Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final Sydney 1.1 5.7 7.11 11.13 79 Collingwood 4.4 7.4 9.8 11.14 80
I've grown to like Taylor Adams, but he does have a disconcerting propensity to kick straight to opposition players. He managed one case in Q1 kicking into F50 and another in Q2 on the wing.
Josh Smith is probably Collingwood's most underrated player. The talk is all about the likes of Pendlebury, Sidebottom and Treloar (deservedly), but for rock-solid play I don't think anyone can hold a candle to Smith. He has a lot of Toovey about him (except his name doesn't easily lend itself to the sort of crowd involvement enjoyed by Toovey).
What a difference two weeks make. In the first two games, Fasolo could barely buy a goal. In this game he had converted a difficult set shot from the pocket in under two minutes of game time and went on to kick two more difficult goals in Q1. He kicked another crumbing goal in Q2. Not a bad night's return.
At last we have a number 32 who kicks goals reliably. Although he is not the power forward Cloke is/was, he has freakish marking skills.
For all Collingwood's total domination of Q1, you would have marked the quarter as disappointing for the Pies in terms of reward for effort. I'm not really interested in Bartlett's prediction that we would be zip-9; nor do I care that the tipsters would have given the Pies little chance. On the day, at least for Q1, Collingwood dominated but did not do enough.
Five minutes into the second quarter, Josh Smith made an error that eventually cost the Pies a goal. I think that's the first mistake I've seen him make.
Four minutes later, a short kick from Reid in the pocket was intercepted. There seems to have been much more of that this season: players attempting risky pin-point passes coming out of defence. Is it part of the game plan? It seems to me to be particularly dumb - and violates the fundamental principle of defence, namely the primacy of defence. Reid got off lightly this time.
A few minutes later, Phillips, under enormous pressure in a pocket, chose to kick across the goal; a Sydney player marked directly in front, 30m out, and goaled. Surely that is a failure of the coaches to instill a fundamental defensive instinct. He would have been better off kicking deliberately out of bounds or simply holding the ball.
Is Pendlebury fully fit? I've seen him make some pretty strange errors this season. On his left foot, he managed to send a shot out on the full.
It was unusual in Q3 to see that Collingwood's kicking was more accurate than Sydney's (9.5-6.10). The Pies must have looked up at the scoreboard because they promptly kicked 3 behinds in a row. Some might say there's irony in the fact that, at the end of the match, both sides had kicked the same number of goals; the only reason Collingwood won was it had kicked one more behind than Sydney. I'm a contrarian. First of all, I don't consider a margin of 5 points (let alone 1) a victory. When it comes to premiership points, I'd like to see a margin of 0-5 be distributed 2-2; 6-11, 3-1; and only award 4-0 to a margin of 12 or more points. I'd go further: a team could never earn more than 4 premiership points, but teams who lost by margins of 37-48 would score -1 premiership point; 49-60, -2 and more than 61, -3. That way, the vagaries of performance by inferior teams only affects the inferior teams. Generally, good teams produce much more even performances. Further, when the game is nearing the end, there is more often a reason to continue trying.
But in this game (as in so many Collingwood games (including the first 2010 GF)), all sorts of forward-line failures earlier in the game left our side vulnerable near the end. In the final quarter, with the game on a knife edge, first Greenwood, then Fasolo missed simple set shots. Then White missed one from further out, but the same spot from which he'd kick a goal in Q2.
With 5:46 on the clock, scores were level. 22 seconds later, after a behind to Sydney, the Pies were behind for the first time in the game. Then, after marking, Hoskin-Elliott kicked a goal from the pocket, running across the intersection of the 50m arc and the boundary.
Treloar kicked a behind, but he was outside 50m, so we should cut him some slack. Sidebottom on the other hand was at 40 for his snap which went wide - less forgivable, especially as it would have made the margin 12. He seemed to have time and space. Collingwood by 7. The Swans used the same tactic from the kick-in, but this time made more progress, finally scoring a goal with 90 seconds on the clock. Supporting Collingwood is not for the faint-hearted!
The Swans had another forward thrust, the ball contested in the goal square, but the Pies were able to sweep it away. Disappointingly, there was a lot of fumbling as the two teams struggled desperately. And, ultimately, all so unnecessary, had the Pies been accurate with any one of their 6 last-quarter behinds.
Better players
Treloar, Grundy, Adams, Smith, Hoskin-Elliott, Howe, Fasolo (quite a few others were just outside this list).
The wrap
Let's maintain some perspective. Sydney are now zip-3, so their recent form is nothing to write home about. And the final margin was a mere point. That's like rounding error; or, as they say in surveys, within the margin of accuracy. In other words, 11th drew with 15th.
On the other hand, Collingwood has the cattle to play some good footy. We need to play like a team.
Sources, Notes, Footnotes, References
http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=9325
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