Round 18 – Collingwood v Port Adelaide: Port too good for Good ol’ Collingwood

 

Nathan Buckley asked the boys to jot down words that describe the great Scott Pendlebury leading up his record-breaking game tonight.

 

The yellow sticky notes plastered in a cluster on the white board under the hashtag #SP314 read;

 

LEADER, INFLUENTIAL, WILLING, METICULOUS, ELITE, RESILIENT, UNFAZED, HONEST, FAIR, DEPENDABLE, BOSS, WITTY, ULTRA-PROFESSIONAL, RELIABLE, CONSISTENT, MENTOR, RELENTLESS, HARD-WORKER, INSPIRING, ROLE MODEL, SELFLESS, SEEKER, WINNER.

 

If I could add my own post-it note it might have read SUPER STAR, TIME STOPPER, MAGICIAN, FIGHTER, CLASS, INTELLIGENCE, AGLILTY, FREAKISHLY GOOD BALANCE, POETIC, GROUNDED.

 

How could just one person carry all those strong words on their shoulders every day, think of the pressure of it all, being all those things and yet he is and has been from the very first day he pulled on that jumper.

 

I was hoping the boys would be able to pull it off tonight, if not for me and the rest of the faithful at least for Pendles. Yeah, I had hope and I wanted to have a positive mind-set, but I also knew Port weren’t just going to lie down. It says it in their song… Port Adelaide don’t stop – stop -stop till they’re top -top – top and winning this game secured their finish at the top. I just held onto the hope deep inside that we might just surprise everyone and pull an upset.

 

Recently I found a love for baby goats, specifically the fluffy cute ones that have like Dalmatian spots. So my father-in-law promised me the purchase of said baby goat if Collingwood pulled off the win. Unfortunately they didn’t. To my dismay he didn’t have to pull up his end of the deal, no little Jordy De Goaty was going to be joining the Hakims or eating up a storm in his veggie garden.

 

I was happy with our goal kicking with seven goals and 3 behinds, accuracy wasn’t the issue here. The biggest issue that just made me kick-off Maynard style out of immeasurable frustration was our overuse of handballing. We slaughtered that footy with handballs. I just want to understand, please if someone can explain to me why it’s a good idea to handball to a player about 60cm from you who has an opposition player breathing down their neck, ready to lay the tackle or cause a turn over which ultimately may (normally does) end in a goal at their end of the ground. Like, why is this a good idea? When this happens (not just tonight but has been happening all season) maybe it’s time to “STOP BLOODY HANDBALLING AND KICK THE DAMN THING!”

 

We have an elite midfield, we have Pendles, Treloar, Adams, Elliott gets thrown in there too sometimes and we have Grundy in the ruck. All you need is for one or two at the most of those midfielders to grab that ball and when they do just KICK IT, or throw a foot on the gas and burst away from the middle with the ball – BUT DO NO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE start handballing to death because one handball too many (normally it’s the 4^th or 5^th one) and guess what? TURN OVER CITY. When teams pick up on the frantic handball chain all they must do is apply a little more pressure to cause the inevitable turn over.

 

Also is there any way that someone else can start going into contests head-first besides Jamie Elliott? The poor bloke has copped so many knocks to his head the photo he posted of his blood red ear drum is enough to make me worry about his hearing. No joke the inside of his ear drum made me scream, it looked like something out of a horror movie.

 

Let’s talk about Stephenson. Something is very wrong there and I’m not sure what. Maybe it’s a personal problem that’s impacting his performance, maybe he’s just not confident about his role, maybe he’s home sick and misses his family? He seemed off tonight you could see it on his face, his vibe was low and when he kicked a goal his reaction confirmed my suspicions… his mood was very flat, almost unhappy even. I hope he gets the right support; it upsets me that he might be feeling upset when we could make a highlight reel out of his goals and electrifying attacks up forward. He shouldn’t doubt his role in the team, everyone knows how dangerous he can be.

 

Having lost tonight, although we did put up a fight and we certainly didn’t let them walk all over us, now we only have one more crack left to stay in the finals race.

 

The boys must pack their bags and leave for Perth to face the Wet Toast Eagles, yuck.

 

That will be an interesting game (during which i’ll probably feel like throwing up multiple times).

 

We could either freeze up from the memories of  2018, drop to the ground and completely roll over covered in Perth ‘boooo’s from PTSD or we could take our revenge like some type of big boss and steamroll over the Wet Toast Eagles on their home ground turning the ‘boooo’s into ‘boohoo’s.

 

So many options, so many endings- oh, the drama.

 

COLLINGWOOD        2.0       4.0       6.1       7.3 (45)

PORT ADELAIDE      2.2       5.3       8.7       9.7 (61)

 

GOALS

Collingwood: Mihocek 2, De Goey, Elliott, Greenwood, Stephenson, Treloar

Port Adelaide: Ebert 2, Motlop 2, Dixon, Duursma, Marshall, Powell-Pepper, Rockliff

 

BEST
Collingwood: Adams, Pendlebury, Crisp, Daicos, Quaynor,

Port Adelaide: Houston, Rockliff, Gray, Ebert, Jonas, Byrne-Jones

 

INJURIES
Collingwood: Nil

Port Adelaide: Nil

 

 

 

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