Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life 2024: Back to Back? – Go Pies

 

G’day to everyone. I hope you had a great Christmas and are looking at an improved year ahead. The ‘bad times’ between the end of the season and the start of the next, are nearly over.

 

Christmas presents, most recently, should have been easier last year than in some other years. Just head to the Club shop on-line. I had a birthday during that time. My perfect present (from one of you) – a limited edition bottle of Pendlebury pinot noir autographed by the man himself on the bottle. When to drink it? A 2019 bottling means it would be too early for his 400^th, or his retirement (this year or next), or maybe even on the Back to Back premiership? Or maybe the Back to Back to Back premiership. Any suggestions? My other related present – a magpie, solar powered, that sits outside at night with a light on. Also from one of you.

 

How did you feel at the same point last year? At the end of the previous season, we’d proved our competitiveness but missed out on the Granny by a whisker. So, could we go one better? ‘The experts’ were not convinced. Many thought Collingwood were the likely big sliders for the season. But we believed; we never lost sight of our objective. So, I felt confident, but… A lot can go wrong. Now, I’m reasonably confident again. And I have greater confidence that we could handle individual crises as they occur – we are not reliant on a single individual.

 

Welcome your comments?

 

Let’s have a bit of a look:

 

List. OK, Jack and Adams have gone. Good luck to them both, plus to Grundy following his Melbourne fiasco (How hard is it? He is an All Australian lead ruck – he will be key to Sydney this year.). Early last year I’d expected Jack and Bobby Hill to be fighting for the single small Forward position if Billy Elliott stayed healthy. Bobby was impressive; better in my view than Jack, though Jack had his moments. His exclusion from the 22 for much of the second half of the season was pretty telling. Not sure how ‘The Army’ will receive him when we meet. Adams could also see the writing on the wall – his time in the Midfield was dropping off with others stepping in – Nick and Crisp, for example. I’m sorry we didn’t get him a medal. We have one of the oldest Lists – Free Agents coming this year include Hoskin-Elliott, Howe, Pendles, Sidebottom and, interestingly because he’d been previously delisted by another club, Markov. I’d be quite surprised if a number of them, plus a couple others, didn’t retire at the end of the year. More importantly we’ve recruited well and have a number of capable players who’ve spent much of their time in the VFL – watch for Macrae, Allan, Ryan and Steene and Begg (next generation rucks?) plus our newbies, Schultz, De Mattia  and Jiath. De Mattia is already being noticed. How are the others looking? Pretty solid even if the clips I’ve seen seem to show De Goey a little porky? Must be the clips I saw. And great that Murphy is back cleared. The most important lesson from last year? Reward application – Noble stays in the team; nothing more to say on that. I’m not going pick a side. Suffice to say we have the players we need. Over to you, Match Committee.

 

Game Plan. Putting together what you see from training clips is, potentially, a bit misleading. That said, the focus on short passes to supporting, running colleagues says a lot and totally matches what we tried to achieve last year. When we didn’t get that set up, our game fell apart. My most important observation at training? The enjoyment amongst the players (and coaches); the humour. The fact is that the players are obviously having fun. Keep it up. I have two areas of concern – the Ruck(s) and the leading Forward, and how we play each of them. Neither Cameron nor Cox are bonafide top level Rucks, even with occasional support from Frampton and/or Krueger. Time will tell how  our ‘young guns’ develop. If we want to be the best team in the competition we cannot give an opposition the sort of Midfield dominance, as you see in the Clearance statistics, resulting from ruck dominance (and don’t simply equate this with Hit Out (HO) numbers). The Rucks are critical. McStay’s season ending injury means a ‘leading Forward’ position needs to be filled.  There are a number of potential replacements. But it is the style of play that is key – multiple leads out of the Forward line, a willingness to mover the ball to a better placed kicker and the absence of goalkicker selfishness – lets applaud GA – Goal Assists, in preference to Goals scored. Again, we have shown we can play to Win. We need to do that every time, over four Quarters.

 

Hunger. This has been recognised , particularly by the coaches – “the players are hungry”; they are looking to continue their success.

 

Together. We have the team, the game plan and the hunger. Looking forward to a great year of football.

 

Next.  I’ll send out some information on our 9 March game in Sydney a week or two before it. My only current advice? If you want to attend pursue tickets now. It is likely to be sold out.

 

What have been your highlights during the ‘bad times’?

 

• Recognition of service – Mr McGuire’s induction as a Life Member of the Collingwood Past Players’ Association – 21 September;
• Collingwood win 2023 AFL Grand Final – 30 September;
• Comment – “No one looks good in brown and orange” relating to Jack’s departure – 19 October;
• Draft – 20 / 21 November;
• Advice of McStay’s injury – 1 December;
• Brisbane win 2023 AFLW Grand Final – 3 December;
• Three score and ten Birthday party, with Pies’ supporters’ acknowledgments and presents – 1 January;
• 2024 AFL OR commences – 7 March; and
• Collingwood’s first 2024 AFL game versus GWS at Giants’ stadium – 9 March.

 

Awards?

 

• How about ‘Roaming Bolts’ assembled highlights? A worthy nomination;
• Facebook daily entry stating “We are the Premiers” – I love it.
• Your ideas?

 

Administration

 

Please let me know if your email address has changed? And let’s get a few more – it’d be good to have a 100 by the first game. Speaking of which, I already have tickets. Can we catch up there?

 

Those of you who live in Melbourne have ready access to games. Similarly, those who live in cities in which games are played. It’s a bit harder for us, simple country folks? But I have a plan. I think that we can get to a game by train, attend the game and then get home by train all in 24 hours. The disadvantage is that the train leaves here at about 1.00am and gets home on the return journey at about 2.15am. Of course, I have very supportive siblings in Melbourne, in spite of their team allegiance.

 

Go Pies.

 

Cam

 

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