AFL round 8 Collingwood v Geelong: Pies’ wasted chances come back to haunt them against Cats

Some contentious calls have dominated the conversation, but they’re not why Collingwood fell to the Cats, writes Ed Bourke. And the true cause should leave the Pies seething.

The Cats were fully ensnared in the “Fly Trap”.

How they escaped with victory in an all-time classic will be studied intently by Collingwood’s opponents over the next month, but none of those sides have a Patrick Dangerfield.

With two minutes left in the game, the Geelong captain had seven groundball gets for the final term; the entire Magpies team had just six between them.

It was one of the finest quarters of his career, and that is saying something for a 35-year-old titan of the competition.

Bailey Smith looked destined to play his best game so far in blue and white hoops for little reward, but his relentless end-to-end burst running eventually paid off in a 19-disposal second half.

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Jack Crisp couldn’t seal the fairytale comeback. Picture: Michael Klein

For 109 minutes, the once-dubbed “Irish Nick Daicos” Oisin Mullin scrapped desperately with the real thing in a bid to even slightly curtail his impact.

Mullin attended 27 centre bounces – the most of any Cat – and although it had appeared to their detriment in the clearance differential, they stuck with the hard tag until he kept the superstar to just three touches in the final term.

If the Magpies were ever going to apply the same treatment to an opposition midfielder, it would have had to be to Smith, who for three quarters had been the only Cat except for Ollie Dempsey to create holes in Collingwood’s defence.

But rather than some individual brilliance from Geelong, the Magpies will be left dwelling on why they were unable to finish the kill after dominating all areas for very little scoreboard advantage.

Never has a team seven points in front looked so completely in control than the Magpies were early in the third term as they slowly built up possession in their forward half.

The Pies were up 14 centre clearances to two, but also comfortably ahead in the tackle count as they sweated on every Geelong possession between the arcs and constantly forced them long down the line.

Oisin Mullin put the clamps on in the final term. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

But with the door left wide open by their inefficiency, the Cats steamed out of four consecutive centre bounces to wrench themselves free from the Pies’ clutches.

The threat suddenly felt real after Ollie Dempsey spotted Oli Wiltshire in space and the second-gamer finished coolly on the run from 30 metres.

Wiltshire was drafted straight out of Barwon Heads with pick 61 in the 2023 draft.

As surely as a Clive Palmer-backed political party rises from the ashes of the previous one with every federal election cycle, the Cats continue to regenerate with the help of obscure selections from their own backyard.

After the GWS demolition in opening round, it looked like Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom would have their hands full hanging onto marginal seats in the Collingwood engine room.

It’s now an understatement to say those seats are safe – if anything, the veteran duo are performing at a level above what they produced across the 2023 premiership campaign.

Pendlebury had a game-high seven inside 50s and booted his first goal in 12 outings after some dynamic stoppage work inside 50 early in the third term.

Sidebottom is pushing for an unlikely second All-Australian blazer seven years after his first, and was used cleverly in a mix of inside and outside roles.

When Dempsey took him to the goal square and sat on his head in the second term, the 34-year-old swapped wings with Jack Crisp so the one chink in his armour couldn’t be exploited.

The Bobby Hill chase-down tackle on Shaun Mannagh and a lopsided free kick count will be put under the microscope, but it was the explosion in Geelong pressure that brought the Pies unstuck.

It was no more telling than when Darcy Moore, who had returned impressively from his ear issue, lunged desperately for a ball under assault from three Geelong forwards and slapped the ball into the path of his former teammate Ollie Henry instead of taking possession.

When the dust settles after a memorable finish and a lighter moment consoling Crisp and celebrating his milestone, the Magpies will find themselves fuming over how they left themselves in a position to be hunted.

Trying to pick itself up from near rock bottom, Fremantle will scarcely believe its luck that a seething Collingwood awaits in Perth on Thursday.