Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life 2025: Round 13 Review

G’day all.

 

Nervous? Yeah; me too! The old adage “You don’t Win the Premiership from Round 13” applies. Still “Winning” is better than the alternatives.

 

Onward and upward!

 

Go Pies.

 

Round 13

 

Collingwood 11.6.72 defeated Melbourne 10.11.71.

 

Scoring shots –17 (us) / 21 (them). Okay, a substantial deficit. These numbers reflect good goal-kicking by us, again, but moderate goal-kicking by them. See below re scoring and Inside 50 numbers.

 

Match Report – www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/7073. In particular, have a look at the Match Timeline at www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/7073#summary to see the scoring progress during the game, particularly them taking the lead in Q4 and how close the finish was.

 

Coach’s comments – www.afl.com.au/video/1340549/mcrae-post-match-r13-we-found-a-way-to-win?videoId=1340549&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1749459520001&references=AFL_MATCH:7073. An interesting overview emphasising the dour, scrappy nature of ‘winter football’ compared with slick ‘summer football’ and his summary: In the face of the numbers identifying Melbourne’s dominance (see more on this below) he reflected: “We found a way to Win”. His stated objective is still for the team to “qualify for the Finals”. Additionally, some interesting comments regarding JoshD’s performance – “If one Daicos doesn’t get you, the other will”. Worth watching / listening.

 

Goals scored:

 

Quarter	Goals scored (us) / (them)	Comments	Margin at end of Q (Points)
Q1	2 / 2	Down and up.	0
Q2	4 / 2	Up and down, with late goal giving us a margin.	+8
Q3	3 / 3	Three goals early gave us a 20 Point lead, countered effectively by late goals by them.	+7
Q4	2 / 3	A tussle, including a period when they lead, and an extended period where the difference never got beyond 2 Points.	+1
Total	11 / 10	The result – a Win.	+1

 

Statistics

 

Some numbers to seek to identify where there was a substantial difference and how this impacted on the game:

 

Statistic	Numbers (us / them)	Comment
Disposals	367 / 326	An advantage to us highlighting our “keep’ens off” game plan; with Handballs, a notable strength of ours – 140 / 132. We sought to control the ball through possession – see below.
Hit Outs (HO)	21 / 47	A particularly not-useful number decided by whichever ruck touches the ball first. A better assessment is ‘HO to advantage’, which I don’t have. And a much, much better measure is under Clearances, below. This number didn’t surprise me – I thought we were dominated, particularly out of the Centre (see next). The curious nature of these numbers, identified by our coach, suggested that the disadvantage to us here, should have affected the flow-on in Clearances, then Inside 50s and, ultimately, scores. It did and it didn’t. See more, below.
Clearances	29 / 39	It certainly did here, though only marginally, we reduced the advantage they had from the HO. As such, you’d credit our Midfield as winning the Midfield Battle, perhaps far less dominant around the paddock at stoppages. Centre clearance – 7 / 16; and Stoppage clearance – 22 / 23. This is a much better measure than the HO but still indicates a dominance by Melbourne. It should have indicated a substantial advantage to their next step – Inside 50s and, ultimately, their scoring. This failure to exploit this advantage highlights the incredible performance by our Backline to blunt their Clearance dominance.
Inside 50s	45 / 54	This is the next step in the heading to Goal and should broadly reflect the Clearance numbers. And it did, but to a lesser degree, in their favour. Next? Well; Clearance advantage, should be reflected in an Inside 50 advantage, which it was but with a reduced margin, which should be the basis of a scoring advantage.
Disposal Efficiency (DE)	76.8% / 66.9%	A substantial advantage to us, across the game, but I’m not sure what it actually shows. See next, somewhat more significant.
DE Inside 50	42.2% / 38.9%	This is a substantial difference – here the numbers reflect the significant team advantage by us getting the ball into a scoring position and this reflects hugely on both our Forwards using the ball effectively and our Backs denying Melbourne the same. In the Coach’s comments he applauded the performance of both teams’ Backlines stating that was the basis of the game competition. This represents the game-Winning achievement.
Goals scored	11 / 10	And it did.
Goal scorers	10 / 6	A substantial spread, particularly noting some absences.
Player numbers with DE > 80%	12 / 5	A substantial difference, particularly given the circumstances. I think this represents a willingness to take chances, even with adverse consequences. I think the numbers reflect risk-taking in the game, usually encouraged by the coaches.
Free Kicks	29 / 20	I thought the umpiring was generally okay, and these numbers surprised me. I thought it was fairly even. Note my comments below, regarding tagging. My Standard comment still applies regarding an apparent failure to penalise, what I thought were obvious, incidents including tagging ‘holding’ and the usual – incorrect disposal, caught with the ball, in the back, etc.
Contested Possession (CP)	115 / 143	Combined to 359 / 320. The difference in the two measures usually reflects the team style of play. The winning of the CP by them is less significant than control of the ball through UCP domination. Both teams were successful for periods, and our accuracy gave greater effect to our use of the ball. I like it when the ball is locked in our attacking half, of course.
Uncontested Possession (UCP)	244 / 177
Turn-overs (TO)	72 / 76	Again, I think this reflects a willingness to take risks, encouraged, is also part of this.
Possession	49% / 34%	Across the game. This is an interesting pair of numbers that reflects our domination of the ball. The difference, perhaps, reflects well on Melbourne’s scoring from possession. Needs further analysis.
Marks	116 / 73	Marks inside 50 – 9 / 6; and Contested marks – 9 / 15. Their Contested Mark numbers seemed to reflect Gawn and May’s contributions (they dominated). Our domination of the Marks inside 50 is, however, the more important of these differences and contributed to our scoring.
Tackles	59 / 59	Tackles inside 50 – 7 / 14. The total here, pretty much, reflected each side’s application. Tackles inside 50 surprised me. This statistic gives this emphasis to each side with the Inside 50 Tackles reflecting some advantage to them. The multiple tacklers were impressive, again.
1%’ers	56 / 46	Spoils and defensive actions. I haven’t gone back to add up the numbers but the general equivalence supports the contention that both sides were working hard. See below – Howe in the Best, Moore and Quaynor both had good days.

 

Best:

 

The AFL website identifies Collingwood’s Best as:

 

• JoshD – BOG award. A great game performance that was, presumably, a toss-up of Howe, Gawn and May;
• Howe – what a performance? Simply outstanding;
• Sidebottom;
• Pendles; and
• NickD – and if there was any doubt about his inclusion based on his effectiveness go to www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/7073#player-statsand check his numbers, particularly his mG. .

 

I don’t disagree with any of those identified, though might regarding the order. I’d be tempted to add a few as always, – Moore & Quaynor and Perryman & Crisp. Checkwww.afl.com.au/afl/matches/7073#player-stats, particularly mG and GA.

 

Interesting to note the Coaches’ scoring for the game (www.afl.com.au/news/1148681/coaches-votes-r13-sydney-swan-isaac-heeney-moves-clear-as-nick-daicos-run-ends):

 

• 10 Jack Crisp (COLL);
• 7 Jeremy Howe (COLL);
• 7 Josh Daicos (COLL);
• 4 Max Gawn (MELB) – wonder what else he needed to do to score higher?
• 1 Brayden Maynard (COLL) – not too sure about that, as he wasn’t in the team for that game; and
• 1 Alex Neal-Bullen (MELB).

 

Expert ‘Best Players’? Go to www.afl.com.au/news/1336003/the-25-june-edition-afls-best-players-ranked-by-our-experts. Yep, NickD is still Number 1. Can you recall the time when the umpires seemed to suddenly recognise Cox was being seriously interfered with by defenders and he, suddenly, received Frees? My view is that a similar circumstance exists with NickD’s tagging. I have no problem with one on one tagging and have identified Frampton as doing this well in past reporting, but that has to be legal. ‘Clutching’ by a tagger before the ball is bounced should be ‘pinged’. Further, an apparent direction to all players in the team to bump NickD goes beyond the pale. There has been some interesting comments on Facebook, one of which stated that this performance showed how NickD could be nullified showing all Clubs how to handle him. While I accept there are benefits to wasting a key player in this tagging role, I think the coach’s previous comments suggesting greater protection by other players did not occur. We have a number of players who could do this job well – Maynard (when he’s back), McCreery and even Sidebottom (remember him in a tagging role last year).

 

Your thoughts?

 

Crowd:      77,761.

 

Result: A concerning game with we, long-suffering Pies’ tragics kept on the edge of our seats for most of the game (noting that the 20-Point lead in Q3 was welcome; pity it didn’t last). The game reflected well on Melbourne given their Ladder position. It will be interesting to see how they progress in the second half of the season.

 

From our position on the top of the Ladder we had little to prove. As such, I hope there are some things to note and some things to improve on. Some specifics:

 

• Protect NickD;

• A great performance by all three Daicos family members on the day;

• The team-performance, mentioned above. Everyone was involved, again;

• Clearance numbers and Inside 50 numbers were Won by Melbourne. This should have been a reflection of an increased flow into goal-scoring positions, and greater scoring. This was not the case. The efficiency difference, reflecting our Forwards’ efficiency and    our Backline’s huge defensive impact, won us the game;

• We seemed to Lose the Battle of the Midfield, particularly in the Centre courtesy of Gawn and I do not see McStay as a suitable second-Ruck. We need to consider options, noting the inclusion the last few weeks of Steene in the Emergencies;

• Of course, related to this, the performance by our Backline and our Forwards was quite extraordinary. Well done;

• A bunch of individual and collective incidents that were both terrific and highly entertaining. It was great to see the spread of collective appreciation; and

• I thought the umpiring was generally okay, though improvements particularly relating to NickD need to be applied.

 

In summary, the Pies Won because we established control of the game, that we exploited for extended periods, critically Won by our dominant Forwards and Backs. The outcome – the Margin (I Point) reflected the difference in teams’ capabilities on that occasion.

 

Round 14

 

Bye. More next week.

 

Enjoy the break. No side trips to Bali please.

 

Ground Reports? Reports please (after or before)? I’d especially like to hear from the armchair warriors watching from afar?

 

Other:

 

• AFLW – Pencil the start date in – Thursday, 14 August, including maybe the competition’s first game: Carlton versus Collingwood at Ikon Park; bounce at 7.15pm. The draw? Go to www.afl.com.au/fixture?Competition=3&Season=84&Round=1301.
• VFL –Last week we Lost to the Casey Demons by 9 Points. Next week they have a Bye.
• VFLW team – A great Win by the girls against the Sandringham Zebras last weekend. Next is against Essendon (3^rdon the Ladder) on Saturday, 14 June at the AIA Vitality Centre; bounce at 11.35am.

• US AFL Combine – 20 – 22 June at Dallas, USA. Apparently the principal qualification is to be at least 206 cm tall. Geelong, Hawthorn, GC and St Kilda are joining us at the event. Cox, reflecting his selection at the 2014 Combine at Los Angeles, has very big boots to fill           –  211 cm, 135 games, 125 goals, 2023 Premiership and, perhaps most importantly, Australian citizenship.
• Do you favour the return of a State of Origin series? Why?
• Anything else, everyone else?

 

Next:

• Round 15       Saturday, 21^st June – Collingwood versus St Kilda at Marvel Stadium; bounce at 7.35pm.

 

This is our year. Always believe; never, ever give up! Go Pies.

 

Cam

 

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