How Craig McRae’s vision built Collingwood’s list through shrewd trades
Collingwood hasn’t had many top-end draft picks or made massive trade moves. But smart trades have pieced together what could be a premiership team.
Call it the ‘Fly’ pitch.
Collingwood sits one game away from a grand final after an exceptional first two seasons so far under coach Craig McRae thanks to smart trading and great sells.
It’s a remarkable rise for a club that finished 2021 17th on the ladder and hasn’t made any dramatic big trades or signings, outside of the drafting of Nick Daicos as a father-son.
This could be the premiership built on the small moves and shrewd targeting.
McRae, known universally as ‘Fly’, and football boss Graham Wright scoured their list and picked specific targets as they freed up room after moving out Brodie Grundy last off-season.
League insiders believe McRae arrived at the Magpies with a game plan in mind and he and Wright then picked up players to fit that freewheeling style.
Instead of the mistake moves that brought in Levi Greenwood, Chris Mayne and Daniel Wells in Nathan Buckley and Ned Guy’s tenure, the Pies nailed their marks.
Bobby Hill wanted to play for Essendon at the end of 2021 but changed his tune to Collingwood a year later.
He was sold on a chance to play a role similar to Richmond star Shai Bolton, as well as his relationship with development coach Neville Jetta.
Billy Frampton was lured over from Port Adelaide, sold on a specific role as a lockdown defender to aid flying interceptors Darcy Moore and Jeremy Howe.
Geelong famously pieced together a defence full of ‘misfits’ and Collingwood has gone up the other end for its forward line of outsiders.
Only one regular forward in Collingwood’s finals squad was selected by the Pies in the national draft – Beau McCreery, who was pick 44 in 2020.
There are no top-end forward superstars in the Magpies forward unit, no blue-chip A-graders born to dominate like Geelong’s premiership forward pair Tom Hawkins and Jeremy Cameron.
Instead, Collingwood has pulled in the pieces of the puzzle over the last half-decade to craft a flag-ready mix.
The rookie draft brought a VFL defender in Brody Mihocek, who would become a goalkicking spearhead, a natural goalsneak who was rough around the edges in Jack Ginnivan and a lanky American in Mason Cox.
The Pies targeted Dan McStay early last year as a marking forward, poached with ease as a free agent from the Brisbane Lions.
Taylor Adams has played across half-forward at times this year and he was traded in from GWS Giants for Heath Shaw.
Shaw gave excellent service to the Giants, but the Magpies would make that trade again every day of the week.
And the best of them all, Jamie Elliott, was originally listed by the Giants before the Pies swung a trade for him, returning Irishman Marty Clarke and pick 67, which was used on ruck and future Gold Coast captain Jarrod Witts, all for pick 25, which would eventually become St Kilda’s Seb Ross.
The Bolton pitch won over Hill, essentially grabbing him from GWS for a future second-round pick in a trade last off season, a bargain price as he looked Collingwood’s most dangerous forward in the qualifying final win over Melbourne.
Hill equalled a career-high when he booted three goals in the qualifying final and his electric speed has rival defenders nervous how he will hit his front-and-centre balls.
He sat in a tattooist char on deadline day in 2021 as a trade to the Bombers fell through and there is no doubt he made the right choice switching loyalties to a fierce rival.
“Having ‘Fly’ as a coach has been a really good fit, along with Graham Wright,” Hill’s manager Andrew McDougall said.
“The different role and fitting in to the Collingwood style of football, I think that has been pivotal in the way Bobby has come along this year.”
Hill has thrived with his young family at Collingwood, feeding off the backing of McRae. Part of McRae’s pitch has been the freewheeling game style that has won over Collingwood fans.
The coach knew from the outset exactly how he wanted to play, with hard-running and speedy forward breaking off half-back and into space in the forward 50.
When you’re kicking the ball into space, you don’t need the big hulking forward to take huge grabs, smart players like Elliott can get the job done.
Among premiership winners this century, perhaps only the Western Bulldogs’ mix-and-match forwards of 2016 and the unheralded goalkickers at West Coast in 2006 can match Collingwood for a lack of star power in front of the ball.
There is no Jonathan Brown and Alastair Lynch, or Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead, or Jack Riewoldt and Tom Lynch.
Most of those superstar flag-winners were blue-chippers when they were teens, not the workhorse outsiders currently wearing black and white.
It is the shrewd trading that has the Magpies on the precipice of another grand final.
Unlike Geelong, there was no blockbuster trade for Cameron or Patrick Dangerfield that set the wheels in motion, instead it has been the small deals that have lifted the tide of all boats.
The beauty of Collingwood’s wheeling and dealing in the years after their last grand final appearance, a loss to West Coast in 2018, is what they haven’t lost.
The Pies have traded out eight players over the last five off seasons and lost nothing for moving on Atu Bosenavulagi, Tom Phillips, Max Lynch and Jaidyn Stephenson.
Adam Treloar had an excellent 2023 season with the Western Bulldogs but the Pies don’t particularly miss him and Brodie Grundy is headed to a third club again in 2024.
Ollie Henry is the player that looks like will hurt the Pies the most, after he bagged 41 goals in his first season with Geelong and looks like a forward line weapon.
The picks the Pies have given up have hardly hurt, either.
Mitch Georgiades, a talented but often injured forward, was snared with the first-round pick that was used in the failed move to bring Dayne Beams back to Collingwood, otherwise most choices us have just been used as fold-ins for points at draft time.
In that time, the Pies made huge salary cap room, used to keep Jordan De Goey and lock in stars like Darcy Moore and begin their targeted inch-by-inch trades.
The Pies also picked up more crucial pieces around the edges in Darcy Cameron (from Sydney), Pat Lipinski (Western Bulldogs), Tom Mitchell (Hawthorn).
Frampton has nailed his role as a handy back-up this year, while Nathan Kreuger is yet to fire.
Outside of the Beams return misfire, it’s hard to find a trade that has really let the Pies down.
And the bargains aren’t just limited to the front half.
Oleg Markov was headed to Carlton for some training when Collingwood signed him for nothing last summer.
Jeremy Howe was landed for a complex deal that was headlined by Paul Seedsman.
Jack Crisp was the steak knives in the first Beams deal, sent down from Queensland along with an early pick that was used to call out De Goey’s name.
Imagine how red-hot the Lions would be as flag favourites if they had both Crisp and De Goey in their midfield mix.
Will Hoskin-Elliott held down the wing in the qualifying final and was snagged for a second-round pick.
GWS moved that pick on and it eventually became Noah Balta, a rare name of note that comes up from what the Pies have given away in the past decade.
Every list is made up of some top-end picks, such as Daicos and Moore – who were always destined to be Pies as a father-sons – and De Goey.
Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom were highly touted from another generation but the Pies haven’t picked up anyone else from inside the top 12.
Josh Daicos was as much of a diamond in the rough as a father-son with his surname can be, drafted with pick 57 and fostered for six years before an All-Australian season in 2023.
There was no slow build through the draft with superstar talents like Melbourne managed with Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Angus Brayshaw.
The Pies are the shrewd shoppers, who know they have the superstars – Moore, Nick Daicos, De Goey – and found whatever outsiders they could get to put around them.
It is those outsiders, collected from across the league and sold on Fly’s vision, that could turn the Magpies into Flagpies.
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