Round 10 – Sydney v Collingwood: PENDLES! No … Wait …
Round 10
Sydney V Collingwood
Friday 15 May 2026
SCG, Gadigal
sarcasm
noun
“she didn’t like the note of sarcasm in his voice”
Pies v Swans! What a game! Collingwood, spot in the 8 on the line, could make or break their entire finals campaign… ONE goal short! One kick! If only they had another quality midfielder playing! Just one! Someone who is not injured, and can make it look like time has stopped when they have the ball. And almost always kicks a goal when it counts.
If only!
If only they had that bit more experience out there. Someone who’d played a lot of games. If only they had a bit more leadership, especially with Darcy Moore out. Someone cool in a crisis. Someone who never, ever panics.
Thank the heavens they didn’t put PR in front of team success. Flash and shallow in front of genuine love of the game. Thank the skies above they didn’t break the very first rule of footy!
The first!
The one they teach you above all else: the team comes before the individual.
Collingwood know that, surely. They’re working class. That’s in their DNA! What the club represents.
Thank FUCK they didn’t tarnish the grandest of achievements of one of the most likeable champions footy has ever seen by putting hoopala ahead of the spirit of the game. I’m glad the powers that be at Pieland know how soft and pathetic that would look.
That our great game revolves around the awkward bounce of an oval ball, and milestones fall wherever they may.
I understand some players are afforded the luxury of not playing interstate, as if being cradled to milestones, but not in the Wood! There they know Sydney is so close I’ve done longer farts than the flight up. All hands on deck, boys! This is a MUST win! Shirk no excuses! Take no prisoners! All for the team! The mighty Pies!
Imagine being fit, good to go, knowing you’re worth several goals, watching your teammates fight for blood and glory and fall just one kick short.
Fancy potentially, hopefully, missing out on FINALS, for a club’s vanity.
And cash.
Not the Pies. They’re already the richest club in the League. They wouldn’t be as dumb as that.
I’ll speak about the rise and rise of Grundy later. Maybe even do another match report. For now, I’m just peachy happy that the Pies put the team before the individual, and in doing so, gave the individual the genuine, unmanufactured moment he deserved.
And didn‘t taint his legacy one bit.
SYDNEY 1.4 3.6 9.12 11.15 (81)
COLLINGWOOD 5.2 6.9 8.12 10.15 (75)
GOALS
Sydney: McDonald 2, Papley 2, Grundy, Curnow, Serong, Blakey, McInerney, Warner, Heeney
Collingwood: N.Daicos 2, Long, West, Schultz, Anderson, McStay, Hayes, Steele, Elliott
BEST
Sydney: Grundy, Blakey, Heeney, McInerney, McCartin
Collingwood: N.Daicos, Quaynor, De Goey, Houston, Maynard,
INJURIES
Sydney: Nil
Collingwood: Steene (knee)
LATE CHANGES
Sydney: Nil
Collingwood: Nil
Crowd: 40,627 at the Sydney Cricket Ground
Round 10 match reports can be read Here.
More from Matt Zurbo HERE.
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bleh
Thanks Matt,
Leigh Mattbews said as much too in the Weekend paper.
Pies placing romance over team auccess.
Putting $ ahead of spirit of the game.
Matt it is getting worse across the sports of AFL and CA. The players and clubs have become money hungry I refuse to buy anything connected to ANY club. Everyone should read Malcolm Knox’s article from October 2021 “Cricketers our perfect envoys in selfish times”.
I put n article on facebook about the Geelong Indigenous jumper which has drawn everyone, yes, everyone to agree. Just another making concern along with every other “special round”.
Watching the Sydney Carringbush game I was continually reminding myself what “if” Pendles played.
THANK YOU
Old dog agree – 1 BILLION per cent and let’s add another layer they have recruited very much for the now not the future and I reckon deep down-Pendles would be spewing if it was team he didn’t play the second half against the bombers seemingly weighting winning the Anzac Day medal instead of the game against the hawks -unbelievable total and thorough incompetence
Since we ain’t going to win the flag this year, and since Pendlebury is 38 this year, the Magpies can do what they like with an ageing champion, other than sacking him like North did to Harvey and Footscray did to Ted Whitten. Was it worth it leaving him out of the Swans game, we’ll never know, but it enabled a bunch of youngsters such as West and Anderson to show what they could do, and like Mark Twain, show that our predicted demise is a tad exaggerated.
And guess what, another youngster called Sam Swadling had 39 possessions in a one sided defeat to the Swans reserves, another reason for optimism. There is a touch of the Kane Corneses about the criticism heaped on both Pendlebury and Nick Daicos. OK, we are not Manchester City, but we are the most successful club in the AFL. The utter contempt towards Collingwood from the scribes and the punters really baffles me sometimes.
On the money, Old Dog. It was the wrong move and the ethos of a great footy club is in its team, not the individual. From a club who gave us The Machine and inspired The Club, it sticks out as very un-Collingwood.
As I understand your argument, if Pendles was playing, they would have won? How can you be so sure? There are more if’s in footy, a sport you say revolves “around the awkward bounce of an oval ball” than there are tears in a bottle of gin.
MZ, this would be a better opinion piece if it was written before the Pies vs Swans match. Or put another way, reducing the Pies and Pendles decision to a vanity project is simplistic to say the least. Suggesting the decision to park Pendles will tarnish his career is equally hilarious and hyperbolic.
In 2000 Brisbane coach, Lethal Leigh supported his key forward, Bradshaw, being with his wife for the birth of their child rather than play a semi-final. For that he had to weather the prevailing misogynistic views of the footy commentariat of the time.
The next comparison might seem opaque, but it refers to the “all or nothing” footy code you’re pumping. I’m talking about how long it took the AFL and all of us to get reasonable concussion protocols in place. More than ten years too long. Largely due to the intransigent mindset that team mattered more than the individual. However, I felt sick to the stomach watching Jordan Lewis wandering around the Docklands stadium like a lost sheep in 2011 (I think). He had been knocked out earlier in the game but came back on because team was everything. This is one of the sadder things I’ve seen in footy.
Pendles has given us all so much joy over his storied career of 432 games. You are stretching the bow to breaking point to state ipso facto Pendlebury’s absence in the Swans game will lead to Pies missing Finals. As you say, footy is about the team. If the Pies could only manage 5 goals in three quarters after booting 5 in the first then their problems run deeper than Pendles saving his record-breaking game for the lights, honour and adulation of the MCG.
So chill man. PR and pomp and circumstance have been part and parcel of footy the whole time. It may not be your bag but it is here and relevant.
OL DOG – you would have felt sick like I did when I read the article in The Age about what Pendles will take home after the game this weekend and this, in my opinion, is only part of the “money pit”. I am suggesting that he could pocket at least 1 million dollars from the game paid for by ordinary people.
Unfortunately for such a fine player this is not his doing but it is how sport is portrayed and for many right reasons amongst the general public.
From left-field Carringbush should have won against Sydney with number 10 directing play when they got into trouble. Yes, it probably has cost the Pies a place in the “real” finals but this is not the name of the game now is it?
My two cents: (as a neutral)
Pendlebury is a champion footballer and worthy of all honour and accolades.
He also seems to be a very decent bloke.
He is 38 and setting records when most others are well into footy retirement.
He has contributed a massive amount to Collingwood and to footy and is (surely) near the end.
Football is a business AND a sport, the world has changed and footy is changing with it, whether you like it or not. From that perspective it makes total sense to maximise the income and the exposure of this amazing milestone.
Collingwood are the biggest club with the most fans (and haters), and fans are the lifeblood of the game, therefore, it makes sense to allow as many Magpie supporters as possible to witness history at the Coliseum.
Would Collingwood have won if Pendles had played, maybe, maybe not, but they were good enough without him to kick five goals to one in the first quarter and to lead by 21 points at half time.
They were good enough to be level in the final quarter. They had chances to kick goals and probably win the game, all without Pendlebury.
Sooner than later they will need to stand on their own 46 feet and learn to win without him.
Some great comments, and counterpoints by ripper people who believe what they believe, and express it without calling each other flogs. I hear all your points, and am extremely grateful to the Almanac that we can converse about things that matter to us in good faith.
For what it’s worth, I live in a sports media free bubble. I don’t listen to, watch, or read it, and take in the games with the volume down. If it seems, as I have been accused, that I am jumping on an anti Collingwood bandwagon, please know, that is as far from the truth as possible. I love the Pies, and totally admire Pendles. Both his skills, and the way he holds himself.
But I love the Aussie, no-bullshit ethos our game is meant to represent. I’ll stick to my guns on this one.