Collingwood smashes North Melbourne in one of the ugliest AFL games of the year
NORTH defender Robbie Tarrant aimed his question at the umpire, but many fans were left wondering the same thing after the Kangaroos and Collingwood produced a stinker.
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“Are we playing footy or not?”
Captured on umpire microphones, the question was posed by frustrated North Melbourne defender Robbie Tarrant during the third quarter of the clash with Collingwood.
To put it in context, Tarrant had just given away a soft free kick to opponent Darcy Moore.
But it was a question that must have been running through the minds of many in the stands at Etihad Stadium.
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What shaped as a tight, high-scoring game between two attacking teams known for playing attractive football was anything but.
Full of fumbles, clangers, missed targets and atrocious kicking for goal, the game had little resemblance to some of the great football we’ve been blessed with in 2017.
And the pain was not only felt by the fans watching on in the stands, dirty seasons for both the Kangaroos and Magpies only getting worse with a raft of injuries and niggles to come out of the match.
At half time the two teams had kicked a combined 6.20, in perfect conditions with the roof shut at Etihad Stadium.
In doing so, they wrote a new record — the most inaccurate first half ever at the ground.
That was even ignoring one wayward Ben Brown set shot which was kicked out on the full in the opening term.
You couldn’t have blamed anyone watching at home for flicking the channel at halftime.
Nor could you blame the largely-North Melbourne home crowd at the ground for becoming increasingly restless throughout the night, their side still with just one goal at the 16-minute-mark of the third term.
The Kangaroos entered as underdog, but were coming off a steely win over Melbourne last week which snapped a seven-game losing streak and appeared to instil some new-found belief.
However, there was little bounce in the stride of those in blue and white, Brad Scott’s side looking to lack confidence and energy from the first bounce.
The absence of key forward Jarrad Waite (calf) was telling.
North Melbourne more predictable than the sun rising in the east in the first half, consistently hitting up fellow tall Brown inside 50 during the first half.
It was a strategy that Collingwood quickly worked out and countered, until Brown was concussed in a Brodie Grundy tackle at the 21-minute-mark of the second term.
One of the Coleman Medal fancies, Brown was stretched off the ground and later taken to hospital by ambulance, finishing the match with just two behinds after entering with 51 goals for the season.
At halftime, the Kangaroos had 27 inside 50s to their name for one goal and their prospects of overcoming a 26-point deficit without their two leading goal kickers for the season looked slim.
The game opened up in the second half — and the kicking at goal improved — Collingwood a long way off their best but doing what they needed to do.
Still without prime mover Scott Pendlebury (finger), Adam Treloar (34 disposals), Taylor Adams (30 disposals) and Jordan De Goey (27 disposals) were solid contributors in a midfield that dominated after the main break.
Brodie Grundy beat the two-pronged North Melbourne ruck attack of Braydon Preuss and Todd Goldstein, while Ziebell was the best of the Kangaroos with 22 disposals and five second-half goals.
In the end, Collingwood got away with a 54-point win, their biggest triumph of the season.
It was not all good news for the Magpies though, who had injury issues of their own, Levi Greenwood (knee) not returning after hurting himself late in the second term and Daniel Wells (five disposals) playing out the game but clearly hampered with a leg complaint.
Will the win help coach Nathan Buckley’s chances of keeping his job next year?
Realistically it probably had no effect either way.
It was just one of those late season games that meant little between two teams who won’t be featuring in finals.
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