylor Adams, Jamie Elliott, Jack Frost, Steele Sidebottom, Jesse White
OUT: Mason Cox, Jordan De Goey, Sam Dwyer
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Injury List
AFL
|
|
Monday, March 16, 2015
Pre-Season Game 2: Carlton 71 Collingwood 64
THE FACTS
COLLINGWOOD 4.1.25 1.6.5.50 1.6.10.55 1.7.13.64
CARLTON 1.5.1.40 1.7.3.54 1.8.6.63 1.9.8.71
SUPERGOALS - Collingwood: A Oxley Carlton: A Everitt
GOALS - Collingwood: Blair 2, Gault, De Goey, Fasolo, Cloke, Broomhead
BEST - Collingwood: Greenwood, Crisp, Blair, Pendlebury, Sinclair, Fasolo
INJURIES - Collingwood: Grundy (hip)
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Travis Varcoe replaced Brodie Grundy (hip) in the third quarter
REPORTS - Collingwood: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 9,542 at Queen Elizabeth Oval, Bendigo
STATISTICS
COLLINGWOOD 4.1.25 1.6.5.50 1.6.10.55 1.7.13.64
CARLTON 1.5.1.40 1.7.3.54 1.8.6.63 1.9.8.71
SUPERGOALS - Collingwood: A Oxley Carlton: A Everitt
GOALS - Collingwood: Blair 2, Gault, De Goey, Fasolo, Cloke, Broomhead
BEST - Collingwood: Greenwood, Crisp, Blair, Pendlebury, Sinclair, Fasolo
INJURIES - Collingwood: Grundy (hip)
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Travis Varcoe replaced Brodie Grundy (hip) in the third quarter
REPORTS - Collingwood: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 9,542 at Queen Elizabeth Oval, Bendigo
STATISTICS
 |
 |
| THE MEDIA | |
|
A revved-up Chris Yarran has fired Carlton to a seven-point NAB Challenge victory over Collingwood in front of a sell-out crowd in Bendigo. Yarran's dash and dare from the back half was pivotal throughout the game, but especially as the Blues skipped out to an early 33-point advantage midway through the first term. The Magpies reeled their arch-rivals back in after some tinkering defensively and a clear lift in effort, but it was Yarran and defensive partner Kade Simpson who continued to cause headaches as the Blues closed out the 1.9.8 (71) to 1.7.13 (64) victory. Sporting flashy red boots, Yarran collected 21 disposals and five rebound 50s to dictate terms and kick-start Carlton's improved offensive efficiency. Coach Mick Malthouse, who returned to the coaching box after missing the Blues' first NAB Challenge hit-out against West Coast to support wife Nanette through surgery, revealed he is prepared to change his philosophy from an offensive point of view. Skipper Chris Judd was the difference maker around the contests, winning 23 disposals and helping himself to a game-high 10 clearances. But it was Andrejs Everitt who kick-started Carlton with two goals and a booming Supergoal in the first term. The Blues fed off Everitt's energy as they opened with six of the game's first seven goals. The way Carlton transferred the ball from side to side created gashes in Collingwood's defensive zone, as time and again the Blues manufactured fast breaks. Yarran and Simpson were crucial in creating the Blues' rapid-fire ball movement and their teammates followed their lead. But the Magpies worked their way back into the contest after quarter time on the back of a clear lift in effort. Recruits Levi Greenwood (17 disposals) and Jack Crisp (14) cracked in and made the most of the contest, while skipper Scott Pendlebury was at his consistent best with 16 disposals. Young ruckman Brodie Grundy suffered a possible hip injury after being cannoned into in a marking contest. Blues ruckman Robert Warnock left the game worse for wear in the third term after sustaining a shoulder injury, while stand-in captain Bryce Gibbs also appeared to be favouring his shoulder. The Blues play Geelong in their final pre-season hit-out at Etihad Stadium next Sunday, while Collingwood faces the Western Bulldogs at the same venue on Saturday night. WHAT WE LEARNED Collingwood's thin big-man stocks could cause problems if injury decides to strike this season. The Pies went into the game with Brodie Grundy and former US College basketballer Mason Cox in the ruck, but when Grundy went off in the third quarter, after copping a knee in a marking contest, the Pies began to look shaky in the middle of the ground. Granted, Jarrod Witts, who had shoulder surgery in the off-season, played in the VFL on Saturday and is likely to come in for round one. However, the Pies are placing a lot of faith in their young ruckmen to deliver in 2015. NEW FACES Levi Greenwood led the club's disposal count with 17, while former Lion Jack Crisp (14) also made a strong contribution, his toughness around the contest standing out. Travis Varcoe shed the green vest to get involved in the second half and the way he breaks the lines is going to be important for the Pies this season. Youngster Jordan De Goey was much quieter than he was against the Hawks. It is perhaps a sign of how dramatically the football landscape has changed in the past couple of decades that early this week Collingwood will be conducting a community camp right in the heart of what used to be prized recruiting territory for its arch rival Carlton. The Bendigo area produced a catalogue of champions for the Blues, the likes of Greg Williams, Geoff Southby, Rod Ashman and Trevor Keogh just a sample. But with the country zones long abolished, these are any club's lands these days. The former Carlton champions would have enjoyed then the point their contemporary counterparts seemed intent on making an early statement in Sunday's NAB Challenge game at the historic Queen Elizabeth Oval, packed with 9542 fans. The Blues led by as much as 33 points, indeed after only 18 minutes of play, with Collingwood loose at the centre bounces and looser still when the ball went inside the defensive 50. Andrejs Everitt was a standout, booting the first of three goals for the term after a strong mark inside 50, the second a long bomb from outside 50 earning him nine points, and the third in the trifecta a "gimme". Then it was the turn of this year's influx of senior players from other AFL clubs to chip in, Liam Jones marking and converting and his former Bulldogs teammate Jason Tutt booting another off the ground. By then, another lopsided pre-season game loomed. But it was then the Blues' turn to lapse defensively. A turnover from Troy Menzel let Jarryd Blair in for Collingwood's first goal since youngster Corey Gault had opened their account. But that would be the signal for the Pies to slam on five unanswered goals of their own. He'd boot the next, too, before Jordan De Goey gratefully accepted a centre from Alex Fasolo in acres of space. Adam Oxley started the second term with a nine-pointer and when Fasolo also marked relatively unattended, Collingwood was level. Things stayed even on the scoreboard for a while after that, while the considerable level of class on display out on the field began to assert itself even more than it had previously. Far from jog around in second gear, Chris Judd was on fire, setting his teammates up out of the square countless times early. And the real buzz around the Queen Elizabeth Oval was reserved for the frequent occasions on which Chris Yarran got his hands on the pill. It wasn't just the metres gained for Carlton by Yarran off half-back, it was the way he sliced through the flailing Collingwood pursuers. Yarran set up Carlton's first goal of the game with a crisp pass, another in the second term for Jones, and right on the half-time siren launched a jinking, dashing solo run which had taken on and beaten four Pies and counting when it was only the sound of the siren which stopped him in his tracks. Both Carlton and Collingwood had their anxious moments in terms of personnel immediately after the long break, though. For the Pies, young ruckman Brodie Grundy had come from the ground holding his left side late in the second term, and was eventually subbed out at the break for Travis Varcoe. And not long after the resumptiom, his opposite number Robbie Warnock, who had impressed early, left the field clutching his shoulder and was taken to the rooms for treatment. That was about as dramatic as the second half got, the scoring chances drying up in a third term which produced just one goal, and both the Pies and Blues wasting too many chances which came their way in the last. While the senior men were the standouts in this game, Carlton full-back Michael Jamison's blanketing of Travis Cloke another goods example, the fresher or newer faces certainly had their moments, too. Collingwood would have been happy with the form of Levi Greenwood while Brisbane pick-up Jack Crisp was busy enough. For the Blues, Kristian Jaksch was effective on Magpie forwards Corey Gault and Patrick Karnezis, and Patrick Cripps made his presence felt. But this was a day for experience to exert its authority, perhaps as good a sign as any when you see the likes of Judd turning it on that the official start of the 2015 season surely now can't be too far away at all. |
CARLTON prevailed over Collingwood in a lively NAB Challenge clash in Bendigo, but both clubs will be awaiting medical reports over respective ruckmen Robbie Warnock and Brodie Grundy. Grundy hurt his hip/side just before half-time and was subbed out of the match at the break, as he gingerly watched the rest of the game from the sidelines. And early in the third term Warnock was forced from the field nursing a sore shoulder. He went down into the rooms and did not return to the contest. Speaking after a lively clash before more than 9500 fans at Queen Elizabeth Oval, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley played down Grundy’s injury saying it had always been the club’s intention to substitute Grundy out of the second half. While conceding the young ruckman was sore after being withdrawn at half-time, the coach was confident the knock would not affect his rundown to the home-and-away season. “We can make bigger things of it than what they actually are,” Buckley said. “He copped a knock, but he was coming off at half-time (regardless).” Carlton coach Mick Malthouse said Warnock’s shoulder knock was not a concern. “He’s ok ... all the blokes are ok. You don’t take chances in these games,” Malthouse said. But the Carlton coach, back at the match-day helm after missing the club’s previous NAB Challenge game against West Coast, was excited by the shape of veteran Chris Judd, who was outstanding in his first game for 2015. Asked if this was the best shape Judd had been in to start a season for some time, Malthouse said: “Physically he is (in great shape). He’s always seemed to have something that’s held him back ...” Judd combined brilliantly with half-back Chris Yarran, and ball-movers Andrew Carrazzo and Kade Simpson as the Blues started brilliantly, and then held on gamely as the Magpies threatened to pinch the game. Malthouse said the playing list was in better shape physically compared to this time last year. “Eight of the boys (Judd, Carrazzo, Warnock, Andrejs Everitt, Bryce Gibbs, Lachie Henderson, Michael Jamison and Troy Menzel) played their first games (on Sunday),” Malthouse said. “We’ll bring in (Marc) Murphy, (Dale) Thomas, (David) Ellard and maybe (Matthew) Watson next week which means a few of these will drop out. “We want to have 28 to 29 players that we can pick from, not just against Richmond (in Round 1) but the first two or three games. “We’re in a better position (than last year).” Buckley said the return of Scott Pendlebury, Dane Swan, Travis Cloke and Jarryd Blair was part of a progression to Round 1, but believed his team lacked four-quarter performers. “Pendles, Swanny, Trav and Blairy all had their moments, (but) it looked like a first hit-out,” he said. “The way we play is not about names. It is not about who is (out) there; it is about how, and we didn’t do the how anywhere as well as we did against Hawthorn.” The two old rivals fought out a spirited contest, with Yarran turning in a masterclass performance, creating countless opportunities for his team. The Blues were pleased with the efforts of Everitt, who dominated the opening term, kicking two goals as well as a nine-pointer as Carlton opened up a 33-point lead. But the Magpies, helped by solid performances from former Kangaroo Levi Greenwood and ex-Lion Jack Crisp, fought their way back into the match. The third term turned into a stalement with neither side able to use the ball as well as they would have liked. As a result, only one goal came in almost 23 minutes of play, and that came when Carrazzo seized the moment, allowing the Blues to hold it to an eight-point margin at the last change. And then they managed to hold out the Magpies in the final term. CARLTON saw off a late challenge from Collingwood to win by seven points in Bendigo yesterday. In front of a sellout crowd of 9542 fans, the Blues looked set for a blowout victory when they led by 33 points halfway through the first term, but a resurgent Collingwood made them work hard for their 1.9.8 (71) to 1.7.13 (64) win. However, both teams left the match with injury concerns over their ruckmen. The Pies’ Brodie Grundy was subbed out with a hip problem at halftime and the Blues’ Robbie Warnock copped a shoulder knock early in the third quarter. He was briefly attended to by club doctors and took no further part in the match. The clash was the first hit-out of the NAB Challenge for some star players from both sides. For the Blues, Chris Judd had an immediate impact and worked hard all day for his 23 disposals, with 10 clearances. Andrew Carrazzo was also impressive with 25 touches. Bryce Gibbs skippered the side in Marc Murphy’s absence, but he played only one half before being subbed out. For Collingwood, Scott Pendlebury (16 possessions) showed flashes of his trademark class, Dane Swan (12) was quiet early but got better as the game went on, and Travis Cloke largely struggled to get into the game, finishing with one goal. The Blues’ Andrejs Everitt started with a bang with three goals, two regulation and one nine-pointer, in the first quarter. He roamed further afield after that, but he and Liam Jones combined well in a first half, when tall target Levi Casboult had little influence. The Pies fought back well late in the first term, with Jarryd Blair bagging two goals in his first game of the pre-season series, but the Blues were able to keep them at arm’s length despite their best efforts. Collingwood got to within two points late in the third quarter, but could never get their noses in front as the Blues hung on for the win. Carlton’s Chris Yarran was at his eye-catching best off half-back with 21 disposals, while Levi Greenwood was the Pies’ leading possession winner with 17.
WHAT WE LEARNED
|
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)