Round 4 – Dr Hooke’s Collingwood Life: I enjoyed that…

True Believers, all;

I enjoyed that; particularly having been up at 3.00am to get to the Dawn Service in Canberra.

This game was important because it was our first win against a potential ‘Finalist’.  We were clearly the underdogs.  Look at the rest of the weekend’s games – Hawthorn, Sydney, Adelaide losses; Carlton and Melbourne wins – What is going on?

Game reports, including statistics, Jake Niall’s view and Mr Connolly’s view (could also be titled: “Why I keep picking incorrectly”) are worth a read.  Watch Elliott’s goal.  What is the definition of a goal?  When the umpires say so!

Hird’s claim that Essendon didn’t adjust for the conditions is a bit silly.  Their Disposals swamped ours because they wasted so many going sideways or little kicks.  My comment in my earlier email about maximising their ‘spine’ by using ‘the corridor’ simply did not occur.  I think the difference was in ‘application’ – every Pie contributed; only a few Dons did.  That was the difference in a wet, almost ‘Finals-style’ game of footy; not pretty, but tough.

A great performance by our team – worthy of mention: the Backs (all of them, but particularly Frost and Brown (best game by him I’ve seen for a while)), Seedsman (everywhere), Crisp’s performance shutting down Watson, Adams and a bunch of others.  We asked for ferocity and that’s what we got, from everyone for the whole game, again.  I think the most extraordinary thing was the number of times a Pies’ player ran hard to intercept or spoil a pass when you quite reasonably thought that they wouldn’t make it or it would mean “leaving their man” (Frost, in particular  at one stage late in the game he was just outside our attacking 50 (for a Back?) – I thought he might have a shot at goal, but passed it instead inside the 50 (See statistics – Inside 50’s)).  In such a low-scoring game the emphasis was on both Midfields and Backlines – little on the Forwards.  I think it would be difficult to identify more than a couple of players that it would be reasonable ‘to replace’ when some of our ‘names’ become available – a very good position to be in.

My thanks to both Phil and Steve for their Bomber comments.  I think both were close to spot-on in identifying who needed to perform and how.  For them, unfortunately, they didn’t. Hooker and Heppell were everywhere (annoyingly so), as was Stanton up Forward for them and Fletcher down Back (How old is he? He was close to BOG to Half Time).  And where was Jobe?  With Crisp attached.

Only a Pies supporter would have a whinge about a crowd of 88,395.  I do, however, agree; we always set the highest expectations.

Interesting ‘talk around the traps’ on TV regarding the Pies as a genuine contender.  Must be so; Leigh Matthews said so. In a fit of uncharacteristic optimism I put a little wager on the Pies winning the Premiership at 50:1 (on Saturday morning; wonder what the odds are now).  Probably won’t pay off the mortgage.

Other – Darcy Moore’s hamstring injury in the Twos’.

This week – ‘the olde enemy’.  More on this later.

Go Pies,

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