This was a game that lacked everything. More than anything it lacked watchability. If it were not for the fact that MR is overseas and counting on me, I wouldn't watch it again. But duty calls; I will do mine.
At quarter time Collingwood looked superficially ok. Lacking anyone with whom to watch the game, the Footy Bogan reported to the long-suffering Mrs Bogan. He couldn't think of words to describe the uninteresting performance. He was able to report that Collingwood led 3 goals to 1, but only one of Collingwood's goals came from good play. The first goal began on the half-back flank. The ball was moved via the wing to Cloke in the pocket; free kick. Fortunately, Cloke chose not to take a shot, instead passing to H running down from the other wing towards the goal square. Nice. The other two had not come from good play - of which there was little, by either side - but from Adelaide errors. Like the game, his search for the correct word was inept. After a few minutes he returned with a triumphant "desultory".
Unlike in the Anzac Day game, Collingwood trailed in the tackle count and most other stats. Both sides had been wasteful in front of goal, but perhaps the Crows led the Pies on even that stat.
Collingwood managed another 4 - yes, 4! - goals for the rest of the match to Adelaide's 9. The Pies lost the second quarter 3 goals to 4, to go into the main break with a 6-point lead - and the illusion of adequacy. A goal in the third quarter followed by none (5 behinds) in the last accurately described Collingwood's trajectory.
At times one could be forgiven for thinking that the teams played on different grounds. Collingwood players were slipping over as if conditions were slippery while Adelaide's seemed to find very good conditions. In the event, Collingwood might have done a lot better had it played wet-weather footy, but since they had failed to do that against the Suns last year when it clearly was slippery - even to an observer thousands of kilometres away, it was really a bridge too far to expect that response when evaluations were equivocal.
Less than a week ago, I summarised our team as - defence: solid and reliable; midfield good; forwards: sus. In this game, the defensive fortress crumbled; the midfield lowered its colours and the forward line actually went downhill. In the last quarter, when the game wasn't up for grabs, three set shots never looked like scoring a major, the last, by Elliot after the siren; surely the pressure was off by then.
The three goals which weren't kicked wouldn't have won the game for Collingwood, but it would have provided the handy distraction that we'd lost because Adelaide kicked a goal after the end of the third quarter when the crowd was making so much noise the umpires did not hear the siren. Only scoundrels would have played that card, so we're talking less than 100,000 one-eyed Collingwood supporters.
Adelaide hadn't played good footy, but they had played adequate footy. What they delivered was intensity and resolve, especially the things a footballer can do when he doesn't have the ball, like tackling. As a result, they won just about every stat. Collingwood won the hit-outs 52-38 and manged a marginal advantage in contested possessions 146-143, but lost every other stat.
What was really disappointing was the fall from grace of the defence. Keeffe has been outstanding for more than this season, but he was taken to the cleaners by Jenkins who kicked 4 goals (out of his team's 10, on a night when 17 goals were kicked altogether). Keeffe's response was unattractive: he chose to fight. Eventually, for the final quarter, he was banished to the forward line changing places with Goldsack. On reflection, that was a bizarre move. Witts was subbed out, but Witts hadn't been terrible. His efforts to compete in the forward line had resulted in spillage to our crumbers and had delivered at least one goal and, I think, several opportunities. Buckley would have been doing Keeffe a favour if he'd benched him because the player was really losing his cool. He might have capped a forgettable performance with time on the sidelines courtesy of the Match Review Panel.
The commentators couldn't stop singing the praises of Langdon. This jaundiced observer notes that his play was even more polarised than usual: he shone in getting the ball (23 disposals) on a night when many Collingwood players didn't; but he gave up the footy to the opposition with almost every disposal. A witch's hat would have been better value. Champion Data has him down for 3 critical unforced errors. For some reason they don't report non-critical unforced errors, so he looks better to them than he did to me.
Speaking of critical unforced errors, Pendlebury, Williams, Grundy, Keeffe managed 4 each, Young, Macaffer 5. Collingwood recorded 14 more than Adelaide. It was that sort of night.
Quarter 1
I'll give you some impressions from the first quarter, by some measures our best.
Adelaide got the first goal after a couple of minutes. From the reset, the ball came to White whose pass to Cloke, leading from full forward, was excellent. Cloke spilt the chest mark! That turned out to be a marker for the evening.
Langdon: from full back: no pressure, out on the full (not even close). A minute later: misses a simple pass; no damage done.
Maxwell played well.
Middle of Q1, Jenkins, with the ball, gets away from Keeffe. His shot misses, but not because of the defence.
Macaffer was sent to Dangerfield. I don't know if Macaffer played badly, but Dangerfield finished with 32 possessions, so, at best, the exercise was futile.
Swan misses a gettable goal on the run. Towards the middle of the quarter, Collingwood looked more settled, enjoying the majority of the possessions. Young misses a set shot from 45, little angle. Uncharacteristically, Toovey received a hand pass, changed his mind as he was about to move the ball on, and lost possession. Langdon passes accurately. Sidebottom marks on the wing, but his footpass is behind Pendlebury running forward. The Pies look static. Hartigan's clanger leads to Collingwood's second goal. Hartigan is credited with only 3 critical unforced errors. Toovey drops a mark; Betts misses. With 5 minutes left to play, Cloke, outside 50, finally marks (he ends the night with 4). A little later, Cloke, on the wing, slips over. Later still, Pendlebury makes something out of nothing when he takes possession on the wing, ambles forward, bounces once, runs through 50 near the boundary, and kicks a goal from the non-preferred side. Langdon again kicks straight to an opponent; no damage.
They're just impressions, but I think they capture the signs of a team off its best. Over time, these negative one-percenters accumulated and demoralised the players. Otherwise the resultant final-quarter misses are inexplicable.
The wrap
There were similarities with the dreadful game against Port Adelaide last year - minus Elliot's goal of the year. This was the first time this year Elliot has not kicked a goal. Collingwood was coming off a bye then too. In both games, the Pies were unexpectedly flat.
We hope it was just one of those things; that we will regroup and do better next week against the Eagles at the 'G.
Sources:
Most of my usual sources had not been updated with this match by Saturday morning. Perhaps, like this blog, they are run by part-timers.
http://www.afl.com.au/match-centre/2014/9/adel-v-coll
Champion Data
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