FREMANTLE 3.2.20 7.4.46 9.6.60 12.8.80
SCORERS - Collingwood: Elliott (2.0), Fasolo (2.0), Adams (1.0), Blair (1.0), Broomhead (1.0), Crisp (1.0), De Goey (1.0), Pendlebury (1.0), Seedsman (1.0), Varcoe (0.1), White (0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Pendlebury, Varcoe, Swan, Sidebottom, Brown, Adams, Cloke
INJURIES - Collingwood: Nil
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Paul Seedsman replaced Adam Oxley at three-quarter time
REPORTS: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD: 37,145 at Subiaco Oval, Perth
| 1. Thursday night goes off in Perth The AFL had to be rapt with the quality of game as the Thursday night experiment hit Perth for the fifth time. The joint was buzzing all night with the only downside coming when smoke from the pre-match fireworks failed to clear for several minutes. The 6.10pm start on a workday saw many fans arrive late but the heat of the game was matched by the intensity of the purple army with a healthy sprinkling of the black and white crew. Definitely one worth persisting with, Gillon. 2. Sandilands v Witts Freo’s 211cm, 119kg walking lamppost Aaron Sandilands faced another man monster in Jarrod Witts, who himself weighs in at 111kg and stands an imposing 209cm. The 32-year-old Sandilands had the experience but the 22-year-old Magpie lacked nothing in spirit. He set up a goal to Alex Fasolo in the second term after Sandilands dropped a mark and didn’t take a backwards step all night. In the end big Sandi took the points with his 50 hit-outs but it wouldn’t surprise to see the tables turned in the next year or two. 3. Not just goals for Cloke Subiaco Oval hasn’t been kind to Collingwood spearhead Travis Cloke over the years. In nine previous games Cloke had booted just 13 goals and his record against Freo was moderate with 18 goals from 11 matches. He didn’t add to his goal tally but “goals scored” don’t always tell the story and Cloke’s high workrate found out Luke McPharlin for much of the night. He also had to contend with Garrick Ibbotson as well on many occasions and was among the Pies’ best. |
4. Varcoe, 150 of the best He made his mark in 138 games at Geelong but Travis Varcoe may have found his most consistent form in his 12 matches at Collingwood this season. Geelong fans have a warm place in their hearts for Varcoe, after his heroics in both the 2009 Grand Final – when he rifled out the handpass to Paul Chapman for the winning goal – and in 2011 when he booted the opening two goals of the game and added a brilliant end-to-end snap late. However, Pies fans are learning to love him too. His 150th game on Thursday night was notable because of his astonishing winning record. Going into last night his 81.88 per cent winning record (122 wins-27 losses) was the best of any player who hadd played more than 100 games. And his milestone match was one of his best with fierce tackling, savage attack at the contest and sure ball handling the features. 5. Pavlich nearing the end? We’d love to see Matthew Pavlich get a flag before he calls it a day but it might have to be this year or never. He started the season well but his form has tapered a fair bit in recent weeks. He went goalless in the previous two weeks and made it three in a row against the Pies. He hasn’t gone three games without a goal since early in 2011 when Freo only won nine games. Pav was pretty good in the second half but he turns 34 later this year and like McPharlin at the other end desperately needs Freo to hurry up and grab that first premiership. Three-time runner-up coach Ross Lyon would be pretty happy to break through as well. |
| THE MEDIA | |
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Fremantle has held off a gallant Collingwood in a seven-point heart-stopper at Subiaco Oval to maintain a buffer at the top of the AFL ladder. The Magpies lost no admirers and confirmed their legitimacy as a finals contender with a quality performance in a high-pressure game played in slippery conditions on Thursday night. Scores were level at three-quarter time but the Dockers took control in the middle and kicked three goals to two in the final term to win their 11th match of the season, 12.8 (80) to 11.7 (73), in front of 37,145 fans. The conditions made it tough for clean ball handling, but Freo’s spread of contributors gave it the ascendancy. Nat Fyfe was phenomenal again with 32 disposals and two goals, Michael Walters kicked four vital goals and Lachie Neale gathered 32 touches and kicked a goal, while Stephen Hill had 24 possessions and two goals. Garrick Ibbotson took nine marks in defence, many of them crucial intercepts, and Aaron Sandilands had 50 hit-outs, 16 of them in the last quarter. For the Magpies, Scott Pendlebury was superb, gathering 25 disposals and kicking a goal despite spending an unusual amount of time on the bench. Travis Varcoe was outstanding in his 150th game while Alex Fasolo and Jamie Elliott kicked two goals apiece. Collingwood started brightly in the opening term, using elements of Richmond's blueprint from round 10 to control the tempo before dominating the clearances through Pendlebury and Swan. Pendlebury had 11 disposals for the quarter and kicked a goal. The Dockers conceded a 15-point lead at one stage before arresting control around the middle. Neale gathered 12 touches and had four clearances and the Dockers cut the margin to two points at quarter-time. But all three Fremantle goals came through front-and-square snaps after long balls to a congested forward 50. The Magpies reclaimed the momentum at the start of the second despite Pendlebury spending the first eight minutes on the bench. But it remained an arm wrestle with the sides kicking four goals each for the term. The slippery conditions and intense pressure forced skill errors on both sides. It also showcased some brilliant crumbing goals at both ends from Fasolo and Walters while Fyfe pushed forward on Swan to take a huge contested mark and kick his second goal. The third term was even tighter as the pressure lifted another cog. Scores were level at three-quarter time as was the kicking efficiency of both clubs, which had dropped to 64 per cent apiece. The Dockers midfield took control early in the last. Both sides received free kicks in front of goal but while Walters slotted his for his fourth, Jesse White missed his chance at the other end to see the Magpies fall just short. A LATE communication breakdown was a “significant factor” in Collingwood’s seven-point loss to Fremantle on Thursday night, Pies coach Nathan Buckley says. Buckley wanted to make a tactical move to close down Fremantle’s extra defender with the game on the line but was unable get the message through. “Structurally towards the end of the last quarter, really the last 15 minutes of the last quarter, we weren’t able to get clean communication to our on-field leaders to be able to square up numbers [in the forward line] which we thought was a significant factor in that last 15 [minutes],” Buckley said. “Fremantle basically played seven (defenders) for the whole last quarter. We had a decision to make half way through that quarter whether to compromise our stoppage structure to fix that up. We were a little bit slow getting that done. “It is something we will look at in review because it clearly has an impact.” Collingwood’s strong showing put them in calculations for a top-four spot at season’s end, but Buckley said he didn’t care what outsiders thought and the Pies hadn’t ”proven anything” in the tight loss. “External opinion is quite fickle, we’ll be up or be down or be the best or be the worst but internally on our measures and on the way we went about it, we think we are tracking in the right direction,” he said. “We are going about our footy the right way and we forced a pretty good side to dig deep to get a win. “When they play in games like that they learn a bit about themselves, about the club they are involved in, about the AFL and the standard that is expected. “We thought pretty much to the man we stood up and gave great effort.” But the challenges will come thick and fast for the Pies now, with games against reigning premier Hawthorn, Port Adelaide away, and West Coast in the next three rounds. However, the draw opens up a bit from there until they head to the SCG in round 20 to take on the Sydney Swans. Buckley was very happy with the brand of football the team was developing. “I’m disappointed that we didn’t get the ultimate reward but there’s plenty of reward that still comes from this evening,” Buckley said. “For the players and the club and potentially the supporters to understand that they’ve got a group of young men, young leaders they can be proud of and that when they turn up and watch a game of footy we are going to play the way we play. “There’s plenty to take out of it … we didn’t get the points and we move on to Hawthorn next week (Friday night at the MCG).” |
TRY telling Travis Cloke the bye is a good thing. Having kicked a total of 12 goals in his two games before Collingwood’s mid-season break last weekend, Cloke on Thursday night went goalless for the first time this season. The Magpies forward didn’t exactly go missing at Subiaco Oval, but he couldn’t have an impact inside the 50m arc as he pushed well up the ground for most of his touches. Cloke had a presence early, with eight disposals in the first quarter, and opponent Luke McPharlin was not able to offer his usual rebound. But while Cloke repeatedly sent the Pies inside forward 50, Nathan Buckley would have loved his focal point on the end of some of the entries on a night when both sides’ tall forwards struggled to kick goals. There wasn’t much love for the Magpie spearhead from the purple army at Subiaco Oval, but it could have been so different. Picture Cloke in purple teaming up with Matthew Pavlich in attack for the Dockers — that was the vision Ross Lyon had when Fremantle offered him $1 million a season to move west in 2012. The pursuit prompted a furious reaction from Magpies president Eddie McGuire. With youngster Matt Taberner axed for last night’s game, the Dockers are still searching for a reliable sidekick and successor to 33-year-old Pavlich. Note to the AFL's small defenders – you must watch Fremantle's Michael Walters from siren to siren. The young Docker kicked four crucial goals to see his side fall over the line against a fierce and clearly more than capable Collingwood, by seven points at Subiaco Oval on Thursday night. His fourth goal came at the 20-minute mark of the final term to give his side an eight-point lead, the biggest the home side had enjoyed all night. But again it was the class of Nat Fyfe and his young apprentice Lachie Neale – each with more than 30 possessions – that got the Dockers over the line. At three quarter-time, the scores were level; but only because of a Walters goal with just six seconds left on the clock. The clever Docker booted the game's first goal just 25 seconds after the first siren went. And his second came again with less than 10 seconds before the half-time bell to reduce the Magpies' lead to just two points. Fremantle won possibly the most important arm wrestle of this AFL season. And with only a few minutes to go Jesse White made a meal of a very gettable chance to get the Pies back to within a kick – that's how close they got. But if Dockers fans didn't realise that there is a long way to go in this season, they do now. A plucky Magpies hardly slipped up in trying to pressure every Docker at every turn over four quarters. At one stage midway through the third term the Dockers handball count was almost the same as their kicks, because they just couldn't get foot to ball. And after losing to Richmond at Subiaco Oval a couple of outings ago, teams will now see Fremantle vulnerable at home. And after looking almost unbeatable in the first eight games of the season, that now does not appear to be the case. The Tigers, Adelaide, the bottom ranked Gold Coast and now the Pies have shown sides plenty of kinks in the Dockers armour. Although the scoreboard showed a level game going into the final term and the possession count was with the home side, Collingwood appeared to hold the advantage. Travis Varcoe, in his 150th game, was leading the way with some ruthless tackling, as every Docker who picked up the ball had someone wearing black and white baring down on them. Dane Swan and Scott Pendlbury were winning the clearances when the Pies were looking at their best. And Collingwood is quick. Paul Seedsman and Jordan de Goey in particular made everyone on the ground look slow at times. And the Dockers just seemed to be working too hard for their goals. During the week, Lyon said the Dockers couldn't afford to rely on Fyfe to carry them to a premiership. Well, without him, Fremantle would have lost their second game in three outings. When the Magpies kicked out to a 14-point lead in the first term, Fyfe bobbed up with a freak goal to get the margin back to three. Again, in the second term, the Magpies kicked out to a 13-point lead and again it was Fyfe that took a spectacular mark and kicked the goal to give his side an unlikely lead. Fyfe had Pie Jack Crisp following him for most of the night and he did a good job. But the champion Docker still managed to amass 24 touches to three-quarter-time. Just before Fyfe kicked those two first-half goals, Stephen Hill had kicked one a couple of minutes earlier. Despite the Dockers being the top-ranked clearance side in the competition, averaging nine more clearances per game than their opposition, Collingwood won seven of the first 10 clearances of the match and hence took the early lead. The turnaround came from the stoppage of work on Neale. He won the clearances that led to both Hill and Fyfe's goals in the first term and earned a shot himself that he slaughtered. He finished the game with a game high 14. |
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