Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life – AFL Round 4: Outstanding

True Believers, a great Win.  It was an outstanding performance in which the team demonstrated what they can do – I loved the close-in ball-handling – simply superb – and Clearance to Inside 50.  Well done to all.

What did I really like? Three things:

  • With one exception, the fantastic selflessness of the play – fantastic ‘teamwork’ throughout.  Grundy’s goal was a great example – the ball went through a number of players’ hands before he goaled.  Great.  I’ll let the single exception off with a probable cause being confusion in the goal square.
  • Hearing the Collingwood chant at the Adelaide ground.  Well done to any of you who attended – you were of great voice.  Magnificent.
  • Seeing the inclusion of everyone, players, coaches and support staff, at the team song – http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/2018-04-13/team-song-collingwood.

 

Match Report:   http://www.afl.com.au/match-centre/2018/4/adel-v-coll

 

Buck’s comments: http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/2018-04-14/buckley-discusses-a-memorable-win and http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/2018-04-14/buckley-our-need-for-speed.

 

Numbers:

  • Hit Outs: 50 (Pies) / 37 (Crows) = +13.  Outstanding achievement by Brodie; well done. Go to http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/2018-04-13/grundys-careerbest-performance.  More below.
  • Clearances: 57 / 34 = +23. Reflects an outstanding performance by the Mids.  Well done.  But, next step?
  • Inside 50s: 58 / 49 = +9. Given the advantage in Clearances, this is disappointing.  This reflects Disposals without being measured by effectiveness.  See more on this below.
  • Marks inside 50: 6 / 5 = +1. Pretty poor by both sides,
  • Scoring shots: 26 / 13 = +13  A fair ratio given Inside 50s, though the Crows management would probably not agree.
  • Goals: 16 / 9 = +7. About right given the above.

 

Focus on application / effort.  The Pies’ Contested Possessions were 199 to 163; Tackles 77 to 67.  Steele had 26 Contested Possessions, while seemingly tagging.  Won by a country mile.

 

Best.  Agree, particularly Steele, Grundy and Stephenson. Grundy’s statistics are quite extraordinary – 33 Disposals, including 23 Contested Possessions, 12 Clearances, 2 Tackles and a great Goal (that was a fantastic team effort Goal).  But contributions from everyone.  As per last week, I really value Varcoe’s contributions, both leading to scores and his pressure – he tackles well.

 

Lessons.  After a performance like that it is almost churlish to be critical.  But let’s try. We had 14 players with Disposal Efficiency under 70%.  Treloar’s Disposal Efficiency dropped from last week’s good level to 58.3%. Simple maths indicate that his effective Disposals reduce to 21.0; plus 8 Clangers.  Countering this was his achievement of 10 Clearances. What else?  Okay, Cox.  5 Disposals at 80% DE; 1 Clearance and 1 Clanger.  But his contribution was more than that I acknowledge.  He was a target that our players ‘crumbed off’.  My question is whether that is of sufficient value that he keeps his place and / or could someone else achieve the same end?  Your thoughts? The 10 Goal-kickers, 9 of them not Reid or Cox, is indicative of others’ contributions.  I have been vocal about the need to ‘crumb’ the packs, particularly Inside 50, and see this result as the achievement of that (like last week).

 

Next:

Round 5 – versus Essendon at the MCG on ANZAC Day; bounce 3.20pm.

 

Context.  There were some extraordinary results on the weekend – Brisbane’s, Carlton’s and the Gold Coast’s effort; St Kilda too in reality.  Actually there were some extraordinary periods of play – Melbourne’s start over Hawthorn was one such period, but so was their rest of the game: Melbourne scored 4 Goals in the first 11 minutes; and got a further 2 for the rest of the game.  Does North’s demolition of Carlton devalue our performance a week ago?  I don’t think so but I can’t give you a good reason, yet; early season.

 

Essendon defeated Port Adelaide last weekend but were beaten the weeks before by WB and Free (in Perth; working backwards) but beat Adelaide at Etihad in Round 1 by a couple.  They are sitting 11th on the Ladder with a percentage of 99.2%, immediately behind us at 10th with a percentage of 106.7% (yah, over 100%).  Though early in the season, their Best has included Hurley at Full Back and Merrett, Heppell and Zaharakis among the Mids. Bellchambers in the ruck hasn’t been noticeable, nor has Daniher at Full Forward, though his absence from the Best list can only mean he’s overdue to perform. For us, none of this concerns me except for Daniher – he can turn a game.  For us, as above, we need to focus on where the ball is going (DE) out of the Midfield and close attention to Daniher. Cox? You know my view.  Any replacement could be the same sort of target and could be expected to get more than 5 Disposals.  We are due a Win after last year – Best last year: Brownlow votes: Treloar, Merrett, Daniher; Anzac Medallist: Daniher.  Essendon will not be ‘easy’ after their last week and last year’s performance.

Another view relating to Essendon courtesy Jennifer Phelan, Staff Writer, AFL:

  1. John Worsfold wins the Captain Obvious award 

Because playing players in their actual positions actually worked. The Power knew it was coming; Cale Hooker trained with the defenders this week and Jake Stringer with the forwards, and both players lined up in their more familiar positions after spending the opening three rounds in attack and the midfield respectively. Hooker was solid down back and allowed Michael Hurley more room to be creative and take a game-high 15 marks, while Stringer booted four goals in his best game as a Bomber to lead his new club to a 22 point Win. Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the best.

 

Match Preview.  At  http://www.afl.com.au/match-centre/2018/5/coll-v-ess  when it’s there. Note the betting – Essendon are very slight favourites ($1.85 to $1.95); whatever!

 

TV? Yes; FTA on Channel 7 from 3.00pm.

 

My pick? Okay first I’d like to highlight that I’ve been correct the last two weeks; even with substantial margins. This week (actually next week) Pies by 33 points.  BOG: Grundy – 42 Hit Outs, 37 Disposals at 87.5% DE, including 15 Clearances.  Reid – 6 Goals. 11 goal-kickers.  Your thoughts and picks?

 

Reporting? I know some of you never miss this one – Reports please?

 

VFL:

After a great start to the game (Q1: 3.2 Pies to 0.2 Port), we lost to Port Melbourne 9.9.63 to 7.5.47 in difficult conditions (noting, of course, that the conditions were the same for each side).

 

Match Reports at http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/2018-04-14/vfl-magpies-overrun-in-the-wet and http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/2018-04-14/vfl-pies-pipped-by-port. Sier, Wills, Mayne and Blair performed well.

 

Next: Round 3 – versus Essendon at Victoria Park; Saturday, 21 April; bounce 2.10pm.  Anyone going?  Players to watch (and report on please) – Wells, Elliott, Mayne and McLarty?

 

AFLX: No change. See you next year.  Will not be included from now on.

 

AFLW: No change. See you next year. Will not be included from now on.

 

Magpies Netball:

What a fantastic game the Gold Medal play-off against England was, particularly the Last Quarter.  Condolences, ladies.  Onward and upward.

 

Magpies Netball – go to https://supernetball.com.au/teams/magpies-netball/.

 

Suncorp Super Netball Season starts Saturday, 28 April: Vixens v Magpies, Hisense Arena, Melbourne; tip-off 3.00pm.  More next week.

 

VFLW: Versus Williamstown at Warrawee Park, Oakleigh on Saturday, 5 May; bounce 2.30pm.  Any of our ‘Oakleigh folk’ from way back likely to attend?  Neil?

 

VWFL (Wheelchair Footy):

 

Will start on Sunday, 6 May at Boroondara Sports Complex.  More in next few weeks when I work out where that is – I presume somewhere in Melbourne.

 

Go to  http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/2018-03-16/pies-help-launch-wheelchair-football-league and http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/new-afl-wheelchair-league-to-launch-in-2018-featuring-collingwood-essendon-hawthorn-richmond-and-st-kilda/news-story/38724cf69fa31d90aa91c00c9b7ffa15.

 

Other:

“The hmuan biran
Is a wnfoerudl tinhg
But eevn btteer
Is a Ciollgnowod win”

Terrific.

  • Anyone know anything about the surface at the Holden Centre?  Any link to injuries?
  • Went to the GWS game at Manuka.  A pretty ordinary game to Half Time.  I have been told it improved markedly following Half Time, when I left.
  • Other Sport in Canberra:
  • GWS.  Next: 11 August.
    Raiders. Away: Rabbitohs.
    Brumbies: Sunday, 22 April; kick-off 4.05pm Vs Jaguars, who recently beat the Victorian Rebels, following on from their earlier defeat of the NSW Waratahs.

Go Pies.

 

Cam

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