Round 11- Collingwood v GWS: Floreat Pica Society

What a nice way to end the weekend. It was an entertaining game and relatively low scoring until we kicked 8 last quarter goals. No surprise I suppose given that by about 3/4 time they had 4 bad injuries including both key backs.

Grundy did not come up, resulting in Seeds getting a reprieve. This left Witts to front Mummy. After a slow start and dropping a couple of marks he got better in the ruck contests as the game wore on. We did not kick a goal in the first quarter (or the second) til near the half way mark. A strong mark by Faz against 3 opponents, and some neat work from White in his 100th game saw us go in 2 goals up at the first break.

GWS came out strongly in the 2nd quarter with Shiel very dominant early. They threatened to open up a good lead, but fortunately missed several set shots for goal to keep us within about 10 points. We again steadied as the quarter wore on with our midfielders starting to feed the forward line. This resulted in 4 goals from the 12 minute mark and a 15 point lead at the main break. Marley and Brown were strong in defense. There was one great passage of play when Marley twice hit the contest hard, got it back and hand balled to Crisp who goaled on the run.

There were only 4 goals (2 each) kicked in the 3rd quarter resulting in us maintaining our lead at the last change. Given our inability to score early goals before half time I was surprised to see Pendles on the pine at the start of the 3rd quarter.

With all their injuries and their inability to rotate players, it was no surprise we ran over them in the last quarter. We kicked 8.1 to their 4 straight. Several highlights included some great field play from Elliott finished with kicks to Cloke’s advantage, Swan and Pendles combining for a great running goal, another good snap from White, the Ox taking a strong grab and never looking like missing, and Cloke kicking one of his 4 last quarter goals after the final bell.

Other observations…

It was good to see 3 young players kick good long set shot goals – Broomhead, De Goey, and Crisp.

Great to be 8 and 3 for the second year in a row. With not many injuries, and with good and promising players to come in, one would hope we don’t reverse like last year and go 3 and 8 in the second half of the season.

Swan is having the year he was expected to have last year. I was hopeful this would happen, but it is rare for a player to hit 30 and have a poor year (by his standards) and then come back nearly as good as ever the next. I don’t believe the rumours of him retiring year end.

Elliott again struggled to get into the game in the first half. But he crumbed a great goal in the third quarter and was strong in the last. He’s kicked 14 goals in the last 4 games so imagine what would happen if he fired all game.

Seeds got a bit of the ball and kicked a nice goal but continues to disappoint since winning the medal.

Faz still needs to do more when he does not have the ball.

Kennedy needs to get a full game to see what he can do.

We did not miss Blair.

Adams is becoming very reliable and Crisp has made an immediate impact. As result we do not miss Ball or Thomas… or even Beams as much as we may of thought.

It would be great if Reid comes in and stays fit.

As everyone keeps pointing out, we have beaten mainly lowly teams. Who knows how good we are? Maybe make the 8 but very hard to see us pushing for top 4. So the real tests will come after next week’s bye.

I did not see any seagulls but there was a flock of about 50 pigeons on the ground on the AFL members’ side for a large part of the game. As a lot of the play was on the MCC side, the pigeons spent more time on the ground than some of the injured GWS players. The only time they had to scatter quickly was when when a swan marked a brown kick strongly in their midst.

That’s enough…

Votes for the Horsburgh as follows.

3 to Marley who got plenty of it in the first 3 quarters, and was very tough and hard.

2 to Brown in one of his very best games.

1 to Adams who kept getting the ball and pushing us forward.

Could easily have included Pendles, Crisp, Swan, Ox, Cloke.

Go Pies!

 

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