Sydney v Collingwood AFL preliminary final: How Darcy Moore rethink to Lance Franklin turned the tide
It’s going to be a long week for Collingwood players after their heartbreaking one-point loss to Sydney. See the moves that made the difference between a prelim exit and a grand final.
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The football world will soon command clarity on the futures of Jordan De Goey, Brodie Grundy, Oliver Henry, Daniel McStay, Bobby Hill and Tom Mitchell.
They are all expected to make Collingwood headlines next month.
For what it’s worth, Grundy probably goes to Melbourne and De Goey probably stays at Collingwood, which is important given the compensation for losing the September star as a free agent would be pick No. 17 (after the Will Ashcroft bid) … and even less if McStay was to be signed under the same rules.
But for the Magpie Army, surely that can all wait one more day.
“Thirty more seconds and I reckon we win the game,” brilliant backman Jeremy Howe told the Herald Sun on Saturday night.
“To fall short by a point … it’s going to be a pretty slow week, I would’ve thought.”
Forget an extra 30 seconds.
The decision to deploy Brayden Maynard on Buddy Franklin for 35 minutes in the first half was extraordinary.
At halftime Darcy Moore had split his time between Sam Reid and Logan McDonald and had just one intercept.
He had spent zero minutes on Franklin.
Pitted against All-Australian Tom Hawkins in the qualifying final, Darcy dazzled. He claimed seven intercept marks and polled the second most coaches votes.
However with Moore off Main St and, and Franklin firing, the Magpies were exposed defensively like they hadn’t been under mighty new coach Craig McRae.
They conceded 18 scores, with Sydney slotting 11.7 (73) in a sizzling half.
The move was made at the main break. Moore spent 31 minutes on Franklin in the next two quarters and, in that time, ‘Buddy’ did not touch the Sherrin.
And the Maggies got rolling. They kicked 40 points from their back half and the Swans scored just three times from 20 entries in the final 45 minutes.
The match-ups were on point. But Sydney won by a point.
It was defensive coach Justin Leppitsch’s idea to send Maynard to Franklin, and the surprise match-up had McRae’s support.
In hindsight, it mightn’t have worked. But the Magpies also mightn’t have been anywhere near a preliminary final without such daring moves from the box.
In the qualifying final, Darcy the defender rolled forward for the frenetic finish.
But it was Max Holmes who broke the deadlock after almost 29 minutes in the final quarter.
That day McRae took even more of a risk, and why the heck not? He has for much of the season.
“They’re more fun to watch,” Brownlow medallist Dane Swan declared in an understatement on The Unlaced Podcast two weeks ago.
However, this comment from ‘Swanny’ stood out.
“They made your eyes bleed the last couple of years the way they played.”
Former coach Nathan Buckley won’t love that. But it is undeniable.
After the round 1 win against St Kilda — considered an ‘upset’ at the time — players recounted post-match how much fun their blitzing new ball movement was to play.
On the field it was organised chaos after seasons of unorganised chaos off the field.
That’s what made Saturday’s slow start, they trailed the Swans 26-0, so sour.
Howe said it was beige ball movement when McRae’s message to be bold has been black and white.
“We felt like we were moving the ball a little bit safely down the line and they were bouncing really effectively off that,” Howe said.
“Us as backs probably let ourselves down in the air, which is something we’re normally pretty good at.
“What went right in the end was we just took the game on and kept the ball in live play.
“They’re an incredible pressure team and anytime we can vacate the close space and get it on the outside we felt like was a real advantage.”
When the Magpies trailed by 15 points after 22 minutes in the final quarter, many assumed they were never a real chance of actually pulling it off.
But these Pies would probably believe in Santa Claus if McRae made the case and so optimism on the grass outweighed fantasies over the fence.
“There were a couple of opportunities where I thought we might soccer one off the ground or big ‘Checkers’ (Brody Mihocek) and Will Hoskin-Elliott looked like they were almost going to clunk one 40m out directly in front,” Howe said.
McRae had written ‘We’re winners only’ on his whiteboard, which has been Collingwood’s catch cry all season.
“Winners don’t think, ‘What if’, and, ‘If only’,” McRae said.
“They just use it and it fuels you for more. There will be a lot of people laying in bed tonight going, ‘If only’, or, ‘What if?
“I just don’t want to live in that space, because winners pick themselves up and use the lessons and get better and use it for motivation. That’s what we do.”
Howe also explained his part in the howler that saw Justin McInerney pick off Moore’s pass to him and storm into an open goal.
Howe was left asking himself how on earth McInerney got there?
“I thought he must’ve come from the bench or something,” he said.
“If (I) knew he was there I would’ve met the ball. I wouldn’t have waited for it … and then there was no chance I was chasing him down. Stiff.”
The football world is still asking how Collingwood got there. From 17th to third on McRae’s magic carpet ride.
Yet the more you muster about McRae, the more you realise this was far from a fluke.
Every match day became John Noble’s birthday, a running joke born from McRae’s research into the scientific link between laughter and learning.
That gag climaxed when Noble’s twin brother Mark ‘wished’ him a happy birthday before the qualifying final against Geelong.
Sparklers lit on a dummy cake almost set off the MCG fire alarm. Then, the Magpies almost rained on the Cats’ parade.
McRae promised he wouldn’t have to make many changes to his road-tested game plan, and aired his frustration at the reaction to some of the four 50m penalties his team gave away.
The Jack Ginnivan decision — he was pinged for overstepping the mark — infuriated fans.
But it’s understood that call was correct because the mark is set 9m from the boundary, which is different to around the ground, and so Ginnivan needed to take a step back to not overstep.
“Get back and man the mark. Get on with it!” McRae told his players at halftime.
“You can’t just sit there and wallow in your self-pity and go, ‘Oh yeah, but I was hard done by’.
“Get on with it! Man the mark! Get up and go again.
“I was disappointed in that part of our game. We sort of rectified it a little bit in the second half.”
Respected football boss Graham Wright looked more than disappointed post-match.
The cunning administrator who helped Hawthorn fashion a dynasty sat in the rooms, head in hand.
Against all odds Wright helped assemble a football program that plenty of rivals peeked at in admiration. He was gutted.
Outside that room, glum chief executive Mark Anderson paced around.
When De Goey slowly emerged at 6.04pm on Saturday night — he was the first player to poke his head out of the locker rooms — families and friends erupted with hearty applause.
Will Hoskin-Elliott smiled as he picked up his boy, Flynn, as the Magpies reverted to reality after their mostly-magical months.
“The reality of this sport is you don’t start where you finished,” McRae said.
“We don’t start (third). So we start 18th again. You don’t start where you finished.
“(But) there’s something special in this group if we want it to be.”
Why McRae couldn’t look Pies in the eye after defeat
Craig McRae has urged September star Jordan De Goey to re-sign, less than 12 months after Collingwood banned De Goey from pre-season as his career hit the crossroads.
An emotional McRae couldn’t speak to his heartbroken players immediately after Saturday’s one-point preliminary final loss at the SCG, but the first-year coach was filled with pride.
De Goey, 26, had his contract offer pulled after his mid-season Bali getaway and St Kilda is in hot pursuit of the restricted free agent.
“I grabbed (De Goey’s) manager and said, ‘Mate, let’s get to work on this’,” McRae said on Saturday night.
“I’ve openly said I want Jordy at our footy club next year. Now, I don’t know how that’s progressing.
“Hopefully it’s progressing in the right direction. Not because he’s Jordy De Goey, but I just think this environment is the best place for Jordy De Goey.
“That’s obviously going to take its own course in the next few weeks now.”
The coach of the year revealed it was backline coach Justin Leppitsch’s idea to throw Brayden Maynard onto Lance Franklin, a match-up which was thrown to Darcy Moore after halftime.
McRae’s magical Magpies went 7-0 in games decided by less than six points during the home-and-away season. But they lost both finals by under a goal.
They trailed by 36 points before storming home with the last three goals to do everything but pinch what would’ve been one of the greatest wins in Collingwood’s rich history.
The twilight epic was the first preliminary final decided by one point since Carlton’s Fraser Brown became a hero in the 1999 upset of Essendon.
It followed three blowouts as Melbourne, Western Bulldogs and Geelong on Friday night advanced to the Grand Final by a combined 225 points.
McRae called out a dozen of his players for “acting like losers” when they slumped to the MCG turf after their qualifying loss to Geelong
On Saturday his teary men stood on their feet at the final siren and thanked the Magpie Army for making the trip north.
It was body language McRae was proud of after writing: “We’re winners only” on the whiteboard.
The Pies gave away four unlucky 50m penalties, including three in the first half, but it was the response that angered McRae.
“Rightly or wrongly, it’s done. Get back and man the mark. Get on with it,” he said.
“You can’t just sit there and wallow in your self-pity and go, ‘Oh yeah, but I was hard done by’.
“Nah, get on with it! Man the mark! Get up and go again. I was disappointed in that part of our game. We sort of rectified it a little bit in the second half.”
McRae told his players they had “all the tools” to pull off another comeback at the last change.
“I said to them, ‘We’ve been here before. Many times’,” McRae said.
“But I wanted to make them feel like they could make mistakes still. Swing from the hips, be OK to make mistakes we’ve got to go for this.
“We’re going for it, but don’t think it has to be perfect on the way to get there.
“I left them alone (post-match) because I just wanted to get my emotions in check. I knew I was right on the edge of being a bit too emotional and I didn’t want to express that to the players.
“I knew I couldn’t look them in the eye without losing my emotions.
“There’s something special in this group if we want it to be. But the reality of this sport is you don’t start where you finished.
“We don’t start (third). So we start 18th again. (But) I already know that our game plan doesn’t need to be reinvented.”
SWANS GF BOUND AFTER DENYING PIES IN EPIC
Daniel Garb
The Sydney Swans and Geelong will play off in the Grand Final for the first time in VFL/AFL history after one of the more gripping preliminary finals in recent memory that once more underlines the remarkable fight of the Collingwood Football club.
Twenty six years after Tony Lockett’s solitary point guided the Swans to a grand final at the SCG, the Swans have incomprehensibly prevailed by the exact same margin to move through to the last Saturday in September and take on the Cats for the sixth premiership in their history.
While the Magpies quest for a record-equalling 16th flag has ended, their list of admirers under debut coach Craig McRae continues to grow as they turned around a four-goal opening quarter blitz from the Swans to turn 45,608 people inside the SCG into nervous wrecks in the final minutes.
BROWNLOW PREDICTOR: HOW EVERY VOTE WILL FALL
When Tom Papley guided through his third goal of the evening, despite what seemed like a push on Darcy Moore in the build-up, the Swans looked to have extinguished the last of the Magpies remarkable fight to book their place in the Grand Final.
While that ultimately eventuated, once more Collingwood demonstrated their refusal to give in with Brody Mihocek, Will Hoskin-Elliott and then the evergreen Steele Sidebottom kicking three straight goals to get the Magpies within two points with three minutes remaining.
But a Buddy Franklin mark, who bounced back from his poor qualifying final performance with a sterling display, followed by a Tom Hickey grab helped control the game late for the Swans before the Magpies mounted one final surge.
The sensational Callum Mills, who was sent back to sweep in defence in the second half, then capped off his brilliant season with a rushed behind amid a manic final few seconds, to hold off a rampant Collingwood by the barest of margins.
“What a finish. Wow,” Sydney key forward Lance Franklin said.
“Well done to our boys. Geez, they fought hard. We knew they were going to come and they did. I reckon we were lucky to hang on there but we’ll take the win. We’re into a Grand Final. It’s been an unbelievable season. We’ve got so many young players coming through who have played some good football. It’s just good to be a part of it.”
The triumph puts Sydney into its first Grand Final since a 2016 loss to the Western Bulldogs as the club chases its first premiership flag since 2012.
“That’s what we play footy for, to play in Grand Finals,” Franklin said.
“We get an opportunity to go down there against Geelong. They’ve been an unbelievable team this year so we’re going to have to be at our best next week to win.”
Fellow Swans forward Isaac Heeney said “some big efforts late” helped the home side get across the line, including key marks from Lance Franklin and Tom Hickey in the dying seconds.
“There were a few of us out on our feet, but it was amazing,” Heeney said.
“They (Collingwood) always come back strong. They’ve been that side all year. We nearly blew it but we held on, which is amazing. We’ve got a great group of Bloods and there’s a lot of belief there.”
In what was ultimately a nailbiting win, it has come at a huge cost with veteran forward/ruckman Sam Reid subbed out in the third quarter with an adductor injury in what is likely to be a heartbreaking end to his bid for a second premiership medal, some ten years after his first.
A Swans win seemed sealed midway through the third quarter when wingman Justin McInerney read a Darcy Moore cross-field kick intended for Jeremy Howe so early he was able to pick it off clean, stream through an open 50 and smash it through to send the SCG into absolute pandemonium.
But nothing can crush the Collingwood spirit and they would respond with seven second half goals to go so desperately close to capping off a breathtaking season with a Grand Final appearance.
BUDDY BIG RESPONSE
How Buddy Franklin would respond after being kept to seven touches and no goals in the qualifying final was a two-week talking point leading into the prelim and it was clear from the outset that he was on a mission to respond. His chasing and pack splitting work in contests early was a feature and then he got to work himself aerially with five marks and two goals before halftime. All-Australian Brayden Maynard was moved off him early in the second quarter with Jeremy Howe given the unenviable task of trying to stop his influence, which he did rather well. The legend would still finish with two goals and seven marks en route to his sixth Grand Final.
DE GOEY INFLUENCE DILUTED
A Swans tag on Pies superstar Jordan De Goey seemed certain but just who would get the job was always unclear. John Longmire opted for his tried and tested machine in Luke Parker and the three-time best-and-fairest winner set the tone in that contest early with the opening goal of the game to lay the platform for the Swans early blitz. De Goey was kept to just 12 disposals for the game, in a stark contrast to his dominant finals performances in the fortnight previous.
SCOREBOARD
SYDNEY 6.3 11.7 13.10 14.11 (95)
COLLINGWOOD 3.0 7.1 10.5 14.10 (94)
GOALS
Sydney: Papley 3, Franklin 2, Clarke, Rowbottom, Stephens, Reid, Parker, Heeney, Warner, McInerney, McDonald
Collingwood: Elliott, Hoskin-Elliott, McCreery 2, Cameron, Crisp, Sidebottom, Mihocek, Bianco, Cameron, N.Daicos, J.Daicos
BEST
Sydney: Parker, Warner, Mills, Papley, Blakey, Franklin, Gulden, Hickey, Heeney
Collingwood: Pendelbury, Crisp, Quaynor, Sidebottom, Moore, N.Daicos
Injuries: Sam Reid (adductor) subbed out for Braeden Campbell
VENUE
SCG
CROWD
45,608
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