Collingwood’s premiership defence is “back on track,” with one pundit going so far to nearly name the Pies his No. 1 seed.
After a grim 0-3 start to the season, the Magpies registered their third-straight win on Saturday in a 42-point smashing of Port Adelaide at the MCG.
It came in a game Craig McRae’s side trailed by as much as 31 points in early before turning the tide with an epic six-goal second term to ultimately produce a remarkable 73-point turnaround.
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“Back on track in two and a half quarters. They’ve convinced me their season is back on track with the way they played,” Saints legend Leigh Montagna said on Fox Footy’s The First Crack.
“Up until last week I wasn’t sure I’d seen their best football and whether they’d regain it. Watching that performance, particularly the second half, it was dynamic.”
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Despite being widely written off after their 0-3 start – and even questioned after only narrowly ousting Hawthorn in Gather Round – broadcaster Gerard Whateley saw enough on Saturday to suggest the 3-3 Pies, who sit 10th on the ladder, are again in the thick of the premiership race.
In fact, Whateley nearly declared Collingwood the premier team in the competition in naming his current top four seeds in a weekly segment on SEN with Kangaroos great David King.
“I’ve got Collingwood at two. That was a performance so compelling and a reminder of what the standard has been. They’re 10th on the ladder but they are at two on the seedings,” Whateley said on SEN.
“If you’re going to play that footy … I nearly had them at one. I left the MCG, driving home thinking: ‘Collingwood is my No. 1 seed’.
“Then I got home and watched Carlton … that’s a return to what we’ve known. It wasn’t an outlier.”
The Pies were firing on all cylinders against Port in a sense they’d changed the course of their season in that second quarter alone.
Collingwood’s growing confidence permeated though the side to produce its trademark hunt and aggressive defensive press and ensure the game was played in its forward half – where it scored in bunches.
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“I think the hardest thing to get back is that swarming mentality, where they outnumber where the ball is and leave their men – whether it’s from behind the ball or in front of it,” King said on The First Crack
“Their forward half game was the best it has been for a long time – 66 points they scored from forward half work, which is their best return from their last 100 games – and they’ve played some pretty serious footy in the meantime.
“Their ability to force the opposition to turn it over was an absolute feature. They hunt and hunt and get the reward at the end.”
Watching Beau McCreery’s fierce chase down tackle on Zak Butters, King noted “you don’t lose games when you play like that”.
“I think that’s the template. Sometimes you need to feel it and live it and be part of a win like that, trying to regain your very best,” he added.
“To get that sort of return from forward half work is something to really build on.”
Of course, good defence leads to good offence, with Collingwood kicking its biggest score (123) since, ironically, its 71-point beat down of Port Adelaide at the MCG in Round 2 last year (135).
On Saturday though, the Pies had nine extra scoring shots than that Round 2 game in an offensive blitz that could’ve been even more devastating on the scoreboard had the home side kicked more accurately (17.21).
“They got their rewards offensively, particularly the smalls. I thought their structure was great ahead of the ball,” Montagna added.
“Lipinski, Schultz, Hill, McCreery, Elliott and Hoskin-Elliott had 21 shots at goal between them and 11 score assists. They were in everything, they had a field day.”
Source Agencies
