Richmond flavour to Pies’ strong win
NATHAN Buckley told a fan forum late last year that his Collingwood 2018 side wasn’t going to copy reigning premier Richmond’s handbook. He was surely having a lend. If you disregarded the black and white colours on the MCG yesterday, and just focused on the manner of Collingwood’s dominant performance against North Melbourne, you would have been forgiven for thinking it was Richmond feasting on the hapless Kangaroos.
Fast ball movement, relentless pressure all over the ground, ferocious tackling, multiple scoring options in at- tack and the ability of 22 players to connect … all of those elements combined to deal a savage blow to the Kangaroos’ finals aspirations.
A day after Richmond put St Kilda to the sword, Collingwood shook off a poor performance against West Coast last week with one of its most complete games of the season.
It sets up a mouth-watering clash with the Tigers next Saturday afternoon.
So what’s changed since the Tigers finished like a freight train in Round 6 to overrun a competitive Collingwood to win by 43 points?
Plenty. Whether it’s enough to bridge the gap between the two teams remains to be seen, but a swelling crowd of 90,000-plus – which would be the highest between these two old foes since the 1980 grand final – is about to find out.
This time Collingwood won’t be coming off a four-day break, which perhaps accounted for part of the Tigers’ eightgoals-to-three final term on that April Sunday afternoon.
Speed wasn’t an issue for the Magpies against the Kangaroos and the blistering style in which they ran with the ball is going to be needed if they have any hope of breaking Richmond’s 17-game winning streak at the MCG.
Back in April, Jordan De Goey had played three games for the season, was still uncontracted for 2019, and had kicked only three goals for the year. Since then, he’s not only locked in two more seasons, he has become one of the most dangerous players in the competition.
Collingwood had seven different players yesterday compared to the team that took the field against Richmond in Round 6. Sure, they have lost key players such as Adam Treloar, Lynden Dunn and Ben Reid, but they have found some along the way, too.
Brody Mihocek was playing VFL in April. He will be front and centre on Saturday after his four goals against the Kangas. BEST GOALS INJURIES UMPIRES CROWD GOALS INJURIES UMPIRES CROWD BRISBANE V ADELAIDE 4.1 8.2 9.7 13.10 3.4 9.7 12.11 13.15