Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life 2026: Round 1 – Collingwood v Adelaide Review

 

True Believers all, g’day.

Firstly, I take my hat off to those members of the Magpie Army, particularly amongst our group, who regularly travel distances to support our Club. Because of a range of factors we haven’t been able to do that too often. But we did this last weekend. It was a disappointing outcome to the significant effort to get there, but worth it to catch up with Elizabeth for breakfast the next morning. And no, we didn’t discuss the game in any detail. Where we are planning to go, I’ll include advice in the preceding email. I’d love to catch up with fellow supporters, noting that I haven’t actually met everyone.Please follow-up?

Last Saturday’s game against Adelaide was not a lot of fun. Following our OR game, this one never got off the ground. In Q1 we scored a single Behind, setting a hell of a gap to catch up. We did catch up, and even led at one stage, but then let them get away.

The Game

Collingwood 11.13.79 were defeated by Adelaide 13.15.93 – seemingly, a narrow Loss. We didn’t deserve to Win, but then, Adelaide didn’t either. Scoring shots – 24 (us) / 28 (them).

Goals scored:

Q1       0 (us) / 2 (them). Go to the Match Timeline at www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/8051#summary. It highlights the game;

Q2       4 / 3. A recovery by us;

Q3       2 / 6. A critical period where the Crows did as they pleased. There’s been some interesting commentary regarding NickD’s absence from the Centre for much of Q3;

Q4       5 / 2. A recovery by us that didn’t quite get there; and

Total    11 / 13. The end result. They Won. See my later comments, particularly about the umpiring.

Match Report: www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/8051#match-report. Everything there.

Coach’s Interview: www.afl.com.au/video/1478581/full-post-match-r1-magpies?videoId=1478581&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1773491689001&references=AFL_MATCH:8051. No comments except to disagree with Fly. I disagree with his comment that the team were “pretty average”. I thought they were significantly worse. See below re the game.

Statistics:

• Hit Outs (HO) – 19 / 35. We were destroyed;
• Clearances (Cl) – 29 / 29 including 9 / 16 Centre Clearances and 20 / 13 Stoppage clearances. Not too different in sum but their dominance at the Centre was huge. This, particularly in Q3, placed huge pressure on our ‘shorter’ Backline to intercept the movement of the ball;
• Inside 50s I50) – 59 / 55. Theoretically a winning statistic, but it wasn’t applied in the next step- goal scoring;
• Goals scored – 11 / 13. This should have seen the application of our Inside50s dominance into scoring. It reflected our inability to score. Commentators are pointed at this aspect as the most critical failing. Both sides kicked an incredible number of Out of Bounds on the Full;
• Disposal Efficiency (DE) – game – 71.2% / 72.9%. Over the whole game; not substantially different;
• DE – Inside 50s – 44.1% / 54.5%. This a critical difference in their favour countering our Inside 50s dominance. This is a match-Winning difference;
• Contested Possessions (CP) – 115 / 140. A substantial difference based on strong ball-ownership as the basis of their attack and their work effort;
• Possession – 39% / 46%. Indicative of the CP numbers;
• Marks – 98 / 117 including 10 / 14 inside 50 marks. They played ‘kick to mark’ frequently around the boundary;
• Tackles – 52 / 48. No surprise. In general I like the application of our team members. Ther are, however, exceptions; and
• 1%’ers – 47 / 35. Reflecting spoils, particularly in the Backline.

Free kicks – 14 / 15. I simply don’t believe this. This equivalence doesn’t make any sense. Certainly it would be interesting to examine where and when the Frees for each side were awarded and the influence of the 50m penalties. Like the previous week our opponent scored goals from four 50m penalties. Certainly we need to understand what we are doing wrong and rectify it – engage the Umpires. When I compare the umpiring / refereeing of Australian sport with overseas (US football, baseball and basketball, everywhere soccer) we see a good game as when you barely notice the umpire / referee. Unlike those overseas, our umpires / referees are not part of the game. They simply aid it’s flow. I’m getting a bit sick of umpires who do not act in accordance with that. And I hate the 50m penalty that these days is almost an automatic goal.

Best: The AFL website identified our Best, in order, broadly agreed:

• Houston. Totally agree. Not sure what position he was playing; he was everywhere, Sere statistics discussion below;
• NickD. The usual; always everywhere, except in Q3 (see below);
• Cameron. Demolished in the ‘ball-ups’, he was fantastic as a forward target and a Back interceptor;
• Quaynor. A routine, regular sterling effort, even if he was significantly shorter than his opponent; and
• Steele. Pretty fair start.

I would add Schultz who never gave up. His example, not followed by all the Forwards, was to position himself to receive a pass and / or to pursue the ball. A few others like Elliott, McCreery and Maynard were notable but not necessarily for the entire game.

Scoring / Selection? Individual player records are included at www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/8051#player-stats under Player Stats. Importantly you need to look under the Basic heading at Metres gained, Clearances, Goal Assists and Contested Possessions before looking at the general Disposal numbers. But, under the Advanced heading some useful qualification of this data emerges, including Disposal Efficiency and Intercept Possessions. As an example NickD has 33 Disposals, but at a DE of 63.6% while Houston had 32 @ 78.1% DE. Houston also had 10 IP and both had more than 400mG. Great to see Houston’s performance the last two games. At the other end of the field, numbers, particularly of Disposals, are significantly lower, but they should dominate the scoring of IP and 1%’ers. My suggested manning changes, below, reflect this scoring and my observation of their performance in the last two games, particularly on last Saturday night.

The Coaches Association votes were somewhat different identifying NickD (4 Points) and Houston (3) as the only Pies in their list for the game.  Your decision – who do you like?

Game.

The reaction of the various commentators has been interesting. In general, they’ve blamed the absence of a key Forward as the reason we are not scoring. That, of course, misses the point that we have demonstrated we can score – look at Q2 and Q4. Each adequately demonstrates this ability. Suggestions that the Club was in error in not keeping Mihocek and Cox misses the point that while each had positives in their history, neither (with maybe Cox the exception in that Prelim Final a couple of years back) is a key goal-kicking target. So we need to activate our plan to target leading Forwards with hard, low passes. Up and under kicks into the 50 should be a last resort; and even then, the objective should be to get the ball on the ground for the Forward smalls to gather and score.

Blame is also levelled at our Backline, noting, in this game because of the absence of Moore and Howe, we were significantly shorter and therefore unable to defend. But, when Moore and Howe return our objective should be to use them in the intercept role, requiring manning the attacking opponents anyway. So we need height and speed into the Backline so as to not rely on Moore and Howe as close defenders.

Better targeted, in my view, is the Midfield. Now firstly, the effect of the changes to the ruck duel are significant. More than ever there will be room around this duel where the ball can be gathered and moved  – recorded as HO to advantage and Clearance. This unlike the previous arrangement where crowding around the bounce (ball-up) limited such exploitation. So speed and agility are key for close-in Midfield. I’d suggest greater use of McCreery in the close Midfield would be useful; certainly De Goey changing with NickD up forward is also a useful tactic. We also need a supporting ruck to free up Cameron. An argument exists that NickD was posted on the Wing at the start of Q3 resulting in his absence from where the battle was being fought. I understand the logic but would not blame his absence for losing the game.

In summary, we could have Won this game, even with our Backs missing and our Forward capability. We didn’t deserve to Win, though neither did Adelaide. There’s a long way to go till September.

Lessons for us:

Last week I suggested a couple of things. I reinforce the suggestions after this last game:

Team. It is always preferable to leave a Winning team unchanged. That said, we are in the early days of the season and should pick the team that best fits our opposition.

• Outs: Frampton, McStay and Lipinski.

• Ins: Moore, Howe and from Cochran and Steene.

Game Plan. Same as always: No changes of substance from past. A couple of points:

• Application. Nothing is more important. Attitude is King. Pursuit needs to continue; not stopping when an opponent has passed.

• Taggers. Tagging roles might be useful, including an occasional hard lock-down role on their Forwards / Midfield? And protecting our players? That should also be key.

• Midfield Management. Pendles guidance / on-field coaching to the collective Midfield remains critical.  His delayed onto the field has been a terrific innovation.

• Passing. Accuracy of passes by foot and hand is critical. Remember a misdirected pass resulting in a turnover of the ball passes possession to our opponent, immediately shifting control of the game to them.

• Drive. Drive out of the Backline is a key part of our game plan.

• Kick-ins are a continuing issue – we need to have a plan that everyone knows and is able to implement. It is critical because it is the means of maintaining control of the ball, and the game.

• Kicking for Goal. This has been pretty good but players need to consider and apply the willingness to pass the ball inside the 50. The key players with the ability to kick the hard goal is laudable, but not always successful. Ball delivery needs to be to the best goal-kicking position. Importantly, scoring a Behind is a waste – for 1 Point you hand over ball-possession to the opposition. It’s not worth it – get the ball into a better position.

• Tackles. Still a failing with opponents spinning out of tackles or brushing off the tackler. This has been one of our strengths and we need to get it back. Love the multiple tacklers.

Our Aim? Be happy. Worth reinforcing – our team, yes, we are part of it, everyone, players and supporters, need to get the smile back.

Crisis

Just when you think this awful; nothing worse is possible, somebody tells you “Pendles has been cited for rough conduct”. One match. My understanding is that his sterling history can only be used if the Club appeals the sentence. I understand this is happening.

Next:

• Round 2. Bye.

• Round 3 – Friday, 27 March Collingwood versus GWS at Marvel; ball-up at 7.40pm. More on that next week.

Reporting? Please report, even if you are watching from home? And let us know if you are going. Hope to see some of you at games in the future?

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

Cam

 

 

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