Round 11 – Collingwood v North Melbourne: Milestones, celebrations and misadventures (Floreat Pica Society)

by Dave Nadel for the Floreat Pica Society
Docklands Stadium

 

I volunteered to report the game against North for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I was worried that no-one else would. This season there have been three teams that have been contenders for the wooden spoon (although Hawthorn may have removed itself from contention after its defeat of St Kilda yesterday). I could imagine that Floreat Pica members might have been keen to report the matches against the Eagles and the Hawks out of Schadenfreude, after all, it has only been five years since the Weagles pinched a flag from the Pies and Hawthorn were the top team of the last decade. But who could take joy out of the smashing of North, who haven’t won a flag this century and whose brilliant, but annoying players such as Wayne Carey have been retired for almost two decades. Schadenfreude motivates writers, pity does not.

Secondly, I was interested to see how Alastair Clarkson approached reconstruction of the wooden spoon Kangaroos. We remember his all-conquering Hawthorn team of the mid-Teens but in his first years at Waverley Park, when he was team building, Hawthorn was unwatchable. I remember a game in 2005 (a year in which the Pies were also team building) which may have been the worst game I watched that decade. Hawthorn basically spent the whole game moving the ball in small circles when they had possession. In the long term it may have worked, given that the Hawks won a flag three years later, but it was an awful exhibition. So, was Clarkson going to develop North in the same fashion?

Thirdly I was a bit interested in watching Harry Sheezel. I don’t usually focus on players from other clubs, but I am interested in Harry. About twenty years ago barrackers started drawing up lists of the greatest VFL/AFL players from various ethnic groups. There were teams from the Italian and Greek communities and possibly also Croatian and Serbian. There were books about the greatest Indigenous teams. I tried to draw up a greatest Jewish team. It couldn’t be done, even if you included the Krakouer Brothers who are 1/64^th Jewish.  There just weren’t enough top class Jewish footballers. So Sheezel’s emergence is interesting.

As the weeks went past a couple of other reasons to report the game emerged. It became clear that barring injury in Rounds nine and ten, two of my favourite players were going to achieve milestones. Steele Sidebottom was going to become the fourth Collingwood player to play 300 games for the club and the Long Tall Texan was going to notch 100 games. I wanted to celebrate these milestones.

Then suddenly Clarkson took leave of absence from the Roos and Brett Ratten took his third gig as stand-in coach. In his two previous stand-in roles Ratten effectively auditioned for appointment as senior coach. If he has any ideas of repeating this at North, he will not have his players playing the Clarkson style of 2005.

Before the match E.regnans posted a brilliant tribute to Steele Sidebottom both on the FPS thread and on The Footy Almanac, so I won’t cover the same ground here. Suffice it to say that I remember when we drafted Sidey  I thought any player who kicks ten goals in a TAC Grand Final is certainly worth recruiting.

Less than two years later, and still in his teens, Sidey was a Collingwood Premiership player. Over the intervening years I have been impressed both at his selfless play and his crucial role in moving the ball forward. He brings other players into the game and scores regularly himself. What more could you ask for?

 

Mason Cox’s 100 games was more unlikely. I won’t repeat the story of his arrival in detail. Every Pie fan knows that he hadn’t heard of the game until he was 23. His recruitment and his choice to come here were both gambles. His hundred games are even more unlikely when you consider the injuries that he has had over the years. Even if he hadn’t been an “American Pie” he would have stood out, not only for his height but also because he also has a very distinctive quirky sense of humour. When Trump was elected in 2016 he tweeted “With this crazy election at home I just want to move to the opposite side of the world and live on an island… Oh wait nvm #RIPUSA”

The interesting thing about that is that Mason’s home state of Texas strongly supported Trump.

 

So we get to the match, which I am not going to describe quarter by quarter.  All the celebrations were in place to honour Steele’s Milestone. The run-through, his family and 100 guests, an expectant crowd. He started well with four possessions in the first few minutes of the game. Then he limped from the field with what turned out to be an MCL injury. It was disappointing for Steele, his family, friends and the Fans but he still has the achievement and there will be more games for Sidey before he retires.

In other ways the match went pretty much as expected. The Pies were always in control although they had a couple of lapses in concentration and allowed the Roos to outscore them in the Final Quarter, but the result was never in doubt.  The Long Tall Texan kicked two goals, the second from what was effectively a one-handed mark. Most of our forwards were lively, Ginnivan kicked two goals and more surprisingly actually was awarded a free kick. I thought the umpires had declared open season on Jack. Bobby Hill didn’t score a goal but had lots of possessions and marks. Brodie Mihocek scored three goals, which made him equal top scorer for Collingwood along with Josh Daicos.

Sidebottom and Cox were not the only milestone players at the Docklands to have started their AFL careers at Collingwood. Jaidyn Stephenson played his hundredth game yesterday. He won a Rising Star at Collingwood but was gone by the end of 2020 for various off field reasons. He kicked a couple of goals yesterday but was not among North’s best players.

As for Harry Sheezel, he was good but not as good as Nick Daicos in his first season (although it is not fair to judge on one match). He probably will be the best Jewish Australian Rules Footballer, but then again he would really only be competing with St Kilda’s Ian Synman (centre half back in their only premiership side) and maybe Todd Goldstein.

 

The Horsbrough Votes

3 votes  Jordan De Goey. This is one of the best games that I have seen Jordy play. He was in total control and unstoppable.

2 votes Isaac Quaynor.  Isaac is often underrated because the highflying intercept defenders like Moore, Murphy and (when he was fit) Howe tend to get your attention. But Quaynor’s defensive and linking skills have played a crucial role in Collingwood’s victories particularly since McRae arrived and encouraged a positive game plan. He was great yesterday.

1 vote Josh Daicos. The media and the stats favour Nick over his brother but I thought Josh was inspiring yesterday. His huge goal (50+ metres) was a joy to watch.

Apologies to Nick Daicos, Darcy Moore, Tom Mitchell, Brodie Mihocek, Scott Pendlebury and Brayden Maynard.

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COLLINGWOOD              4.3    7.5    13.8   16.9 (105)
NORTH MELBOURNE       0.3   2.8    4.9    10.10 (70) 

GOALS 
Collingwood: Mihocek 3, J.Daicos 3, Ginnivan 2, Cox 2, Hoskin-Elliott 2, N.Daicos, De Goey, Adams, Johnson
North Melbourne: Larkey 5, Stephenson 2, Howe, Zurhaar, Scott

INJURIES 
Collingwood: Steele Sidebottom (knee)
North Melbourne: None

SUBSTITUTES 
Collingwood: Will Hoskin-Elliott (replaced Steele Sidebottom in the first quarter)
North Melbourne: Paul Curtis (replaced Phoenix Spicer in the third quarter)

Crowd: 39,467 at Marvel Stadium

 

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