| 2017 AFL Round 6 COLLINGWOOD v GEELONG Time & Place: Sunday April 30, 3:20pm EST MCG TV: 7mate / Fox Sports 3:00pm EST Weather: Min 9 Max 18 Chance of rain 20%: < 1mm Wind: NW 17kph Betting: Collingwood $4.70 Geelong $1.19 |
COLLINGWOOD 1.2.8 5.9.39 9.12.66 11.16.82
GOALS - Collingwood: Elliott 3, Moore 2, Wells 2, Sidebottom, Fasolo, Treloar, Crisp
BEST - Collingwood: Howe, Wells, Treloar, Sidebottom, Elliott
INJURIES - Collingwood: Tim Broomhead (jaw), Brodie Grundy (corked calf)
REPORTS - Collingwood: Nil
OFFICIAL CROWD - 87,605 at the MCG
| THE MEDIA | |
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Essendon has snapped a three-game ANZAC Day losing streak to defeat Collingwood by 18 points, returning to form after a tough fortnight with an impressive performance at the MCG. Both teams enjoyed dominant patches in the first three quarters of Tuesday's game, which was largely played in dry conditions after an extremely wet Melbourne morning. After taking a nine-point lead into the final term, the Bombers effectively killed the contest when they kicked three unanswered goals in the opening nine minutes to take a 26-point lead. From there the Dons were never seriously challenged as they ran out the game strongly to record a stirring 15.10 (100) to 11.16 (82) victory. Joe Daniher was outstanding for Essendon, both in attack and especially when he regularly roamed up the ground, and was a popular winner of the Anzac Day Medal as best afield. Daniher kicked 3.4 from 16 possessions, and also had three goal assists, eight marks (including four inside 50) and a team-high six inside 50s. The Bombers' win break the club's two-game losing streak, improving their record to 3-2 after five rounds. Zach Merrett (33 possessions and six clearances), Dyson Heppell (26 and seven) and Darcy Parish (25 and five) ensured the Bombers' midfield took the points over their highly vaunted Magpie counterparts, but they were ably supported by veterans Jobe Watson (28 possessions) and Brendon Goddard (a team-high nine clearances). Orazio Fantasia (four goals) and Josh Green (three) were lively in attack, while the defensive pressure of fellow small forward Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti (six tackles) had the Magpies' defenders nervously looking over their shoulders all day. Collingwood's loss continued its disappointing start to the season. With just one win after five rounds, the Magpies sit 13th on the ladder and now face a tough assignment to make the finals for the first time since 2012. Adam Treloar (a game-high 39 possessions) worked tirelessly for the Pies, Jeremy Howe (30 possessions and two contested marks, including a trademark speccy in the final term) gave plenty of rebound across half-back, while Daniel Wells (24 possessions and two goals) recovered from a slow start to make a classy club debut. But Jamie Elliott (three goals) largely played a lone hand in Collingwood's forward 50 as spearhead Darcy Moore was well held. The omens weren't good for Collingwood at the start of the game, with the Dons' opening goal coming after Henry Schade somehow allowed Daniher to get well free 30m from goal, allowing McDonald-Tipungwuti to hit him with a relatively easy short pass. Aaron Francis, playing his first game of the season, kicked another goal for the Bombers four minutes later before Elliott opened the Pies' account shortly after to cut the Dons' lead to six points. With Heppell, Parish and Merrett giving Essendon the ascendancy in the midfield – the Dons led the clearance count in the first term 12-7 – Essendon added another two majors through Cale Hooker and Fantasia to stretch its lead to 19 points at the first break. The Magpies worked their way back into the game in the second term, with Treloar (13 disposals for the quarter), Steele Sidebottom (12) and Wells (nine) prolific through the midfield. The teams kicked two goals apiece over the quarter's opening 20 minutes before an opportunistic Alex Fasolo soccer goal, which was confirmed after a score review, kickstarted a dominant Pies run that saw them record the next six scores. Unfortunately for coach Nathan Buckley and his men, the first five shots registered behinds, with Treloar finally splitting the big sticks with a drawing snap that cut Collingwood's deficit to three points. And that was the margin at the main break after Fantasia put a set shot out on the full as the half-time siren sounded. NEXT UP The Magpies meeting the unbeaten Cats at the MCG next Sunday. Collingwood has won five of its seven clashes with Geelong since the 2011 Grand Final, all of them at the MCG. THE worst-case scenario just got worse. The Pies are 1-4, almost certainly won't play finals and unless there is a drastic change in performance, either Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley or president Eddie McGuire will have to make a tough decision at the end of the year — if not earlier. One loss doesn't ruin a career but a loss on a solemn afternoon against an old foe, when questions are asked once again about consistency of effort and intensity and execution hurts the long-term plans. Buckley's coaching adventure is like a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe. The Pies jump into the fire and jump out; they jump back in and can't get out. One week it's blitzing Sydney, the next two it's surrendering to St Kilda and Essendon for all kinds of different reasons. Simply, the Pies are not a good side, certainly not good enough to play finals. The acid is on Buckley because he said he had to play finals this year or probably get the bullet. But it's more than that. After promises in 2103 and 2104 that the window for a premiership would be open in 2016 and 2017, why do we still not know what this team stands for? Why the inconsistency? Where is the unconditional intensity? What about the dysfunctional forward line? Why can Buckley mastermind a magnificent win one week and be in charge of a ramshackle bunch the next? This is no witch hunt, for the results dictate mostly everything. But if the majority of former players and coaches in the media and probably, by now, most Pies supporters are asking if Buckley is the right man going forward, then surely McGuire and his board are asking the same question. At quarter-time, Buckley's Pies were all over the shop. Essendon should have been six goals in front, not three. By halftime, however, Buckley's Pies had swung it around after the Bombers threatened to take away the game. At the main break it was three points. The Magpies, and we have seen this before, were relentless with their pressure, which garnered confidence, which produced brilliant ball movement. It floored the Bombers. They looked slow and listless, ripe for the picking. But not so. An enthralling third quarter saw Collingwood take the lead for the first time after recruit Daniel Wells kicked a goal on the run from 40m — exactly the image the Pies envisaged when they signed him — and Darcy Moore followed. It was full-steam ahead Collingwood. But as much as the game changes every six months, the Pies' intensity changes by the quarter. They allowed the Bombers to kick the last three goals of the third term, seemingly in a trice, and were back in the furnace. When it mattered most — on a sodden, darkening MCG, where bodies were tired and sheer will became more important than skill — the Bombers prevailed. Essendon's youngsters were outstanding. Darcy Parish, Aaron Francis early, Orazio Fantasia and the No.1 draft pick Andrew McGrath led the way. Then came Michael Hurley and James Kelly in defence, Joe Daniher forward and pinch-hitting in the ruck and a couple of crafty left-footers named Dyson Heppell and Zach Merrett. It was a game where Bomber fans could see the future with excitement. It was a game where Collingwood fans were blinded by the pain of the present. This one hurts Collingwood and it hurts Nathan Buckley. All losses do at this stage of his coaching career, and maybe we're being too dramatic so early in the season, but as the saying sort of goes: Eeeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a Magpie by the toe. If he hollers, let him go ... Yep, they're a hollerin' at Collingwood and the hollering might not just stop with Buckley. McGuire and chief executive Gary Pert are part of all this, because the decisions and appointments they've made in the football department in recent times are not exactly promoting unity. Indeed, you can hardly expect consistency and honesty on the field when it hasn't happened off it. |
An hour before the first bounce at the MCG (which wasn't a bounce), two mounted soldiers got a standing ovation, just for riding along the boundary line. Then followed a motorcade of old soldiers, and more applause, until it began to feel like the final curtain at a recital or opera, when your hands hurt and you begin to wonder when it is decent to stop. But it was all innocent enough, and maybe in truth that is what we celebrate on Anzac Day, not a military history, but the privilege of being innocent. The ground was still ringing to echoes of football's most enduring and innocent hope, Richmond's. It should have been buried in an unmarked grave years ago, but instead springs again every year, like poppies in a Flanders field. It is this year's feel-good story thus far. Essendon certainly appreciates the joy of innocence reborn. They had it, lost it - devastatingly - but this year have it back in spades. Though this fixture is said to be a law unto itself, not to mention a a lore, it has not been kind to the Bombers in recent times. Victory this day will feel like the sun back in the sky and wellness everywhere in the world. Clinically considered, without the emotion, the Bombers should have won by more. All day, they were quicker and cleaner than their opponents, even in the wet patches. For long stretches, they looked about to rip the Magpies open. Joe Daniher was a deserving medallist this day, but would have had an even more heavyweight impact if he had kicked straight. You don't want to make too much of the Anzac allegory, but Daniher is one footballer who you can easily imagine in a slouch hat, roll-up on his lip, lobbing lazy left-footers across the Suez canal on his days off. He lobbed one from 65 metres this day. Daniher dominant on Anzac Day, Watsons everywhere you looked, Collingwood underfoot; if the good old days are not back for the Bombers, they are well on the way. Captain Dyson Heppell is their personification. He was not the best player on the ground, but in a match made slippery by the conditions and the occasion, he made the fewest mistakes. At a time when it is a sport within a sport to name and number so-called "clangers", this was no idle boast. The best that can be said of the Magpies is that they hung in. Richmond the previous evening had demonstrated the rewards that sometimes accrue from this virtue, But Collingwood's hanging was more in the nature of clinging than slip-streaming. The Magpies matched the Bombers in most categories and dominated in one, 66 inside 50s to 43. But in the era of slingshot footy, this is becoming the most deceptive stat of all. One team grinds away like ditch-diggers at one end, only for the other to spring the ball free and run it across the empty and boundless plains to goal at the other. This was the pattern again this day. It also explains the stats sheet and why you can safely ignore it. Really, for Collingwood, there are no innocent happenings henceforth. Everything about 2017 now is freighted and fraught. Like Icarus, they appear to have aimed too high and are now burnt and plunging. After five rounds, they have won one game, by one point. No-one has blown them away, but that is a hollow boast and in any case as confidence ebbs and pressure rises and the spotlight glares, it need the caveat "yet". Earnest and competitive, but inefficient; it is the eternal lament of the plebeian also-ran. You don't hear it about the Western Bulldogs, or Adelaide. Daniel Wells showed enough to say that he will add polish to the Pies, but he is only one man, and elderly at that. Even he had his wobbly moments this day. Whatever the anti-Midas touch is called, Collingwood has it. On a day set aside to remember the battlefield fallen, here was the bottom line; that however grim footy felt for the Bombers last year and the Magpies now, at nightfall, everyone gets to go home. COLLINGWOOD has not lost the will to win but its failure to execute the plans in place is costing it games according to Magpies coach Nathan Buckley. Buckley has refused to concede the season but admitted with just one win after five rounds the Magpies had some work to do to catch the competition. The Magpies' performance on Anzac Day followed a familiar pattern as they recorded 23 more inside 50s than Essendon (66-43) and had two more scoring shots yet kicked inaccurately to lose by 18 points. Collingwood kicked 2.8 from set shots and could not defend adequately when the opposition won the ball in open space, conceding two goals from kick-ins early in the final quarter to lose touch on the Bombers. "We're not far off but we're a mile off," Buckley said. "If we just take advantage of 10 per cent more of our entries and defend a couple of per cent better, then we win those games by two or three goals, but it is a significant difference…it is a significant margin." Buckley admitted frustration was setting in after just one win in the opening five rounds, but with a match against the unbeaten Geelong just five days away there was no time to dwell on things. "I can still see that will to win in our players," he said. The coach acknowledged that plans were not being adhered to in the manner expected but said the team could fix them. He said the coaches and players were constantly in dialogue to make sure the message was getting through. "Our planning has been solid. We have actually been beaten by what we have known. [We went] too fast against St Kilda…we didn't protect the corridor enough against an Essendon side that loved to go back through there," Buckley said. Buckley said Alex Fasolo was doing the work required to turn around his poor return from set shots, which sees him having kicked 4.10 so far in 2017, with the Magpies once again wasting chances in front of goal. "He is putting the work in during the week…it will turn for him if he stays with it," Buckley said. The coach also said Scott Pendlebury would bounce back after two relatively quiet weeks by the skipper's standards and he was not injured. "We rely on our leaders to stand up. 'Pendles' will be dirty on his performance and he will be dirty about where we are at, and we will find out how dirty in five days time against the Cats." IT FELT like Groundhog Day for Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury as he fronted the media to explain another game lost due to wasted chances and poor ball use. He said the Magpies were not only playing the game in spurts, they were not making the opposition pay on the scoreboard when they did have momentum. Despite 66 inside 50s to Essendon's 43, Collingwood kicked 11.16 (82) to Essendon's 15.10 (100). "We have got to capitalise on that dominance and if you don't it comes back to hurt you and we got hurt again today," Pendlebury said. The skipper – who has been quieter than usual in the past two rounds – said it was frustrating to be telling the same story after losses for two consecutive weeks. "I feel like I am in the same situation I was last week. We're working on the stuff that is killing us but it is not happening quick enough," Pendlebury said. Collingwood was second last in the AFL for letting the opposition score from turnovers and did little to address the problem against the Bombers, who opened them up through the middle of the ground. He said it was a lack of skill and decision-making in key moments that caused problems. The challenge for the Magpies now was to show enough resilience to keep playing their brand of footy to ensure that fixing the current problems made the difference. "We have got to be mentally strong enough to keep playing our brand of footy regardless of what the scoreboard says," Pendlebury said. He admitted the team was flat after four losses in five games but said the five-day turnaround would be a major positive as it gave the group a chance to turn the situation around quickly. |
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