Mick Malthouse says Collingwood players didn’t party away chance for back-to-back premierships in 2011

COLLINGWOOD premiership coach Mick Malthouse has rejected suggestions Magpies players partied away the 2011 season, declaring the club was committed to the quest for back-to-back flags.

Mick Malthouse after the 2011 Grand Final.

COLLINGWOOD premiership coach Mick Malthouse has rejected suggestions Magpies players partied away the 2011 season, declaring the club was committed to the quest for back-to-back flags.

Superstar midfielder Scott Pendlebury revealed on Wednesday that players were “going out” at every opportunity in 2011 and even into 2012 to celebrate the triumph.

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But Malthouse said if that was the case it didn’t affect their on-field performance.

“If the finger is being pointed at any particular area, inclusive of my coaching, then I’d be staggered if Scott would say there was a hangover,” he told the Herald Sun.

“It was a random comment to say the players went out every weekend they possibly could.

“If he (Pendlebury) is saying that they were partying — for one it wasn’t evident, there’s no way known it was evident because our performances were outstanding … and we got to the Grand Final.

Mick Malthouse with Scott Pendlebury after the 2011 Grand Final.

“The one thing about a senior coach is you’re not their father, you’re not their guardian and what they do in their private life (is their business), so long as they can play football.

“A hangover to me is when you underperform and you don’t get to the finals or you scrape into the finals after a premiership year.

“It can hardly be conceived as a lean year.”

The Magpies lost just three games in 2011 — all to Geelong — and finished the home-and-away season as minor premier with a percentage of 167.7.

Dane Swan also won the Brownlow Medal.

“Those footballers played extraordinarily great football,” Malthouse said.

“That’s one player’s assessment and if he’s talking about himself, he’s entitled to talk about the fact he may not have been as hungry.

“That’s up to him. I can’t answer to that, I thought he had a reasonable year quite frankly, but perhaps he didn’t.

“There’s hardly any evidence to suggest the club wasn’t going in the right direction.”

Dane Swan set a new record by polling 34 votes to win the 2011 Brownlow Medal.

The coaching succession plan — as Malthouse prepared to hand over the Nathan Buckley — dominated headlines at the time but Pendlebury on Wednesday said it was a combination of partying, a short off-season and feeling “burnt out” that resulted in “one that got away”.

Malthouse said any notion players returned to training early in preparation for the 2011 season was a “falsehood”.

Collingwood played in its sixth consecutive finals series in 2011 and when asked whether there were signs hunger within the playing group was waning, he said: “No, not at all.

“You can’t help your captain (Nick Maxwell) breaking his wrist, Heath Shaw got eight weeks for something (gambling) that we’ve seen recently people might get a slap on the wrist for.

“There was certainly no indication, in fact there was a massive desire to win a back-to-back.”

While Pendlebury feels 2011 was the “one that got away”, Malthouse was less emphatic.

“No one is going to lay down for you and you have no right to win a premiership, you have to get there for a start off and then win it on the day,” he said.

“I can say 2007 got away and I mean 2007.

“We played Geelong in a preliminary final and got beaten by three points and I lost my ruckman before the game. The best on the ground that day was Geelong’s ruckman (Geelong defeated Port Adelaide by a record 119 points in the Grand Final the next week).

“Grand Finals, for those who have ever played in them, you rue the ones that you lost because you’ve lost.

“But the simple fact is there’s plenty of other sides who would have liked to have been in your position and of course you would have liked to have won them all.

“Very few coaches and very few teams go through history without losing. If you get there enough, at some stage you’re going to suffer a loss.”