Brody steps up, but brave Pies go down
COLLINGWOOD’S heartbreaking two-point loss to the Sydney Swans at the SCG on Saturday night may have damaged its chances of a toptwo finish, but it increased the value of Tasmanian Brody Mihocek.
The former Burnie Docker burst on to the scene with four goals on AFL debut against Fremantle at the MCG in Round 11.
Since then, he has been one of the go-to targets up forward for Collingwood, though on Saturday night, the 192cm Mihocek showed his value as a versatile bigman.
When the Pies lost key defender Darcy Moore early in the opening term, their only other key defender, rookie Jack Madgen, was switched to Moore’s role on Lance Franklin.
The Pies then sent Mihocek — who was playing his own role to limit the impact of in-form Swans defender Aliir Aliir — down back as the second tall in defence.
And the Tasmanian stood tall.
He was put to work on Swan Tom McCartin and Alex Johnson, and his main stat (10 possessions) doesn’t show his true impact.
Mihocek racked up five intercept possessions, eight pressure acts, 230m gained and four inside-50s in his solid game in defence.
On top of that, his Collingwood kit somehow did not make it to Sydney and Mihocek had to play the game in Sam McLarty’s gear.
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said: “Madgen was the other key back that we had in our side and ultimately we had to pull Mihocek out of our front half and that let Aliir off the chain a bit.”
Franklin’s six goals closed the gap to Ben Brown in the race for the Coleman Medal.
For the second week in a row, Brown kicked only one goal and now leads the Coleman race with 54 goals, while Franklin has closed to 50, followed by big Cat Tom Hawkins 49, Hawk Luke Breust and Tiger Jack Riewoldt, both on 48. Riewoldt bagged a game-high four goals from his 10 touches, four marks and 11 pressure acts, while Tassie teammate Toby Nankervis had 33 hit-outs and 22 pressure acts.