Collingwood seemed to continue from last year's final against Port Adelaide, but it looks like the team has continued its downward form line. On last night's performance, I rate Collingwood about a mid-table VFL team.
Selection
I am not privy to the inner workings of Buckley's mind (which may well resemble a privy), but I had the impression that, had they been fit, at least one of, and possibly both, Reid and White would have been selected. Under the circumstances, the omission of Lynch seems bizarre. The commentators implicitly agreed, arguing that Michael Johnson got a free ride, able to double-team Cloke.
My newspaper had Keeffe as an emergency. It's not clear why Frost was chosen ahead of him. It's not that Frost played badly; he did a few nice things. It's about experience.
Freo played 20 of the their 22 grand finalists; we played five very young and inexperienced players. Add Clinton Young who has played very few games for Collingwood and Alan Toovey in his first real game back from a season-ending knee injury on Anzac Day last year, and you have the very antithesis of stability.
I believe you could put together a team consisting of the best players in each position from the entire AFL and they would not immediately gel as a team.
So on paper, going in, an awful lot seemed awry.
The start
Collingwood defied expectation and came out of the blocks firing. In many ways, the first quarter epitomised what I said at the end of my previous post (Looking ahead) about a bumpy ride. There was intensity and enthusiasm and tackling and pressure on the opposition ball-carrier. And there was the butchering of the ball: missed shots aplenty. Instead of leading by 2 or 3 goals, we went into the break a solitary point ahead.
The end of the penny section
And that was really it. For the next hour (more or less), we failed to kick a goal, while Freo kicked 12.
The experienced players are passing on attributes to the newer members of the team. From Cloke, the players are learning inaccuracy. Reid didn't miss his first 6 shots for goal last year; then the rot crept in. Last night, the usually reliable Sidebottom missed several - and when I say missed, I mean really kicked mongrels. And Sidebottom was no Robinson Crusoe. 5.16!
From Pendlebury, they seem to have learnt the look-away hand pass. Now that's wrong on two levels. First, it makes sense in basketball (from which it is borrowed; Pendlebury's other sport) for all the reasons that make basketball not football: there are only 10 players on the court, it's a round ball, you often don't keep your eye on the ball in basketball (shooting, dribbling), your team mates expect it and there's no tackling. Second, even the slick Pendlebury has yet to make it come off.
Positives
There seems to be no point in talking about the negatives, except perhaps to mention, yet again, the ill-informed comments of the spectators behind me who, inter alia, often managed to juxtapose "Who was that?" (suggesting they could not identify the players) with "Clarke shouldn't be allowed to play footy" (suggesting they could not identify the players).
Frosty played all right, though he gave his opponent quite a bit of slack. I like the look of Langdon. Clinton Young managed a 40-metre pass that never went higher than 2 metres onto Sidebottom's chest. (Sidebottom mongrelled the shot.)
We won the clearances 38-33 despite Sandilands.
Other players have come back from serious knee injuries and regained their previous pizzaz; my money's on Toovey. It might take a few games.
Evaluation
I think the important perspective is somewhere in Gary Pert's recent words. I heard them phrased in different ways. One reading is that he expects it to take all of three years before we win a premiership. In that case, this was game one of about 70. I've said something similar ever since they ditched Jolly.
If this is a building year, then playing kids is ok; losing big is the price we pay; and all the rewards will occur one day. In the meantime, it will be like barracking for GWS.
If it's not a building year, if Buckley thinks he can make top 4 this year, I'm inclined to tell 'im 'e's dreamin'.
I miss 2011.
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