by Frank Taylor for the Floreat Pica Society
Preamble
Being a Collingwood focused type fan, unlike a number of my Pie obsessed mates, I generally don’t pay too much attention to other sides throughout the season until we come to play them, usually when we make the finals.
So, way back in 2021, the season following the truncated, shortened and strange Covid 2020 season, I really didn’t have Melbourne on my radar until later in the season, about Round 16 or 17 when I watched a Melbourne game (non-Collingwood game) for the first time in a while.
Well, gee – the combo of Max Gawn and Christian Petracca, backed by the likes of Jack Viney, Steven May, Clayton Oliver, etc – really got my attention. (Even though The Pies were the only team to beat them all season.)
Impressive.
I really thought that they could certainly go all the way and finally crack it after nearly six decades of pain and disappointment, which history shows they did. Albeit the GF was played in Perth.
Last year they were off the ball, so to speak – Grand Final hangover, a couple of internal issues and they were off the boil.
I expected a rebound this year. Third place on the ladder so far certainly confirmed this. They are a great side and will be hard to beat. Going into this game, there were rumours of sickness to one or both of the Daicos boys and Mason Cox as well as a couple of forced changes.
I was checking team selection all weekend as I was interested in how Fly was going to handle this. As it was, Cox and the Brothers Magic did play, however Ginnivan was a late withdrawal.
Lipinski’s inclusion was no surprise to me as he was sort of a direct swap for Jordan De Goey, however Reef McInnes’s inclusion was a surprise to me as he wasn’t really on my radar. (It was a surprise to the publishers of the Record as well as he was not included in the 28 players with the game day players, but only in the full list next page…) Still, I was sure that Fly had his reasons….
The Game
I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow account and will describe it as I saw it.
First quarter
Well after the first point to the Dees, we get off to a cracking start with 3 goals to Lipinski, Crisp and Harrison and I was thinking “How good is this.” At the back of my mind I’m also thinking “Melbourne will begin to work us out shortly and tighten up here and there so watch this space….”
I was right.
The Dees got their act together and began to tackle and chase and shut us down. Thanks to some appallingly wayward set shots by Melbourne we lead.
3.1 to 1.4
Second and Third quarters
This was the classic arm wrestle with both sides endeavouring to contain each other’s scoring with the Dees coming out on top. Melbourne dominated the aerial contests around the ground with Gawn and May really showing how it is done. Unfortunately for them, and lucky for us, their forwards really let them down with very poor conversion. (What is this? We’ve seen it week to week where other sides dominate, however cannot convert this to the scoreboard. Collingwood must get into their heads somehow…..)
We kicked 3.4 (7 shots on goal) to 5.7 (12 shots) to finish with the Dees only up by 6 individual points at 3/4 time,
6.5 to 6.11
Last quarter
Well, after a minor score to Melbourne, two minutes in and Lipinski kicks his second. However the Dees get their act together and began to dominate. Three more very gettable chances by them were squandered and luckily resulted in minor scores before they finally kicked two goals in a row. Our backline is totally under the pump and manage to rush a couple of behinds before Fritsch has another shot on goal which he misses (again). Melbourne are 19 points up – 4 shots – with about 10 minutes to go. Can we pull it out of the fire again? Most around me are pessimistic.
Collingwood finally manage to sort-of break a few shackles, change their game a little and begin to get some meaningful forward moves. The Hyphen misses a gettable shot as does Checkers (3 behinds – doing a Fritsch) after a rushed behind, 16 points down with about 4 minutes to go. One goal (Mihocek finally) and one to Naicos has us trailing by 4 points with 25 seconds left.
Melbourne lock it up at the bounce and it’s all over red rover.
They win 8.18.66 to 9.8.62.
Observations
As the AFL match summary put it: “… after the Magpies kicked the first three goals of the game, the Demons were the better team today.”
Personally, I thought that although they clearly teamed better, they couldn’t convert and had Checkers and Hoskin-Elliott converted late in the last, we would’ve prevailed. Did we deserve to? Probably not. But footy is a funny game.
It was a tough match as expected, as a number of minor injuries and blood rule stoppages attested. Our backline was under siege for most of the game and performed generally pretty well although their poor form shooting for goal certainly helped us here.
Unusually, our kicking out after a minor score was not up to our usual high standard and was the worst I have seen all season. Melbourne had certainly done their homework here and other sides will study the tapes to find out how it was done. Too many of our forward moves were a replay of the bad old days of not lowering their eyes and just kicking it and hoping. May and Gawn had a field day.
I reckon that with our forced changes, team balance was compromised. We really missed that forward pressure that Jamie Elliott and to a lesser degree, Ginnivan brings to the game. Bobby Hill has the brilliance and polish at times, however he is not up to quite their standard against really good sides.
I was surprised (shocked) when Ash Johnson was subbed off (I later heard that he was ill) instead of McInnes who fumbled a gimme in front of goal and later missed everything in a (tough) set shot. MIA. Aside from his one goal cameo I didn’t notice Harvey Harrison at all. He was injured apparently. Didn’t see a lot of Markov when he came on either. The Daicos boys were quiet by their lofty standards (illness or match-ups?) and Lipinski certainly showed that he lacked match practice despite his two goals.
Our structure was perplexing at lot of the time as well. Too often we would kick to a two on three contest with two lines of three off the ball on the “fat(?)” side hoping that our two would prevail in an uneven contest. Invariably we didn’t and just turned it over. Doug noted that their numbers at the ball were more like Collingwood’s usual game. I agreed.
In the final analysis I thought that (unusually), Craig McRae and the match committee, got the selection wrong this week. Still, 13 games – 11 won, two losses, on top of the ladder and with the best percentage is not a bad place to be with next week a bye. As a good mate, Twiggy, (Doggies supporter) texted me after the match:
“Hey Franky T, I know it’s a hard pill to shallow, but it’s a good time to drop a game, cheers BT”
Yep.
Votes
The three top possession getters – they keep us near it all day – get my votes.
3 votes Tommy Mitchell. Toughness personified.
2 votes Jack Crisp. Tough and skilful as per usual.
1 votes Taylor Adams. As per Mitchell.
Mentioned in dispatches: Pendlebury, Maynard, Noble, Cameron, Moore, IQ, Murphy
Floreat Pica
Go Pies!!
Frank
P.S. Neale Daniher, his daughter and family all deserve a medal. The MND round is a permanent fixture now and truly brings everyone together. Thanks Neale. You are a real champion.
==
MELBOURNE 1.4 3.8 6.11 8.18 (66)
COLLINGWOOD 3.1 5.4 6.5 9.8 (62)
GOALS
Melbourne: Fritsch 3, Viney, Smith, Grundy, Neal-Bullen, van Rooyen
Collingwood: Lipinski 2, Crisp, Harrison, Cox, Hill, McCreery, Mihocek, N.Daicos
INJURIES
Melbourne: Tomlinson (hand), Viney (shoulder)
Collingwood: Moore (ankle)
LATE CHANGES
Melbourne: Nil
Collingwood: Jack Ginnivan (managed), replaced in selected side by Reef McInnes
SUBSTITUTES
Melbourne: James Jordon (replaced Charlie Spargo in the third quarter)
Collingwood: Oleg Markov (replaced Ash Johnson in the third quarter)
Crowd: 83,578 at the MCG
==
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