10 things Collingwood must fix to get back in the premiership race

Collingwood is out of the top four and its premiership hopes are fading fast. Glenn McFarlane names 10 things the Magpies need to fix to resurrect their spluttering season.

Collingwood's Brodie Grundy and Richmonds Ivan Soldo. Picture: Michael Klein

Collingwood has dropped out of the top four and its premiership hopes are fading fast after last night’s comprehensive loss to Richmond.

What’s gone wrong? Glenn McFarlane pinpoints 10 areas requiring urgent attention for the Magpies to get back in the flag race after four losses from their past five games.

1. GET IT INSIDE

We can rattle on about Collingwood forward line as much as you want, but the ball is hardly going in there. Since the four-point loss to Fremantle in Round 11, the Magpies have the AFL’s worst time in forward half differential — a staggering -11 minutes and 39 seconds. That’s worse than Gold Coast across the past two months, and unsustainable for a team chasing a flag. Add to that the fact the Magpies have the second worst inside-50 differential in the competition, at -8.6, and it spells trouble if they can’t arrest it soon.

2. FIX SCORING DROUGHT

Last year’s runners-up scored 100 points or more in five of their first nine games this year — 110 v Richmond (Round 2), 123 v Brisbane (Round 5), 108 v Port Adelaide (Round 7), 106 v Carlton (Round 8) and 112 v St Kilda (Round 9). They’ve only come close once since. Tellingly, scoring has collapsed since the Round 15 shocker of 5.7 (37) against North Melbourne. Friday night’s tally of 9.12 (66) was the club’s fourth lowest of the season, and that included kicking the final three goals of the game. The fact they aren’t going in as much as they were previously did doesn’t help, but unless they can conjure some more inside 50s, wins will remain hard to come by.

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3. BACKS TO THE WALL

Injuries have stretched the Magpies’ defence not quite to breaking point, but on Friday night it was somewhere in the vicinity. For the past two weeks Collingwood — minus Darcy Moore, Tom Langdon and Lynden Dunn, to name a few — has leaked goals quick and fast. Langdon (who has been sorely missed) and Dunn won’t be back this year, but Moore can’t back quick enough for the Pies. Eight goals in the first quarter to GWS effectively killed the game; the same can be said for Richmond’s rampage following Collingwood’s first goal on Friday night. Undersized players (as hard as they try) against a forward monster like Tom Lynch ain’t going to cut it.

Scott Pendlebury didn’t get much space against the Tigers. Picture: Michael Klein

4. MORE BANG FOR MIDFIELD BUCK

Collingwood’s midfield was touted by some as the best in the AFL, but, as Friday night showed us, it looks anything but right now. The names are exceptionally good, but for some reason that hasn’t been matched in output in the past two months. The Magpies’ engine room — which consists of Scott Pendlebury, Steele Sidebottom and Adam Treloar, with cameos from Jordan De Goey — has a disposal differential average of -4 since the Round 11 loss to Fremantle. They are losing the contested differential (just) and the clearance differential (just), but the more alarming stat is that the Magpies are -7.9 on uncontested differential, which could say something about work rate. Injuries to Taylor Adams and Dayne Beams haven’t helped, but the Magpies need a more economical impact through the middle or run the risk of being also-rans.

5. CONCERN ON COX

Get set for another week of the “Is Mason Cox about to be dropped?” speculation after another frustrating performance on Friday night. The reality is the Magpies don’t have much to replace him with. Cox went a second successive week without kicking a goal — and copped the Bronx cheers from Magpie fans when he took a mark late in the game. He started the match with good intent but that dried up quickly. He finished with 11 disposals but had no real impact. The confidence that oozed from him in a preliminary final last year seems a distant memory. The Magpies need him back to that form back, and fast.

Mason Cox had little impact in the ruck or up forward. Picture: Michael Klein

6. TURNOVERS HURT BOTH WAYS

The Magpies’ turnovers are killing them at the moment, and the club’s capacity to create their own has dwindled alarmingly. Add the two together and they are proving a dangerous combination. Since losing to the Dockers, the Magpies have scored 36 points from opposition turnovers, which is ranked 16th in the AFL. That’s not good enough, especially when they are conceding 50.8 points from their own turnovers (15th), That’s a -14.6 turnover, putting them 16th on that telling measurement. It’s a double-edge sword cutting them to ribbons right now.

7. KEEP THE PLAYERS ON THE PARK

There were more casualties leading into the game, with the pre-game loss of Taylor Adams (hamstring soreness) adding to fresh issues with Brayden Sier (calf) and James Aish (shoulder). Ben Reid’s season is all but done with another hamstring issue, while Langdon’s knee surgery is another cruel blow. Still, the coach isn’t using it as an excuse (at least not publicly) even if some of the club’s most important players have been absent. Mind you, you could have said that about the Tigers not that long ago.

8. MAKE THE MOST OF GRUNDY’S TOIL

Friday night wasn’t Brodie Grundy’s best night. Mind you, his shoulders are probably so sore for carrying Collingwood’s hopes for the past two months that he was perhaps due for a quiet one. He has been magnificent this season, but the Magpies have rarely made the most of his dominance. His nine disposals for the game was his lowest tally since Round 7, 2016. Grundy dominated the hit-outs — of course — and almost doubled the collective tap efforts of Ivan Soldo and Mabior Chol. But he looked a little sore at times. Collingwood needs to find a way to turn Grundy’s hitout ascendancy into a more potent weapon for the team overall, because that should be a no-brainer.

9. CLEANER AVENUES TO GOAL

Collingwood had six players kick 25 goals or more last year — Jordan De Goey (48), Will Hoskin-Elliott (42), Josh Thomas (38), Jaidyn Stephenson (38), Brody Mihocek (29) and Mason Cox (25), for a collective total of 220 goals. This year a month out from the finals — for varying reasons — the top six has kicked only 125, albeit with four home and away games to come. De Goey has 34, Mihocek 26, Stephenson 21, Cox 18, Thomas and Jamie Elliott 13 each. You can see why the Magpies made such a big pitch to Tom Lynch last year, as they desperately require a big power forward to create some havoc as the Richmond forward did on Friday night. There aren’t many around.

Collingwood is badly missing Jaidyn Stephenson’s spark up forward.

10. GET MORE GAME-SIMULATION WORK INTO STEPHENSON

The only way Jaidyn Stephenson can win back some of the respect he has lost for incurring a 10-game ban for placing bets on a series of Collingwood games is by starting to get more miles in his legs again. He is back from his much publicised and brief trip to Queensland and was one of the first into the Collingwood rooms on Friday night. He’s about to start his second month-long block of training before being eligible to resume in the first of the finals. If the Magpies are any hope of contending in September, the 20-year-old needs to match ready by the first week of the finals. His club is sorely missing him.