Round 7 – Collingwood v Carlton: I Hate Footy
“I like footy!
I like footy!
I love footy!
We love footy!
Kick that footy!
I like footy!
Ooh yeah footy!
We like footy!
I love my footy!
He likes footy!
I like footy!
I HATE FOOTY!”
‘Footy’, Spiderbait, 1992
Just seven short weeks ago, I loved footy. The season ahead had so much promise for Collingwood. The developing team that won 8 of our first 11 games, then had narrow, well fought losses to top teams Hawthorn, Fremantle and Sydney, had added Adam Treloar, James Aish and Jeremy Howe.
Despite a serious knee injury to high draft pick Matt Scharenberg, the pre season went well with some strong performances. Couldn’t wait for the season to start.
The Sydney game in Round 1 was horrible. Hopefully a one off, an aberration that sometimes occurs in the opening round (we were similarly smashed in Round 1 , 1990 before going on to win the flag). The serious injury to Swannie in that game topped off an awful performance.
Since that night the Pies have played only about 90 minutes of good football. The first half of the ANZAC Day clash, and the 3rd quarter of the West Coast game, after a first half where it seemed our team was still on the plane over the Nullarbor for most of it. The goal to beat Richmond with four seconds left papered over an ordinary performance in a poor standard game.
Surely the game against a Carlton team in a full rebuild mode would get our season going. Again, we are slow to start. Most weeks we start slowly, then have to play catch up. Is the pre match preparation lacking in some way?
Collingwood are awful to watch at the moment, and Saturday was no exception. An over reliance on handball, atrocious skill by foot, poor manning up in defence, an inability to keep the ball in our forward 50.
Carlton are on the right track with their rebuild, and sadly their supporters would be enjoying going to the footy more than ours. The Blues are harder to dislike under Bolton than they were under Grumpy Mick.
For Collingwood, Pendlebury, Sidebottom and Treloar are earning their keep. Adams was before he got injured. Darcy Moore is giving us hope. Not many others get a pass mark so far this season. Howe needs to do much more while Aish looks a long way from a top 10 draft pick.
While it hurt to see Daisy Thomas play well against us, he is on ridiculous money and has hardly played for two years. It hurts far more to see Heath Shaw run around for the Giants in All-Australian form. Exactly the type of player, and leader, we could do with right now.
While I wont be giving up on the Pies, expectations have been lowered. My EPL team Newcastle United looks like being relegated this week too, as listless a performance from a team with everything to play for, in a game against the bottom, already relegated Aston Villa, that you’d ever see. The nil-all draw was 90 minutes I’ll never get back. The cricket is back on TV in a fortnight. I’ve never looked forward to an England v Sri Lanka Test series more.
I hate footy.
COLLINGWOOD 3.2 6.6 10.7 12.12 (84)
CARLTON 3.4 8.5 13.8 15.9 (99)
GOALS
Collingwood: Fasolo 4, Moore 3, White 2, Blair, Greenwood, Broomhead
Carlton: Gibbs 3, Everitt 3, Casboult 3, Murphy, Kerridge, Lamb, Jones, Sumner, Thomas
BEST
Collingwood: Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Fasolo, Treloar
Carlton: Cripps, Gibbs, Casboult, Murphy, Simpson, Curnow, Everitt
Umpires: Farmer, Hosking, Ryan
Official crowd: 60,222 at the MCG
Malarkey Medal Votes: 3. Cripps (Carl) 2. Pendlebury (Coll) 1. Gibbs (Carl)
G’day Luke
Doesn’t get much better for a Carlton fan to have lunch with Percy Jones on Friday and watch the Blues touch up the pies on Saturday. Great to meet you at the Arms. The Robb boys had a terrific weekend with Friday ‘s lunch a close second as the highlight
Cheers
Tony and Dylan
Luke
I sympathise – it must be tough supporting both Collingwood and Newcastle at present.
Newcastle really blew it last night. Looks like it’s all over with Sunderland having a game in hand??
May 8 and it’s just about over for the Pies and most likely over for Newcastle Utd, Luke. I was a Liverpool fan until I saw Kevin Keegan play for Newcastle Utd and then I was converted. 80 Million Pounds spent only to get relegated. Why didn’t they bring Benitez in in January?
As for Collingwood, I heard a 7-8 year old girl mutter to her dad: “We’re shit” after Levi sealed our fate. Where to now? Do we just get more games into youngsters and reload for 2017? I couldn’t believe how slow and unfit we looked or was it disinterested? Still can’t work it out. Either way, something has to give sooner or later or fans will vote with their feet and their wallets.
Feel for you Luke. I was thinking the other day how much I am actually enjoying the footy this year … easy to say for Swannies, huh? Of the non broken variety.
One man’s junk is another man’s diamond Luke.
I’m off to practice my Carlton swagger. It’s quite dusty, a little disheveled, and may not have much shelf life. But I intend to enjoy it while it lasts.
It might be along year ahead Luke.
My primary memory of Collingwood 2016 was the pre season match when you beat Geelong, including your 11 goal third quarter burst. A group of young chaps were screaming, shouting, making such a ruckus other people at the bowling club could not be heard as they yelled about flags, premierships, etc. They epitomised the stereotypical Collingwood supporters.
I haven’t seen much of these chaps lately. THey seemed to have disappeared into the ether, along withe Pies premiership prospects.
Glen!
Greatest day of my life.
Trace the line back … you know where it begines … that’s right, Eddie and his acolyte. Out of that you got a premiership. And now you’ve got Buckley’s & none.
Really Elbow? How does it compare to the first time you saw this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYpYi9bLloE
Better – and Foxtel IQ is so much better that VHS. No risk of wearing the tape thin on this one…
My Eagles are seriously giving me the tom tits with their poor skills and turnovers, BUT this is the most enjoyable footy season I can remember. The blissful schadenfreude of the Dockers and Magpies descent into the abyss. Richmond continuing to tap a deep well of incompetence. The emergence of the Giants. Grudging admiration of the Swans and Hawks sustained excellence. The Kangas giving hope to us pensioners. Bulldogs, Crows and Cats playing take your breath away running footy. Bombers still suffering for their hubris. What’s not to like? All good for footy.
When the Eagles had no shoes on Saturday I could flick over to the MCG and feel grateful to see Magpies with no feet (or maybe just their laces tied together). Bliss.
My only regret about Collingwood losing is not being able to talk footy with Pete the Postie, especially when the Dogs have won.
I think he’s learned how to cut the motor on his bike and quietly cruise up to the letterbox so I can’t hear him.
I suppose I should be careful I don’t give him a heart-attack when he sees the mad Bulldog supporter jump out from behind the bushes.
Know how you feel Luke of course over many years and particularly recently from about 2011-2014 when it was hard to see any progress or hope for the Dogs. You do hate footy when that is going on.
I hear you Luke, but the pies will be back! I think we need to trade a few more senior players who don’t see eye to eye with the coach, and we’ll be right.
Also , a few more 7 footers from the States who average 9 possessions a game, and a little bit more handball out of defence should see us through.
Luke. I probably don’t take EPL as seriously as you do but… I have always supported Newcastle United because they were Magpies. Since the late 80s I have also supported Norwich Canaries because my wife was born in Norwich. It used not be a problem because they were mostly in different divisions. This year they were both in the EPL. Next year they will both be in the “Championship League” (i.e. Second Division)
As far as Collingwood are concerned. Yes, the last seven weeks have been mostly awful (OK all awful apart from Anzac Day). But actually we have had a lot of experienced players injured and apart from, Swannie, Scharanberg and Ramsay, most of them will be back by or before the second half of the season. The loss of form of Cloke and Brown is more problematic but I wouldn’t assume that either of them won’t be back to 2010 form by the end of the season. We are not going to make the finals but we may well end up with the reverse of 2014-15. i,e, a poor start to the season and a strong finish.
I am more critical of our list management and our injury management. Six of our 2010 Premiership players are playing for other teams. We might not have been able to retain Wellingham and Beams who wanted to go back to their home states, we may have not wanted Dawes and Daisy because they had recurrent injury problems (and Daisy wanted a ridiculous amount of money) but we could have retained Heath Shaw and Hertier (Harry O’Brien) Lumumba. They wanted to stay, Bucks didn’t want to keep them. Imagine what they could have done for our defence had they been playing this year. More than half our current defenders are injured and the rest are playing poorly.
Some of our trades and recruits have been very good, notably Treloar and Adams. Others have been underwhelming. James Aish couldn’t hold his place in the Lions’ first team during Brisbane’s worst season this century. Why were we prepared to trade future draft picks for him? Jeremy Howe is beginning to show some form as a backman. Pity that we recruited him as a forward. And the less said about the decision to recruit Jesse White the better – actually the less said about Jesse White the better.
Our injury record since we acquired Bill Davoran has been horrendous. We could afford to lose Mick Malthouse but not his mate David Buttifant.
I still think Buckley is probably a reasonable coach in his development of structures and game plans, but his man management skills do not appear to be up to scratch.
Something has to change!
Luke – the Pies have relied on too few real guns for too long. Pendlebury is obviously hurt. I actually don’t think Buckley is a bad coach, he just coaches badly.
Losing to Carlton…Wtf Collingwood
still a good story Luke perhaps the PIES need more heart like you
Luke,
I think I owe you an apology, for the 13 hours of Saturday afternoon early Sunday morning, given what my teams did to your teams.
I was at the game on Saturday in a party of five; the other four are all Collingwood supporters of varying but comparatively low levels of fanaticism. It was a delightful afternoon, one I was careful not to exploit by excessively patronising my friends.
Because I had an early Sunday Mothers’ Day commitment, I didn’t anticipate watching the Sunderland-Chelsea match, but when I found myself still up at midnight, I settled in for the first half. Chelsea were all over us, apart from a magnificient goal volleyed by Khazri. We were lucky to be only down 1-2 at the break. Imagine my shock, when I later learned that the Black Cats/Mackems had somehow conjured two goals in three minutes midway through the second half. Equally surprising was the fact that the defence which has justly earned the title of the sieve had managed to hang on for the final 25 minutes.
The icing on the cake was learning that Newcastle couldn’t manage more than a goalless draw at Villa Park. While it’s not over yet, Sunderland have two winnable games to secure points and two draws or one win will put them out of reach of both Newcastle and Norwich.
So apologies to you Luke and to Phil D., for what was my best weekend of 2016.
G’day Tony & Dylan, great to meet you both at the lunch. The lunch was by far my highlight of the weekend…
Smokie-Newcastle blew it big time. It’s Sunderland’s spot to lose now.
G’day Phil, I basically followed who Mark Viduka played for, and his going to Newcastle at the time I first subscribed to Foxtel sealed my allegiance to the Toon as I watched them each week.
Not sure what the Pies do now, there’s not many fit players to choose from at the minute.
At least the Sabrina video took my mind off thr Pies for a couple of minutes!
Thanks Mathilde, enjoy your non broken Swannies!
John- I’m sure regaining your Carlton swagger is just like riding a bike…
Glen, this first 7 weeks has quietened Collingwood fans of both the stereotypical and non stereotypical variety
Glad you had a good day Mr Elbow, don’t wear out that Foxtel IQ
Rick, sadly, you’re right
Peter B- sounds like you’re loving it, just hope your eagles aren’t the team that lets Hawthorn equal our four flags in a row…
Thanks Neil. No doubt Pete the postie is doing it as tough as the rest of us.
Well played Damian. Sounds like a good, familiar plan!
Dave N, while it was Viduka playing at Newcastle that first got me to follow them, the black & white stripes helped a bit too! As for our premiership players, Shaw is the one that really hurts. I felt the game had gone past Lumumba and still have that opinion. Something has to be done about our injury management, how one of the wealthiest club’s in the league can have this issue is baffling. Hope you are right on finishing the season stronger!
Dips- Pendles is clearly playing hurt, yet alongside Sidebottom is our best player. They need more helpers.
Wtf indeed Dani! Seem to be saying that a lot.
Thanks Lizzie
G’day Peter, very good day/night for you. Did think of you when I saw the Sunderland result. At least I won’t have to pay Optus to watch Newcastle next season!
pffffffffffffffffffffff
Sympathies Luke. Really wish I could tell you what has happened to Aish. As a 16 year old he was all outside elusiveness. League footballers couldn’t lay a hand on him. Thought spending time with Pendlebury might be the making of him but it’s really not looking like it at the moment
It’s clearly the quote of our season.
As a QPR fan I have just enjoyed what,Lecester have achieved arguably the greatest sporting acjhievment ever but I certainly get your pain re Newcastle.The pies have me stuffed in that I rate there list so highly.
Aish is the best 16 year old I have seen re his ability to understand structures and his vital role in the legs,
2013 flag with his defensive ability astounding how he has gone backwards since,14 has me stuffed
he is a quality bloke I desperately hope he and Jack Trengove come thru and show the footy world what they are capable of.As a Norwood supporter I am hating footy and I reckon the Crows will soon join the legs
ER and Dani- pfffffffffff sums it up just as well as WTF
Dave and Malcolm- Aish looks a long way off it at the moment, but he’s young and has time. Maybe a better player if the team is playing better. Us fans can be impatient.
Malcolm, what Leicester has achieved is amazing and one of the best sports stories ever. How good would it be if Newcastle or QPR could do something like that!
We hate footy when you hate footy Luke! You may need to explain to the kids why you are calling the Pies players “Goats”. As funny as it sounded Round One the boys are becoming confused now….
Luke- we went Saturday too, and struggled to spot too many positives for the Magpie mob. On a perfect day for footy the skill execution was frequently poor. Bring back Travis? (The centre half forward, not the band).