By Greg Baum
Once at the MCG, it was a case of if Lillee don’t get you, Thommo must. Fifty years later, the modern version is if Curnow don’t get you, McKay must. That is, if Nick Daicos don’t trump them all, which he did, of course. It won’t soothe Carlton hearts at all to dwell on the idea that Daicos this night was young Chris Judd reincarnated.
“What a player, what a player. Geez,” wheezed Collingwood coach Craig McRae. “That late in the game, to be running with that intensity, and then the finish … ” Carlton’s Michael Voss used what was once the highest form of Australian praise, understatement: “Daicos was all right.” You had to see the eye roll.
Nick Daicos kicked the winning goal in the Magpies’ win over the Blues. Credit: Getty Images
At one level, this was a glorious exhibition of football between two old rivals for the delectation of another massive crowd, iced by Daicos to seal victory for Collingwood by a goal. The Peter Mac cause was again well served. At another, it was an exposition of what might deliver a premiership to either of these two contending teams and what may thwart them still.
When they met late last year, Charlie Curnow kicked six. This time, Harry McKay had three by quarter-time and looked on track for six, and Curnow had two of his own soon after the break, and the Blues led by more than three goals then. “They’re big and serious weapons up front,” said McRae, glad to have survived.
At face value, McKay’s three goals were all down to favourable rubs of the green. The first two were from marks out the back, the third from a dropped Magpie mark that fell into his hands.
But there was a method behind this largesse. All were down to midfield turnovers, catching Collingwood’s defence off-side. It’s the way to beat Collingwood if you can do it.
Curnow’s goals were both from contested marks. One was made easier for him because McKay again sagged to the goal square, spreading the Magpies’ defence. This is the Blues’ other way of skinning the rabbit. This was footy the Carlton way: win clearance, load up, go tall, tidy up if necessary.
Collingwood, of course, do it differently, and did for most of the rest of the game. Though Jordan de Goey and Tom Mitchell were absent, the Magpies made up for them with massive corporate effort. They lost Beau McCreery, but thought of him as another soldier to be replaced.
The replacement, Lachie Sullivan, soon had a goal, with his first kick in the AFL. He took a handball while running at full pace and snapped across his body, and instantly looked like a Collingwood McRae-era player. The crewcut helps; it makes him look like a Collingwood player from any era. McRae said his goal became an inspiration.
Carlton had more possessions, too many said Voss, who thought his team overdid it. Collingwood made more tackles, the margin eventually widening to 31, and their game grew from there while Carlton’s suffocated. “31 tackles: it’s hard to play against, isn’t it?” said McRae.
Surprisingly, they squared the Blues for clearances and contested possession, the Blues’ recent strength. Curnow and McKay became like the Whitlam government, denied supply. By driving the ball forward the way a sheepdog drives a flock, Collingwood kicked five in a row and led by two. Only one was from a pack mark, Mason Cox’s.
Carlton’s challenge was and is to make the most of its riches, a powerful midfield and two titans on the forward line. As the last month has shown, they have not yet managed this reliably. They don’t really have a plan B.
But the Magpies have their own Achilles heel, and it showed in the third quarter. It is that without a Curnow or McKay of their own, scoring sometimes is laboured and laborious. Jamie Elliott would kick only one goal this night, Brodie Mihocek none. Their 12 goals came from 11 different players; McRae chose to count this as a strength. “They’re Collingwood goals, and we don’t really care who kicks them,” he said.
But he would have cared when no one did. The Magpies bossed general play, but from six shots at goal in the third quarter kicked four behinds. From five shots, Carlton kicked 3.2, two to the opportunist Matthew Owies, then a Carlton classic, Curnow outmarking Moore and kicking long to McKay, who outmarked Billy Frampton. At three-quarter time, they led, and all things were possible again.
Patrick Cripps is chased down by Scott Pendlebury.Credit: Getty Images
So Collingwood did what the Magpies do, they doubled down. You could say they won the only way they know how; by making themselves such a physical presence wherever the ball goes that opponents eventually, and mostly, wilt. The way the ball sat up for Daicos at that last crucial stoppage, it’s almost as if the ball itself surrenders to Collingwood’s zealotry.
In the last quarter, they won the inside 50 count 21-8, but the Blues kicked two on the fast break and another from a Tom de Koning mark, and so it still came down to the last kick, to a Daicos special. It’s a tough way to play footy, but it works for the Magpies and it engages crowds.
As for Daicos, simply he’s as complete a footballer at 21 as there has been in the modern era. He’s a footballer to win a club a premiership. He already has.
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