HAWTHORN 4.2.26 8.5.53 12.7.79 15.11.101
SCORERS - Collingwood: White (2.2), Swan (2.1), Cloke (1.4), Fasolo (1.3), Broomhead (1.1), Crisp (1.1), De Goey (1.1), Adams (1.0), Blair (1.0), Williams (1.0), Moore (0.1), Oxley (0.1), Sidebottom (0.1), Varcoe (0.1)
BEST - Collingwood: Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Varcoe, Crisp, Cloke, Williams
INJURIES - Collingwood: Nil
SUBSTITUTES - Collingwood: Darcy Moore replaced by Jarryd Blair at three-quarter time
REPORTS: Travis Varcoe (Collingwood) for forceful front-on contact against Cyril Rioli (Hawthorn) in the final quarter.
OFFICIAL CROWD: 75,880 at the MCG
| 1. Pies kicking themselves Collingwood gave everything it had against reigning premier Hawthorn at the MCG on Friday night, but it still wasn't enough. Despite winning contested possessions (142-133), tackles (79-68) and clearances (46-33), the Magpies struggled to convert their dominance on the scoreboard. Collingwood kicked 12.19 for the match, with forward Jesse White and young midfielder Tim Broomhead missing crucial chances late in the final quarter. White's errant set shot came just a week after his much-debated miss against Fremantle last Thursday night. 2. Football pays its respects to Phil Walsh The tragic death of Adelaide coach Phil Walsh still raw, the football community came together to celebrate his 32-year service to the game he loved. As part of the tribute, both Hawthorn and Collingwood ran out without their club theme songs playing, while players, officials and umpires all wore black armbands. A tribute video was also displayed on the MCG scoreboard, with images depicting Walsh's journey through football. Hawks and Pies players, officials and umpires also came together to observe a minute's silence before the game which was met with respect from the 75,880-strong MCG crowd. Players from both teams, as well as coaches Nathan Buckley and Alastair Clarkson, also joined each other in a circle in the middle of the MCG turf at the end of the game to pay their respects to the late Crows coach. Despite winning contested possessions (142-133), tackles (79-68) and clearances (46-33), the Magpies struggled to convert their dominance on the scoreboard. |
3. Rioli roars in lieu of Rough The strength of Hawthorn's team is its ability to share the load on the scoreboard and still kick a winning score. With Jarryd Roughead ruled out for what is expected to be two to three weeks after having a melanoma removed from his lip, Cyril Rioli stepped up to fill the big forward's shoes. Rioli had three goals on the board before half time before finishing with five for the night. His pressure inside forward 50 was constant, causing Collingwood's defenders to panic every time he went near the football. Rioli's win of a key one-on-one contest, where he trapped the ball under his arm and then fed out a handball to a teammate with just a minute to go, led to the game-sealing goal for Luke Breust. 4. Pies turn up the pressure From the very start of the game, it was clear that Collingwood's mantra was to put as much physical pressure on Hawthorn as it could. By half time, the Magpies had laid 45 tackles to the Hawks' 39. Whenever that pressure dipped, Hawthorn moved the ball far more freely and was able to pick the Pies apart with its ability to find target after target. The Magpies laid 90 tackles against Fremantle in the west last Thursday night, with Buckley applauding his side's widespread effort. He would have again been delighted with what he saw against the Hawks on Friday night, with his side applying 79 tackles. Although its effort was strong, Collingwood lacked the necessary polish to get over the line. 5. Pendlebury back to his best As much as Collingwood tried to downplay any injury concern surrounding Scott Pendlebury, it was clear he was not quite at 100 per cent in recent weeks. That all changed on Friday night, the Magpies skipper collecting 37 disposals, laying 10 tackles and helping himself to 10 clearances in his best game of the season. It was his renowned ability to find the right target in heavy traffic that stood out most in what was a hotly-contested game. |
| THE MEDIA | |
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Five goals from Cyril Rioli have helped Hawthorn withstand a fierce challenge from Collingwood, the reigning premiers recording their fifth straight win with a thrilling 10-point victory at the MCG on Friday night. The Hawks' 15.11 (101) to 12.19 (91) victory was a club-record eighth in a row against Collingwood – they last lost to the Magpies in the 2011 Preliminary Final – and ensures they will sit one game clear in fourth spot at the end of the round. Rioli, who was outstanding all night, set up Luke Breust's match-winning goal when he stripped the ball off a Magpie opponent on the wing and fired off a quick handball that started the scoring chain with less than two minutes remaining. Where Hawthorn won the teams' previous seven encounters by an average margin of 42 points, this time it had to drag itself off the canvas when Collingwood hit the front in the final term, and could also count itself lucky that the Pies could not land a knockout blow in front of goal during a dominant third quarter. The Pies' kicked 2.9 in the third term – Alex Fasolo kicked 1.3 – and seemed to have shot themselves in the foot when the Hawks led by nine points at three-quarter time. But the Magpies finally found their kicking boots in the last term, kicking the opening three goals of the quarter to take a nine-point lead at the 10-minute mark. As champion teams do, the Hawks hit back, kicking the next two goals, through Rioli (after Travis Varcoe was reported for forceful front-on contact against the Hawks' star) and substitute Matt Suckling, to get back out to a five-point lead. The Pies then blew two more chances to hit the lead, with Jesse White missing a set shot and Tim Broomhead missing a snap, before Breust sealed the result. Walsh's tragic death on Friday morning hung over the game, with both teams paying tribute to the Adelaide coach by eschewing club banners and songs when they ran on to the ground and observing a minute's silence before the opening bounce. Hawthorn's theme song was not played after the final siren either and, in a touching moment, both teams formed a circle of honour in the middle of the ground for some time. Rioli's best-on-ground performance was timely given the Hawks' attack was missing sidelined spearhead Jarryd Roughead. Jordan Lewis (36 possessions) and Sam Mitchell (34) were typically prolific through the midfield for the Hawks, while Liam Shiels (29 and two goals) was also influential, while Ben Stratton shut down Pies dangerman Jamie Elliott. The Pies' loss was their second straight and sees them fall one game outside the top four, but they did their reputation no harm and appear capable of challenging the competition's best teams in September after narrowly losing to Fremantle last weekend. Captain Scott Pendlebury was outstanding for the Magpies with a game-high 37 possessions and was well supported in the midfield by Steele Sidebottom (30) and Jack Crisp (28). Marley Williams also gave the Pies plenty of rebound from defence, while Travis Cloke had the better of Brian Lake with 11 marks (four contested) but missed the chance to play the hero with an inaccurate 1.4 return. The Hawks had dominated the Magpies in their past seven clashes, but Collingwood signalled that it was up for the fight in the first half. The Pies won contested possession 34-25 in the first term, and it was only the Hawks' class by foot that enabled the reigning premiers to take a three-point lead into the first break. Hawthorn looked set to take control of the game when it kicked three straight goals to lead by 17 points at the 12-minute mark of the second term, but Collingwood kicked three of the quarter's last four goals to go into half-time just four points down, setting the tone for what was to follow. COLLINGWOOD is becoming a good team but needs to aim higher and become a great one, coach Nathan Buckley says. The Magpies sit one game out of the top four after 14 rounds with an 8-5 record. Although the Pies have yet to claim a big-name scalp this season, they have fallen just inches from beating ladder-leader Fremantle and reigning premier Hawthorn in the past two rounds. In Friday night's 10-point loss to the Hawks, the Pies had five more scoring shots and probably cost themselves the game in the third quarter when they kicked a wayward 2.9 to the Hawks' 4.2. Buckley said after the match that his team was heading in the right direction, but still had to step up. "I think there's a little bit of licence to be good that's still there to be taken by our players, maybe even just the licence to be great," Buckley said. "I think we potentially could be good right now: our consistency of effort, the strength of our leadership and our connection out on field is at a level where you can be more than competitive against any opposition. "So the next step is to go from good to great on-field, and we've got great standards and, using Phil Walsh's terms, we've got elite standards on and off the field. "It's the last point for us – and this can take a week or two years or three years or you could never get there – that transition from understanding you're good, but allowing yourself to be great. "We're really in the infancy of that, and how long that takes is up to us and our belief." Asked whether Hawthorn had been able to find another gear when Collingwood kicked out to a nine-point lead early in the last quarter, Buckley said he simply felt the game had swung on a few key moments. "I felt like when a couple of those moments came that we just didn't make the plays, whether it was a hard handball or a contest in the air," he said. "I thought we were still taking the game on, we still wanted to play our way, but their class shone through overall. "But I didn't get the sense at any stage that they were able to find a gear that we couldn't match." Buckley paid special tribute to Scott Pendlebury, after his captain produced one of the very best performances of his stellar career. "That's as good as I've seen him play," Buckley said. "He's played some pretty good games, (but) 20 contested possessions, 10 clearances, 10 tackles, 37 touches, that's fairly dominant, and I thought he was everywhere." All of the statistics Buckley cited were game-highs, while Pendlebury also had two more score assists than any other player on the ground (five). Nathan Buckley mused that Scott Pendlebury's 37-disposal performance was arguably the greatest of his stellar career so far. And who could argue? But there was another man who deserves a moment in the spotlight, although he's had his share of it already. Jack Crisp is enjoying an incredible first season in Magpieland after being traded from Brisbane last October. On Friday night, he continued on his merry way, winning 28 disposals, taking five marks and laying seven tackles as well as kicking a crucial third quarter goal. "
Nathan Buckley |
NATHAN Buckley, and by extension, Collingwood, must be wondering what the hell they have to do to beat Hawthorn after falling agonisingly short at the MCG. And if it wasn’t for Hawks livewire Cyril Rioli, who kicked five matchwinning goals and laid the most important tackle of the game, the Magpies might have managed to end a hoodoo that now stretches back 1379 days. Buckley has never beaten Hawthorn as a senior coach; and the Magpies have not beaten the back-to-back premiers since the 2011 preliminary final. And they will be lamenting lost opportunities from Friday night’s game. As well as they played, and as desperate as they fought all night, it was a missed opportunity to push past the Hawks on the ladder. Hawthorn held on to win the match by 10 points, but it was a tightly-fought contest that Collingwood would quite rightly look back on with frustration that it did not take the chances on offer. The Magpies had might not have led at any of the chances, but Buckley’s team were in this match from start to finish. It was only in the final minutes of this game that their hopes were finally extinguished. After trailing nine points at the last change, Collingwood kicked the first three goals of the last term to open up a nine-point lead 10 minutes in, and the Magpies appeared to have more run and carry. But somehow the Hawks clawed their way back. Rioli kicked a crucial goal 15 minutes into the final term — his fifth for the game — to cut the difference back to a solitary point, but he wasn’t finish his work. In the absence of Jarryd Roughead, who was operated on to remove a melanoma this week, Rioli turned on a stunning performance in his first game back after attending the funeral of a close friend in Darwin last week. And it was his game-changing tackle on Marley Williams 20-minutes into last term — in Collingwood’s half of the ground — that helped to set up the passage of play that pushed it in Hawthorn’s favour. The Hawks were clinging to a five-point lead following on from Matt Suckling’s goal at the 17-minute-mark. Both subs, Sucking and Jarryd Blair, had provided plenty of lively action — and a goal each — in the last term. But the key moment was when Rioli took down Williams, then managed to somehow wrest the ball out to a teammate. The resulting movement of the ball up the field may not have been pretty, but it was telling enough for Collingwood, as the goal to Luke Breust made it a nine-point ball game. Scott Pendlebury was outstanding throughout the game with 37 touches, Steele Sidebottom gave the Magpies plenty of drive, and Jack Crisp was important once again. Rioli was the most influential player on the field. Jordan Lewis had 36 touches and had a strong impact, while Sam Mitchell and Liam Shiels were key performers for the Hawks. The Magpies had 31 scoring shots to 26 and will look back on a number of misses that were costly. They kicked 2.9 in the third term and missed more chances in the last quarter, including another one from Jesse White. But the Hawks held on strongly in the end. They had looked vulnerable at times, but not vulnerable enough to drop the game. And in touching moment of sportsmanship and respect for the game — as well as slain Adelaide coach Phil Walsh — the two teams gathered in the middle of the MCG at the conclusion of the game and locked arms. It was a fitting end to a classic encounter on what was one of the toughest days this game has ever seen. And then they played football. It felt a little wrong but right at the same time. The pall of unexpected violent loss fell upon the game and so 75,880 converged at the place that drew them to the thing that bound them in the first place. It was the game that meant they wanted to grieve for someone they didn't know so it was to the game they came. And so it was about the game the night focused. The sense of celebration was removed. The pre-match rituals designed for anticipation, excitement and tension gave way to respectful, mournful acknowledgement. The occasion was distilled to the match. No banners, no songs, no fanfare, just the game, much like Phil Walsh himself. The game then distilled itself to a rugged battle between two teams evenly matched in all but maturity and experience. And so it was played that way, one team playing frantically and the other with composure and efficiency. It distilled itself to just a handful of moments. All of them Cyril Rioli. Other players won many possessions, none had the impact of Rioli. To half-time he had four kicks and three of them were goals. His best moment was not a stat at all. It was a dive between three Collingwood players to scoop the ball back in and create the open field for Luke Breust to kick the goal to return the lead that would not be overtaken. This was a callow Collingwood team, with two more debutants called in to join first-year player Jordan De Goey and meant there were nine Collingwood players with fewer than 50 games of experience. Hawthorn had almost double the games experience and it showed. The third term exemplified that gulf. Collingwood could own the play but not the scoreboard. They had 11 shots for the term, Hawthorn six. Hawthorn kicked four goals, Collingwood two. It was the quarter that lost the game for Collingwood. As much as Hawthorn won it, here was where Collingwood lost it. True, it was not kids missing – Alex Fasolo missed three times, and Travis Cloke twice for the term (it goes without saying Cloke's only goal was highlight-reel worthy, his four misses simply deflating) and Jesse White throughout missed goals he simply must kick – but equally there were shots created through business not craft. Jack Gunston missed for Hawthorn too but his misses were punctuated by Hawthorn goals. Rioli embodied that efficiency – an odd word for Cyril for his play is art – by capitalising ruthlessly. Collingwood got themselves in front in the last quarter with three goals that mocked the misses of the third term and for a time it appeared they might have found rhythm and momentum. Hawthorn, however, has the composure of a team that expects to win – particularly against Collingwood after seven previous straight wins over four years – and finds alternatives when key players are missing. Without Jarryd Roughead, Rioli was the deep forward. Appropriately he kicked his fifth goal when he was hit high with a collision with Varcoe that saw the Magpie's number taken. Matt Suckling goaled again and Hawthorn again found ways to score from fewer opportunities. This was the first of a run of six matches in which Hawthorn confronts the other five teams in the top six, with the only respite being Carlton. Darcy Moore received his jumper and a hug from his dad. As a first game it was more of a hurdle cleared to make subsequent games easier than it was impressive match in itself. He was subbed out late. Scott Pendlebury was superb for Collingwood but the midfield was overwhelmed by a cleaner Hawthorn team. Jordan Lewis amassed possessions early, blending industry with creativity. His best kick was a deliberate yet fluky soccer off the ground that Cyril was able to scoop in to mark and goal. His second best touch created the first goal of the game, climbing in third man up in the ruck, as is his regular wont, and palming the ball to Liam Shiels beneath to snap. Hawthorn won because whenever the moment demanded it they won the critical possession, converted the critical goal. Collingwood did not. White, 45 metres out with minutes to play, could have put Collingwood in front. He missed. A minute later he was in the same spot and did not want to take his kick – he passed speculatively to Swan and the ball went out. Hawthorn then kicked two goals in two minutes. Game over. And when the siren blew there was satisfaction but no call for song. The team gathered in the middle, two teams linking arms. |
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