Wreck-it Ralph: The 10 Collingwood figures who must lift to snap late-season form slump
Pies coach Craig McRae has been riding high for 18 months now, yet after back-to-back defeats, is it time for McRae to make some big changes? Jon Ralph assesses the 10 biggest issues at the Pies
As Craig McRae sat in his MCG press conference after having the pants coached off him by Sam Mitchell, he looked to a single passage of play for answers.
As John Noble stormed down the wing early in the last term – hoping to spark another famous comeback – it was Harry Morrison that stopped him in his tracks.
Morrison’s teammate Will Day was one of the many Hawks who surged in to congratulate him.
Not too long after Jack Scrimshaw, never noted as a raging bull, dragged down a full speed Jordan De Goey as he charged towards goal in one of the round’s most inspiring moments.
It was a diabolical day at the office, about to get worse with the injury diagnosis on Nick Daicos and Nathan Murphy.
McRae had allowed James Sicily to dominate the game and had seen Mitchell’s coaching master plan come off spectacularly.
The Hawks flipped a handball-heavy style to chip-mark their way to victory and, with the Pies belted 18-3 from centre clearances, there was nothing Collingwood could do.
For McRae, the reaction from the Morrison tackle was instructive.
“There was a play late in the game where Morrison tackles Noble and the crowd roars and four or five players get over to celebrate the tackle,” he said.
“That has been us for a large part of the last 18 months, that has been our energy levels and our want and excitement for others. The game is played above the head more than people give it credit for.”
Collingwood used to be the selfless side which didn’t burn teammates in front of goal.
It used to be the side which established clearance dominance, then went to work.
Yet, from round nine onwards, the Pies have been 13th in the AFL for contested ball and 13th for clearance differential.
They are still so efficient, they are getting it done – third in the AFL for points scored and third for scores per inside 50.
But, as Champion Data warns, teams totally reliant on ball movement, rather than clearance and territory dominance, have to buck the trend to win a flag.
So who are the key players who need to lift to get the Pies premiership campaign back on track?
1. Jordan De Goey
The next two months of football could define De Goey’s career.
It was the reason he stayed at Collingwood – to play in big games like Friday night in front of 80,000 at the MCG when so much is on the line.
Since returning from his three-match suspension, he has been good but not great.
This is his moment, no longer with centre stage taken by Daicos – at least until the second week of the finals.
He will have polled coaches votes in only one game – as the Pies’ fifth-best player against Fremantle – in that five-week stretch.
He has kicked only four goals in that time.
Against the Hawks, he still kicked two goals from his 17 possessions, but he didn’t come anywhere close to changing the game.
Time to step up, Jordy.
2. Darcy Moore gets too many goals kicked on him
What a wonderful player, leader and ambassador he is, but he needs to be peaking for September rather forced into late-season tweaks to his defensive game.
The intercept game is still there – six intercept marks against Hawthorn, four against Carlton, six against Fremantle.
But he conceded four goals to the Hawks (two to Brandon Ryan, one each to Mitch Lewis and Jacob Koschitzke), four to Charlie Curnow last week, two to Charlie Dixon in round 19 and four to Taylor Walker in round 15.
They are the premier forwards in the competition.
But Nathan Murphy’s syndesmosis injury all of a sudden means McRae can’t shift Murphy onto the star and allow Moore a free run.
With Murphy in career-best form, it is a significant injury that only adds pressure to Moore in footy’s most pressurised role.
3. Jeremy Howe
What is McRae doing with Howe’s magnet on his white board?
Against Carlton he spent some of the third term on the wing before going forward to kick three goals in the last term.
Against Hawthorn, he again tried him on a wing but never as a permanent forward.
The Pies are desperately trying to get some run and transition back into their game with Nick Daicos playing as a mid since round 15 and Oleg Markov excellent in that role then, given only 44 minutes against the Power and 36 against Hawthorn.
Does McRae go rip-tear-bust and trial Howe as a legitimate forward as the risky move that could win the Pies a flag?
At least trial it for a full game at some stage in the next three encounters?
Howe’s intercept numbers have halved this year but coming back from a career-jeopardising injury and with some positional tweaks that is understandable.
4. Tom Mitchell
The Brownlow Medallist has the kind of hidden flaws in his game that are revealing enough to coaches that they finally fall out of love with him.
Everyone knows he isn’t a high metres-gained player and, at Hawthorn, had a habit of chasing kicks in spots that didn’t help his side.
But to round 13 this year, he was still 20th for contested possession and 24th for clearances of all midfielders in the competition.
As recently as the round 17 win over the Dogs, he had 109 ranking points, 24 touches, eight groundball-gets and six clearances.
But, just as Hawthorn transitioned him out of the midfield last year, the Pies are doing the same thing after using him as the sub in some capacity in three of the past four games.
He played only 61 minutes and had only eight centre square involvements against the Hawks.
It would have been some validation for Sam Mitchell to see Mitchell subbed off, having copped so much grief in paying some of his wage to move him on to the Pies.
So McRae might have to back him in as a full-time mid (despite his warts as a player) or give him a run in the VFL to rejuvenate him and allow him to work on his flaws.
5. Scott Pendlebury
Craig McRae said it best: “In the last couple of weeks there are a lot of parts to our game that just don’t look the same”.
How does a team with Pendlebury, De Goey, Nick and Josh Daicos, Taylor Adams and Mitchell lose centre square clearances 18-3.
It led to what might be the understatement of the year from McRae: “Yeah, 18-3 at centre bounce is not a great result”.
As the boss of that midfield, Pendlebury needs to take charge again.
As McRae said, all the other little parts of the Pies game mis-firing don’t lose Collingwood the game if they aren’t chasing tail from deep in their back half all afternoon.
Against Hawthorn, De Goey was at 22 centre bounces followed by Pendlebury (20), Taylor Adams (10), Beau McCreery (nine, all in the second half), Nick Daicos (nine, all in the first half), Jack Crisp (all in the last quarter), Mitchell (eight), with Steele Sidebottom and Brayden Maynard both attending two in the last quarter.
So by game’s end, McRae was spinning the magnets to try anything as McCreery’s strong body was used for shock value.
But in the time De Goey was in the centre square, the Pies lost clearances 1-12, and lost them 3-12 with Pendlebury in the centre square.
Fox Footy’s David King highlighted Pendlebury’s lack of leg speed as an issue on First Crack and proposed a move to half-back.
6. Taylor Adams
Adams is more than capable of playing an elite inside midfielder role.
In the games where he has had the most midfield time this year, he has responded.
Against Port Adelaide, playing 49 per cent midfield, he had 144 ranking points and four of his nine clearances were in the centre square.
Against St Kilda, he had eight clearances and six centre square clearances.
On King’s Birthday, he had 27 possessions – 11 of them contested.
Against Adelaide in round 7, Adams had six clearances and 10 contested possessions.
It is the beauty of the Pies’ two-game gap in first and their midfield depth that McRae has so many options at his disposal after the Hawthorn bashing and Adams might be one of them.
7. For whatever reason Brodie Mihocek’s form has dropped alarmingly
Champion Data stats show from rounds 7-13, Mihoceck was the sixth-best forward in the competition as he kicked a freakishly accurate 21.7.
From rounds 15-21, he is the worst-rated forward and has kicked only 2.8 in that time with 18 per cent accuracy.
His forward 50 marks have halved (2.9 to 1.4) and he has dropped from 11th in the AFL for retaining the ball inside 50 – to 42nd.
The Pies don’t have a mega-star forward so need to be firing on all cylinders with the key position targets they have.
8. Daniel McStay
McStay’s return from finger surgery has delivered exactly what he hoped – two goals in every one of those four games, three contested marks in both of the last two games, seven score involvements against Carlton.
Is he capable of even more?
For a player who is 170 games into a career at 28, who has never kicked more than four goals in any game, is it expecting too much to believe he can tear a game to shreds?
Pies fans who might have believed paying $600,000 a season for McStay was too much only need one brilliant finals performance to jump on board with the ex-Lion.
9. Jack Ginnivan
Is Ginnivan in Collingwood’s plans at all?
He has now played six straight games in the VFL for modest results, but at least has kicked two goals in each of the past four games.
He has been heavily sat on in the VFL so hasn’t found the going easy and Collingwood’s forward make-up has got excellent results from Jamie Elliott, Bobby Hill and McCreery.
Will Hoskin-Elliott had 11 possessions and 0.1 alongside Ginnivan on Sunday in the VFL.
So it would be a gut feel call from McRae to give Ginnivan a game given Hill’s last three weeks have been quiet – but at least with one goal in each of those clashes.
10. Craig McRae
What has McRae’s coaching panel got for us after allowing James Sicily to destroy them in a game where he played 43 minutes on Mihocek and then had small amounts of time on Pat Lipinski, Taylor Adams and Tom Mitchell?
Will they allow Jake Lever or Steven May to intercept at will in a final? Or Harris Andrews or Aliir Aliir?
North Melbourne has developed Eddie Fort into that player and he took Lever to the cleaners with three early goals before Lever bounced back on Sunday.
The Pies have been in front in 56 per cent of game time this year, behind only Brisbane (62 per cent) and Adelaide (58 per cent).
They can still win games like the Port Adelaide clash, where the Power had 17 minutes of extra time in their forward half and still lost.
But every positional move and tactical tweak will be magnified in September.
McRae said on Saturday he doesn’t wander around with a loser’s limp.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, and the Pies have copped a clobbering in the past fortnight.
What happens next defines their season.
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