AFL 2020: Magpies shut out outside noise as Clarko prepares to make some tough calls on Hawks
Nathan Buckley took a few calculated risks and steadied a Collingwood ship that had drifted off course in the past fortnight as the Pies prepared for their journey out west in the best way possible.
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Collingwood has made an art-form in recent years of hitting the road during an off-field crisis and emerging with what looked like a season-defining victory.
They did it once again on Friday night – without Jordan De Goey, Steele Sidebottom and Jeremy Howe – but this time the Magpies must bottle that enthusiasm, energy and resilience for at least the next three weeks in Perth, and possibly longer, elsewhere.
In a wildly oscillating season where the survival of the fitness and list depth might win the 2020 flag, Nathan Buckley’s team responded strongly to a week of negative headlines, team disruption and questionable form.
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Buckley had anticipated a spike in performance this week after last week’s poor effort against Essendon. He got it, and so much more, in the Magpies’ 32-point victory over a hapless Hawthorn at Giants Stadium.
He had a decisive win in the coaches’ box, too, against four-time flag coach Alastair Clarkson, who had previously won 12 of their past 13 encounters.
Buckley spun the magnets, took a few calculated risks, and steadied a Collingwood ship that had drifted off course in the past fortnight.
The coach introduced fresh faces in Will Kelly (who kicked a goal with his first kick before suffering a late elbow injury) and Atu Bosenavulagi (16 disposals); pushed Jamie Elliott into the midfield in De Goey and Sidebottom’s absence; gave Jaidyn Stephenson a licence further up the field, and re-introduced the smooth Isaac Quaynor into defence.
The moves worked; his team thrived.
De Goey will return for Thursday’s clash with Geelong in Perth (Sidebottom still has two more games to serve), with Buckley hoping the move across to the other side of the country will continue the club’s long tradition of performing well on the road.
“I think the fact the boys have been able to spend more time together (has been good),” Buckley said.
“We were around each other‘s space a bit more (this week).
“It just feels normal for us to spend time (together), and we look forward to the challenge that Perth holds.”
The pre-game headlines centred on Sidebottom and De Goey, and whether the club had off-field cultural issues, but Buckley and defender Darcy Moore maintained the group had united behind each other.
“This group continues to be resilient, we are at the biggest club and we feel that (pressure). We are human beings at the end of the day,” Moore said on Fox Footy.
“But this group continues to finds a way to be resilient, and once we cross that line, nothing else matters. We have a crack and play good footy.”
WHAT’S NEXT, CLARKO?
Whenever Hawthorn has been challenged during Alastair Clarkson’s celebrated 16-season tenure, he has always managed to pull a rabbit out of his metaphoric hat at the most appropriate time.
But the challenges this master coach faces now would make the mightiest of magicians feeling skeptical about being able to conjure up another ‘miracle’.
The Hawks’ season is far from over.
They are 3-3 with a winnable clash against Melbourne at Giants Stadium on Sunday week.
But after back-to-back losses to GWS and Collingwood – off the back of kicking only three goals against the Magpies – the Hawks appear a shadow of their former self.
Part of that comes from the passage of time.
Even allowing for the fact that 37-year-old Shaun Burgoyne was sorely missed on Friday, Hawthorn still had eight players on Friday night who were 29 or older.
Part of it comes back to some debatable recruiting decisions in recent seasons which have meant the age demographic has skewed too far the wrong way.
Clarkson has always been prepared to make ruthless decisions for the sake of the club – think Jarryd Roughead mid last year – but he will have to make more tough decisions on flag players very soon.
“If you have a team that currently sits with this age demographic, you need to be playing better football,” Nick Dal Santo said on Fox Footy.
“(James) Frawley is (almost) 32, (Paul) Puopolo is 32, (Isaac) Smith is 31, (Ben) Stratton is 31, ‘Big Boy’ (Ben) McEvoy is 30 … and (Ricky) Henderson is 31. If you are one of those individuals, you don’t want to do that (play poorly) too often.
“Changes have to be made and Alastair Clarkson has been known to make those hard calls.”
Dal Santo said Smith had to be excluded from the debate, while others had performed well at times, but overall the pressure was started to build.
“You can’t keep picking the same team time and time again, and keep getting the same result.”
JUGGLING JAMIE
Whenever Jamie Elliott is off the field, Collingwood fans get twitchy, but Buckley said what happened late in Friday’s game was not only precautionary, but very much a sign of the COVID-19 times.
Elliott was managed late in the game, even if the player and his coach weren’t entirely happy.
But with the prospect of compressed games across the next month and a half, the Magpies conditioning staff believed it was “prudent” to not push him too hard, following his best game of the season in a revamped midfield role.
That meant Elliott is almost certain to take on the Cats next week.
Buckley said: “Jamie could have kept playing … he was a bit frustrated by the call (to rest him).”
“You are six goals up at three quarter-time, and you do have some question marks on the horizon about what the schedule is going to look like. You want to make sure you look after your better players. I don’t know how comfortable I am with the situation … but potentially it is the most prudent.”
COULD ‘CHECKERS’ WIN COLEMAN?
A one-time rookie who had been overlooked in seven national drafts before being chosen by Collingwood initially as a defender has edged himself into Coleman Medal calculations.
Brody Mihocek kicked four goals – one more than the opposition – to take his tally to 12 for the season, and 77 from 46 games across three seasons in black and white.
It was the eighth time he has kicked four goals, including his debut game in Round 1, 2018.
Since that time, as statistician @sirswampthing pointed out on Twitter, only four men have kicked more four-goal or plus hauls than Mihocek – Tom Hawkins (11 times), Ben Brown (11), Lance Franklin (nine) and Jeremy Cameron (nine).
In this strangest of seasons, where a Coleman winner might not struggle to kick more than 50 goals – Mihocek must rate a chance after leaping over in-form Hawkins (11) and Charlie Cameron (11), with others swarming.
Mihocek said: “Some weeks it is a bit lonely to be a forward and it was just good to get back out there (after last week’s loss to Essendon).”
Debutants Kelly and Atu brought plenty of energy in the front half. Both look to have futures with the club, even if Kelly sadly is set for a sizeable period on the sidelines.
MOORE PLEASE, DARCY
Collingwood hasn’t had an All-Australian defender since 2011, but Darcy Moore is well on the way to booking his place with another dominant performance.
Matched mostly against Tim O’Brien and Jack Gunston, Moore had 21 disposals (six contested) while his six opponents had only three touches on him with no goals. Champion Data credited Gunston’s goal against Jordan Roughead.
Moore had 420 metres gained as well as nine intercept possessions and three intercept marks.
All of this comes in a contract year for Moore, whose value to the team continues to rise, but importantly whose connection to his teammates seems just as valuable.
Moore’s father, Peter, was twice an All-Australian (in 1979 and 1984).
Moore was initially unaware the Magpies had kept Hawthorn to its lowest score in Clarkson’s 357 games in charge and the club’s equal lowest score since 1964.
“I didn’t know that,” Moore told Fox Footy.
“But it’s a stat we will be pretty proud of.”
Moore said he had been pushing for Quaynor’s return to the backline, and the young Magpie showed precisely why with his slick ball use.
“To see him (Quaynor) come out and show the AFL world what he is capable of is pretty exciting,” Moore said.
“We were sad and shattered for Howey, but we have got to find a way and will continue to build. It’s really exciting for Shaz (Matt Scharenberg).”
In four of the six games this year, Collingwood’s defence has restricted the opposition to 37 points or fewer.
PATTO’S PAIN
As hard as it was to watch Kelly‘s injury, the pain associated with Hawthorn forward Jon Patton’s first-term hamstring was just as deflating.
For Patton has been cursed by what has happened to his body throughout his career.
The 27-year Hawk, who has missed almost 100 games in a career so rudely interrupted mostly with knee injuries, looked shattered on the bench after being ruled out before quarter-time.
It was another cruel blow for the one-time No. 1 draft pick who missed every game with the Giants last year and missed the past two Hawks‘ game when he scalded one of his feet when cooking fish at home.
While the Hawks played down the severity of the hamstring injury, leading sports medico Dr Peter Larkins brought some clarity with a tweet that summed up why the big man would have been so devastated.
Larkins tweeted: “Jonathan Patton obviously distressed after hamstring tear- he has had 3 knee ACL recos so he knows he no longer has a “normal” hammy after tendon grafts used so recovery usually much longer.”
Any wonder he was having a heated discussion with Hawks medicos after it happened.
OUT OF THE STOPPAGE HOLE
Against Essendon, the Pies bled 45 points from stoppages.
That was, as Herald Sun footy analyst Mick McGuane suggested, an unsustainable number.
A week on, against the Hawks, the Magpies cut that figure back to only two points, and kept the opposition to only three goals for the game.
Adam Treloar noted it had been a focus.
“We felt as though if we brought our aggressiveness around the ball, surging to our forwards one-on-one, we were going to give ourselves a good opportunity to score,” Treloar said on Channel 7.
“It definitely was a focus for us going into this game, trying to come out the front of the stoppage or come out the front of the congestion.”
Treloar has had 30 and 35 disposals in two games back from injury – a rare feat in the game’s shortened brand.
He had his partner, Kim, and baby daughter Georgie on the Sydney leg of the hub, but the pair didn’t follow him to Perth on Saturday.
“I’m quite sad … my partner and my daughter go home, it is going to be tough for a lot of players over in WA when we do have family back home,” Treloar said.
”But we do it for the love of the game and I know the fans really appreciate it.”
And, in Perth, the fans could be back in good numbers on Thursday night.