Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life 2024: Round 24 Review – the season ends

 

True Believers, always, so our Season ends.

 

Firstly, my thanks to those who have already responded to me about this process. I remind everyone, it’s just a bit of fun that I enjoy doing. A special thanks to those of our group who do contribute regularly – I would really like people to become more involved in the future.

 

There have been some fantastic messages from both individuals and the Club. From the Collingwood Football Club: “In a year of ups and downs, you were always there loud and proud. Thank you for your incredible support, Magpie Army. You’re truly our 19^th player”. Well said. Reminiscences like Jamie’s and Bobby’s marks, even Sidey’s screamer (pity about the kick that followed), the Daicos brothers, every week, and the personal milestones, led, of course, by Pendles’ 400^th . After a pretty ordinary start (and I attended the OR game in Sydney) The challenges continued, frequently injuries, but we were always competitive.

 

I am less pessimistic about our List. I thought a bunch of our youngsters who have not been able to get a senior game (or at the least to keep it) made a great statement last weekend. Yes, our List includes too many aged over 30. Do you want to get rid of Pendles, or Sidey or the others? I think Sidey has set himself up for a tagging role well into the future. Pendles is the coach on the ground, organising people. And our three drafted rucks have all been injured for much of the year, so not much debate on that aspect yet.

 

2025 is a new Season. Out of the teams who made the Finals this year we have beaten them or showed we can beat them even at their home grounds. Potential exceptions include Hawthorn, which I really rate, and Carlton if they ever get their injuries back. Watch during the Finals looking for opponents and team game plans that we can learn from.

 

Remember we are still the Premiers for another few weeks.

 

But, as always,

 

Go Pies.

 

 

Round 24

 

Collingwood 15.13.103 defeated Melbourne 8.9.57. And this was a nice way to finish.

Scoring shots 28 (us) / 17 (them).

Possession percentage: 52% (us) / 34% (them).

 

Match Report. www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/6098 

 

Coach’s interview. www.afl.com.au/video/1203026/full-post-match-r24-magpies?videoId=1203026&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1724421119001. Worth watching.

 

Goals:

• Q1   5 (us) / 1 (them) – After their early goal we dominated comprehensively with five unanswered goals, giving us a 27-Point lead at the first break;
• Q2      3 / 3 – Up and down, broadly equal. They Won this Quarter by 2-Points leaving us with a 25-Point lead at Half Time;
• Q3     3 / 4 – More of the same, basically, resulting in a final change lead of 33-Points; and
• Q4      3 / 1 – Okay, we hit the ground running – Q4 scores were 3.5.23 (us) / 1.4.10 (them). Final result?
• Total:   15 / 8; a Win by 46-Points.

 

Numbers (some statistics taken, with comments). The numbers should be treated with some caution because they are a record across the whole game. In this game, apart from some short periods, we dominated – we determined how the game would be played. With some comments, the statistics are interesting:

 

Statistic	Numbers Us / Them	Comments
Disposals	401 / 303	Previously not normally included (but I think I’ll include them from now on), but here the difference was substantially in our favour unlike many of our recent Losing games. We have been swamped by our opponents in the last few weeks – they have controlled the games, unlike our control of this game. Of note, something we pride ourselves on, the handball component – 163 / 105.
Hit Outs (HO)	25 / 27	Again, I simply don’t believe these numbers. The relevance of the HO number is highly suspect because it is not a measure of the effectiveness of the rucking – that would be ‘HO to advantage’ or, more accurately, Clearances. See next.
Clearances	31 / 27	Includes: 13 / 10 Centre clearances and 18 / 17 stoppage clearances. This is hugely significant, but note the difference between the HO comparison numbers and the Clearance comparison numbers. Our Midfield dominated to a degree unaligned with the HO comparison that the HO numbers would indicate. ‘Clearance to Inside 50 to Goal’ is the ideal progression.
Inside 50s	55 / 43	This is critical because of the flow-through of the Clearance dominance – we did well. Given the numbers are a comparison of the number of times the ball is in a position from where a score can result, it usually flows from these Clearance numbers. The challenge? How effectively did each side then use it? See below.
Disposal Efficiency (DE)	76.1% / 70.3%	A bit of as difference but not particularly useful, anyway, across the whole game.
DE inside 50	65.5% / 44.2%	This is, potentially, a critical difference relating to Clearances and Inside 50s, identified above. This is where you see how effectively the teams use their entry into the 50 – and we had a massive dominance. Our advantage of Inside 50 numbers would have been further emphasised by this.
Goals scored	15 / 8	The fundamental result.
Players with DE of 80%	7 / 4	Reflecting the marking and passing game by both sides, I suspect.
Contested Possessions (CP)	118 / 111	The measure of how hard each team is working – CP, Tackles and Turnovers combined.
Uncontested Possessions (UCP)	275 / 180	Reflects the fluency of the passages.
Turnovers	71 / 78	Really important, above.
Marks (M)	116 / 88	Across game both sides used shorter passes to unmanned team mates to move the ball, keeping possession. We were more direct when we produced results. Impacts on CP. Look at Marks and Tackles inside 50, below.
M inside 50	21/ 8	Impacts hugely on DE inside 50 numbers.
Tackles (T)	41 / 42	Important – see above. Across game. See next relating to Inside 50s tackles.
T inside 50	11 / 4	Also impacts on DE inside 50 numbers.
1 %’ers	40 / 35	Really important. This is also something we pride ourselves on.
Free kicks	17 / 11	This number comparison surprised me. There were periods when there was a huge gap between the team Frees. I thought the umps again did a generally poor job, principally because of the lack of consistency, particularly relating to missed infringements. Nice to see Razor’s final game and nice of both teams to see him off.

 

The result: The Pies were left sitting 10^th on the Ladder outside the Eight by a Win and percentage. By the end of the H&A competition we were left in 9^th place based on percentage alone.

 

Best: The AFL website identifies the following as Best – NickD, JoshD, Lipinski. Allan and Hill. Don’t disagree their inclusions but I might have added Sidebottom (456 mG) and Maynard (425 mG) as well. Really good to see Allan recognised. Amongst the other ‘youngsters’ brought in for this game, Richards, Dean and Parker all did well.

 

Injuries: Moore is recorded as injured with concussion.

 

Ground Reports? Did anyone go to the Melbourne game? Reports please? I’d like to hear from the armchair warriors watching from afar?  More please.

 

Crowd – 53,957.  Okay given the significance of the game. Certainly, it sounded like a strong Collingwood crowd.

 

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The Future

 

• AFL Finals. Watch and consider tactics and game plan applicable to us. Pay attention to Hawthorn games, in particular.
• Grannie. Saturday, 28^thSeptember.
• The Charles Brownlow Trophy (aka ‘the Brownlow’). Monday, 23^rdSeptember for the fairest and best player in the competition. Shown on Ch 7 FTA TV. Who to watch for? You know.
• 2024 Draft. Wednesday, 20^thand Thursday, 21st November.
• 2025 Pre-Season. TBA.
• 2025 AFL Competition.TBA.

 

With the exception of a couple of family members in our list who are Geelong supporters, we share our support of our team through thick and thin, periods of success and the alternative. Never lose sight of that.

 

See you next year.

 

Always believe. Never give up. Go Pies.

 

Cam

 

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