Scott Pendlebury leads Collingwood to crucial upset win over Geelong at the MCG

NEVER write off a champion. With his team’s season on the line, and his coach Nathan Buckley under enormous pressure, Scott Pendlebury played the match of his life, writes jay Clark.

Scott Pendlebury celebrates a first quarter goal. Picture: Michael Klein

SCOTT Pendlebury took it personally.

When the fingers were getting pointed after Tuesday’s loss to Essendon, the skipper admitted to playing his worst game in a decade.

He wasn’t injured, but he was hurting on the inside.

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With his team’s season on the line, and his coach Nathan Buckley under enormous pressure, Pendlebury produced one of the most important performances in his four years as captain to re-ignite the Magpies’ 2017 campaign with a 29-point win over Geelong.

The left-footed Rolls Royce was back, zigzagging through congestion and delivering the ball with the surgical precision which helped bring the previously dysfunctional Collingwood forward line back to life.

Scott Pendlebury fires off a handball against Geelong. Picture: Michael Klein

Darcy Moore rediscovered his spring and his confidence, Alex Fasolo rid himself of his goalkicking yips with two beauties from the boundary line in the crucial third term, and Lynden Dunn, Henry Schade and Jeremy Howe held up a backline missing star key defender Ben Reid.

In his first game in black and white, Dunn did the job on Cats’ spearhead Tom Hawkins, potentially allowing Buckley the luxury to play Reid as a forward upon his return against Carlton on Sunday at the MCG. He would replace Mason Cox.

And Daniel Wells showed why the Magpies went all-out to recruit him with a deft pass to Moore late in the fourth term. That was Moore’s ninth mark, a career-high, and a timely return to form.

Speedster Travis Varcoe provided the early spark in his role across half back against his old side but injured his hamstring in the third term, ending his day early.

He was critical in the first half, helping Collingwood play a much more direct and quick game style through the corridor, after falling repeatedly into the trap of playing slow and wide this season.

But overall, this was a different Collingwood to the one we have seen over the first five rounds. The Pies were so much more fluent and dangerous with their ball use. The class was back.

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley gets a hug from son Jett while Ayce Buckley chats to Eddie McGuire. Picture: Michael Klein

And all of that was off a five-day break, and a light week on the track, for Collingwood.

Geelong made its opponents nervous in the last term, chipping back a 42-point lead with fourth-term goals to Mitch Duncan and Patrick Dangerfield, who caught Schade with a desperate lunging tackle in the goalmouth.

In the middle part of the last quarter the Cats had all the play with eight out of a string of 10 inside 50m entries, but the reality was this was Geelong’s worst performance of the year so far.

The superstar midfield brigade was well-beaten by Collingwood’s engine room and it was hard to take your eyes off the Levi Greenwood hard tag on Joel Selwood.

Greenwood physically targeted Selwood in a battle that threatened to erupt constantly throughout the game.

“It was quite verbal … but I kept my head down,” Greenwood said on Triple M after the match.

Joel Selwood wasn’t happy with the treatment he was receiving from Levi Greenwood. Picture: Michael Klein

And Selwood, who had only 17 possessions, made his feelings known after the final siren with a few choice words to Pendlebury, and a chest bump, in a heated late chat.

The Cat begrudgingly shook Pendlebury’s hand, and with it, the media spotlight will swap from the superstar Pie on to the hard-nut Geelong skipper this week after a rare quiet performance.

Regardless, the discussion in recent weeks that the tag no longer had a place in the modern game was turned on its head as the Magpies easily won the midfield battle over the bulk of the first three quarters, before the Cats made a late fightback.

The Collingwood engine room was dubbed the best in the competition by Champion Data in the pre-season and on Sunday the Pies playmakers, including Adam Treloar, Taylor Adams and new Pie Will Hoskin-Elliott, lived up to the hype.

Brandan Parfitt is helped off the ground after injuring his hamstring.

Geelong’s half back line was well-lead by Zach Tuohy and Andrew Mackie, but the two superstar midfielders Selwood and Dangerfield were down and the support wasn’t there, perhaps like it had been over the first five weeks.

Brandan Parfitt injured his hamstring and finished the game on the bench after a strong start.

Dangerfield was busy in the clinches initially but Collingwood’s midfield had the clear upper hand early dominating the clearances 22-12 to the main change.

But the impressive Collingwood performance began in the first term with Varcoe who switched sides with a lace-out pass to Wells, which in turn released Hoskin-Elliott to find Pendlebury running into a slick 40m running goal.

Even off a five-day break, the team-lifting goal re-energised the Pies from the opening term.