Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life: A Winning Attitude is Habit-Forming

True Believers all,

 

Well, that wasn’t a whole lot of fun. I wasn’t following the Pies / Dogs game at all, thankfully; and was hugely surprised by the final score. Still, only a practice match, thankfully. Did anyone attend or watch it? Was it as bad as the score indicates or have I missed something?

 

GAME SUMMARY (YEAH, RIGHT!):
Headlines like Speedy Dogs run over flat Pies and Bulldogs thump Pies seem to say it all, actually.

25 scoring shots to 14; goals to behind ratio: +2.6 (Dogs) to +1.3. Hit Outs: 62 (them) to 32 (us); and everything else, except for “Centre” which we won 17 to six. (I’m not sure what this means. Anyone? Is this who wins the drive out of Centre bounces?  If so, the other figures are even worse.

See Buck’s comments in this article on the Collingwood website: No excuses- we want to be better. Thanks for that, Bucks. We agree – a blinding glimpse of the obvious, after a result like that!

 

NAB CHALLENGE LESSONS.
Some comments regarding the Pies from The Age, but none positive (Something Old: Judd’s performance against us in Bendigo; the loss of Beams in Should We Be Excited? and a wait-and-see approach on our 2015 hopes in Should We Be Worried?).

This link takes you to the ultimate NAB Challenge assessment – the Collingwood FC appraisal of our pre-season matches.

Who impressed you over the course of the NAB Challenge? Tony Adams (and Sidebottom, just in passing).  AFL.com.au had this interesting wrap of the NAB Challenge (note the comment re “tagging”; where did you see this recently?  Not going to be Greenwood for a while; and losing. Losses do not contribute to a winning attitude; and the winning attitude is habit-forming.

 

NEXT?:  
The season starts.  Saturday, 4 April.  Brisbane vs Collingwood in Brisbane.  More on this next week.

 

OTHER:
Best of the Best:  Pendles finally makes an appearance at number 5 (dropped from 2 last year) in AFL.com.au’s players player picks. It’s going to be interesting in who’s above him (Buddy’s at number four).

Pies Presidency:  Craig Kelly has indicated to The Age that any plan for him to takeover from Eddie as Pies President is over, at least in the short term, anyway.

 

I attended the Swans / Giants game at Manuka (as a good, supportive Foundation GWS Member).  A pretty good game (not what you would expect from 16th vs GF team).  I think GWS probably got more out of it than Sydney.

While Sydney won with the last kick of the day, on the siren that none of us heard, GWS seemed to have had more scoring shots (22 to 18; though Inside 50’s were almost even) and could easily have prevailed.  We saw ‘Buddy’ carried off after a ‘friendly-fire’ collision (I didn’t realize it was him until well after the game and had presumed he hadn’t ‘run on’).  Both sides showed a willingness to spread the ball wide and attack on the other wing.  Sydney were more direct down the ‘corridor’. Our boys?  Pretty good performance by Heater (really pinpoint accuracy in kick-ins (we could learn from both sides’ kick-ins)); less so Rhyce who was quiet-ish.  Lots of very close handball passes in traffic to clear the ball. Goodes does get very soft treatment by the Umps – failure to hand back the ball should have cost him a 50m penalty.  Lessons for us?  Kick-ins, drive out of the Backline and a willingness to go across the field.

As we head towards our first real game lets try laughing at ourselves, just once before the real stuff begins.

 

Go Pies!

 

 

Comments

  1. Neil Anderson says

    I watched it thinking the Dogs should do alright with a strong line-up. It was great to see the young players combine with Murphy, Mathew Boyd and Minson for a big win.
    For the first time that I can remember, the Bulldogs had two ruckmen and two tall forwards playing which made all the difference.
    Only a practice-match but a great confidence booster for the Dogs before Round 1.

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