Greeting Gents
Floreat Pica Society continued a long Collingwood tradition by blooding youth in a big game. !6 year-old Richard Cornell wrote the match report while his 11 year-old brother Nicholas awarded the Danny Roach votes -see both below. I wonder what these young blokes are like at kicking goals?
Cheers
Steve Fahey
Match Report – by Richard Cornell
Round 3 Saints v Pies
Friday night footy started like any other at McKinnon station. Dad quiet, and not too confident. Paul Harkin amused us with one of his stories. This weeks was about how he lost his shampoo bottle at Kingswood Golf Club, before eventually finding it in his shoe. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night.
The action started even before the siren. Obviously Mick told the Pies to have a crack, something we did very well for three quarters. The fighting (or what there was of it) set the scene for the first half of football: scrappy, low skill and end to end, without much scoring at all but played with great intensity. The Pies were well and truly in the game, mainly thanks to Presti who kept Riewoldt to 5 possessions. Travis Cloke also had a great first half, providing a presence on the forward line. Unfortunately, his kicking let him down…again.
Ball, Sidebottom and Cloke had a lot of the ball, but we weren’t using it effectively or applying scoreboard pressure. The main culprits were Didak, Lockyer and Swan who turned the ball over with dodgy kicks. Late in the second quarter Riewoldt went down and we started to wonder what to do with Presti. Dad suggested putting him at full forward to spoil the Saint defenders who seemed to be marking the long bombs at will.
The 3rd quarter was similar to the first half, lots of pressure and flooding with the Pies unable to convert chances. Medhurst, Didak, Davis and Ball all missed opportunities. It was the story of the night. We kicked six points in the 3rd quarter to only trail by 4 points, but worse was to come.
I’ve done some research and the last time Collingwood failed to score a goal in the second half was Round 13 1987 when we played North Melbourne at Waverley Park. We only kicked two points.
The Saints came out of the blocks running in the last quarter and ran us off our feet. Sam Fisher’s return to the field only seemed to inspire the Saints to greater heights. A miserable night in the end. The Pies pressure was great but too many skill errors and bad kicking at goal cost us any hope of victory.
The Votes:
3 Votes: Sidebottom – Played well and tried his best through the whole night. Was at the bottom of most packs around the ground, and did some great work to set up Cloke a few times.
2 Votes: Wellingham – Plenty of possessions although wasted a few of them. Starting to show a bit of class and ability.
1 Vote: Ball – Played well against his old side. Paul’s attempted outcry of ‘BALL’ every time he got a possession was short lived, but Ball played well and has most likely taken over O’Bree’s position of tagger/rover in the midfield.
The Damian Monkhorst Medal goes to…Steele Sidebottom
DANNY ROACH – by Nicholas Cornell
Plenty of players to choose from this week including some of the senior players who should be used to the pressure St Kilda applied on Friday night.
3….Paul Medhurst – Never looked like kicking a goal and that is what he is on the field to do.
2….Leigh Brown – He is a big man and needs to use his size to burst the packs as he did against the Doggies.
1….Tarkyn Lockyer – Only 11 possessions which is a lot below his usual total. Made some silly mistakes and turned the ball over more than usual.
I would have liked to have included Darren Jolly, Shane O’Bree and Leon Davis as well but there’s only 3 votes.
Go Pies
Many thanks to Richard and Nicholas for their excellent reports. What are you like at kicking goals boys, there are some positions available !
Goals for the week : Lionel Messi 4 Collingwood 4 – how demoralising !
The Saints have the answers against us, while we are left with many questions. We were well and truly in the game at three-quarter time but when the game was there for the taking we were not. Once we get behind the Saints we have no clues, with panicked kicks out of defence and long and high bombs forward helping the Saints to set up the way they want to play. I reckon our team of 2007 would have handled the Saints better than the current team. One proven way of kicking goals against sides that get lots of numbers back and fill space/zone is by kicking goals from outside 50. Then we had Bucks, Rocca, Lonie and Clement who were very long kicks of the footy and potent weapons from outside the Starcevich Line. We really lack them now. We still have blokes who are accurate kicks within 50, as named by Stork, but they have to be able to get the ball in scoring positions.
I normally find some positives and I guess the fact that we were competitive for three quarters was an improvement on our recent efforts against the Saints, but they had some bodies down. I quite liked Macaffer’s work in his first game for the season and have hopes for him, and as Richard pointed out, Sidey and Wellingham were both very good, and Beams had a good first half. It was definitely the expereinced players who let us down. I also thought that Harry was very good again.
1- please don’t mention Jimmy Clement, i think ill cry! i miss him so!! :(
i feel your pain fellas!
You seem to have come away still positive unlike myself.
i need to borrow some patience from a Richmond supporter, they seem to have plenty while i breakout after 2 wins 1 loss.
GO PIES!
Danni