HORSING AROUND by George On The Outer

Before the match it was claimed that Collingwood were a “one trick pony” side.  Well that one trick worked very well against Melbourne, as they extended their winning streak to 11 for the season.

Meanwhile, the Demons continued to horse around with structures which simply haven’t been working. The one tall forward option with resting rucks failed yet again, in an almost identical manner to the game against the Bulldogs recently.  93 more possessions, 65 inside 50 entries 24 more than the opposition, and the side loses the game?

Surely we were just horsing around?

Unless the team kicks goals, and unless the forwards contain the ball in the forward half, it simply rebounds down the other end where the opposition easily score. Don’t blame the defence, they are being overrun. It is the forwards who are simply not doing the work or executing their role.

Even the coach recognized this in his post match conference where he used the terms “ failed to execute in bigger moments….when it really mattered”.  “ we have to convert” …

Translation: kicking the easy goals.

“Collingwood able to transition from the back half …”

Translation: the Forwards were slack.

And the fans have seen this all too often during the season.  Yes, we have been hampered with injury and unavailability of forward targets, but now is the seventh time this season we have given up 3-4 goal leads. Is the team running out of steam?  Or is it we are just not burying teams when we should?

The failure to select a second tall forward just repeated the old experiment, and we got the same result.  Ben Brown works hard presenting , particularly upfield, and who does that leave down forward? To top it off he only plays 76% game time?  In this game we saw Bayley Fritsch and Jake Melksham as the only targets left in front of goal, covered by Moore and Howe.  Easy pickings for Collingwood. 

And they were off to the races …

How many tackles from our forwards in the 50m area?  Neal-Bullen, Spargo and Pickett zero! Aren’t these players so called “defensive forwards”?

Combine that with Brown at zero for the game, and Fritsch and Melksham only two, and you get an idea of why the ball rebounds out of there so easily which is precisely what Collingwood wanted.

Back to Goodwin’s “failure to execute” statement. 
That not only means kicking goals when we should (and sadly Max has returned to his worst kicking action in front of goal), but it also means the same in general play.  Neal-Bullen is rapidly losing his value to the side when he cannot execute simple football skills, thus destroying hard fought forward thrusts, putting up a solitary possession for the final quarter. 

Melksham returned to his pursuit of cheap out the back kicks instead of getting in front which he did last week and had zero touches in total for the final quarter.  The resting rucks again produced zero majors for yet another week.  Small wonder they are exhausted in the final stages of the match, when they spend so much time on the ground, even to no effect up front.

So you finish up with a forward line which won’t tackle, can’t execute basic kicking and marking skills, and are unable to provide a suitable tall target despite 65 entries into their area. 

In some sort of positive, the mids completed dominated. Those 65 entries came courtesy of the hard work of Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, Angus Brayshaw and Jack Viney upfield.  Even Max, despite concrete kicking boots managed 31 touches and 490m gained, a high for the side. 

Down back Christian Salem seems to have regained his kicking strength and ability to find targets when no-one else can.  Ed Langdon was threatened by Collingwood players and fans for his mid-week comments, but produced the appropriate on-field response with 22 touches on the wing and a timely goal as well. 

 But it was all for nothing because the Collingwood one-trick pony was off to the races, and outlasted the Demons favourite who could only manage three goals in the second half of football.

What is now needed is for a scratching of a few of those Dee frontrunners who look more like draught horses, with some younger yearlings who could provide no worse output than is currently being provided.  And perhaps they might just enable the side to get their noses in front when it matters rather than stumbling at the finish line. 
 

MELBOURNE 6.2.38 10.7.67  11.11.77 13.11.89

COLLINGWOOD 5.0.30 8.2.50 11.4.70 15.6.96

GOALS

MELBOURNE Brown Fritsch 2 Langdon Melksham Neal-Bullen Petracca Pickett Salem Spargo Sparrow Viney

COLLINGWOOD Elliott Johnson 4 Mihocek 2 Cox J.Daicos De Goey Lipinsky McCreery

BEST

MELBOURNE Petracca Oliver Brayshaw Gawn Jordon Viney

COLLINGWOOD Elliott Johnson N Daicos De Goey Crisp Maynard

INJURIES

MELBOURNE Nil

COLLINGWOOD Hoskin-Elliott (hip)

REPORTS

MELBOURNE Nil

COLLINGWOOD Nil

SUBSTITUTES

MELBOURNE James Harmes (unused)

COLLINGWOOD Trent Bianco (replaced Will Hoskin-Elliott in the third quarter) 

UMPIRES Andrew Stephens Robert Findlay Simon Meredith

CROWD 70,956 at the MCG