Pies need to embrace Cats’ challenge — Dunn
COLLINGWOOD recruit Lynden Dunn says his teammates need to embrace the challenge of facing Geelong if they are to rebound from a disappointing loss to Essendon on Anzac Day.
The former Melbourne defender will make his debut in black and white against the Cats tomorrow, replacing Ben Reid who has been managed.
Dunn said the Magpies players hadn’t spent long dwelling on the defeat to the Bombers.
“The morale is really good. Obviously we’d like to be further up the ladder than what we are and have a few more Ws next to our name, but to the boys’ credit we haven’t been that far out of games,” he said.
“We’ve let ourselves a little bit down in front of goal and haven’t been finishing off our work and that’s been spoken about in the media and we recognise that as well.
“The boys are super excited for the challenge this week, and we’re going to need to be — coming off Anzac Day on the short turnaround, the boys will have to find a little bit of energy from somewhere.”
The Cats will be without Dan Menzel, who is also being rested, but Dunn said that wouldn’t make their opponents any less dangerous.
“(Menzel) is a pretty handy player,” Dunn said.
“He’s obviously had a tough trot with injury but certainly in the last 18 months he’s definitely shown the AFL world why Geelong held onto him, and him out makes our job a little bit easier, but in saying that someone has got to replace him, so all their forwards are really tough to play on.
“Having played against ‘Tomahawk’ (Tom Hawkins) before and Harry Taylor’s gone forward as well, and their small forwards are lively, it’s a pretty good challenge for our back six.”
Dunn said Reid’s omission wouldn’t dent the side’s leadership stocks.
“He’ll be missed down back but we’ve still got guys like (Tyson) Goldsack and ‘Howey’ (Jeremy Howe) who have been really strong leaders down there and a midfield with a lot of leaders in Scotty Pendlebury, Tay Adams and Steele Sidebottom, so I’m sure we’ll fill the void with our leading,” he said.
Dunn said a return to the tackling numbers that saw the Magpies beat Sydney in Sydney would go a long way to beating Geelong.
“We definitely speak about that most weeks but as I mentioned with Geelong’s midfield before, it’s going to be a fairly tough slog in the middle, especially if conditions are a little bit slippery, so we expect our mids to bring it this week as we do every week, and tackling and contested ball is a focus for most teams every week,” he said.
Dunn said confidence was all that was preventing the Magpies — who rank 18th for accuracy — from fixing their woes in front of goal.