Collingwood cooking as potent Pies power past Gold Coast Suns

IT’S amazing how much can change in a year.

In the corresponding fixture last year, Gold Coast delivered a hammer blow both to Collingwood’s season and Nathan Buckley’s coaching tenure as the Magpies fell to their worst start since 2005. But that now seems a distant memory.

With a new coach, an exciting new game plan and sitting in eighth place after seven rounds, Collingwood is starting to cook again.

However, its fourth win of the season was far from easy, as the Magpies fended off a resilient Suns outfit that, for the best part of the game, kept on coming when Collingwood threatened to pull ahead.

Momentum swings typified the contest, with both sides trading blocks of goals, which at one point got Gold Coast within nine points early in the third term.

To the Pies’ credit, they kept answering every challenge and were able to kick ahead when it mattered, coming away victorious by 25 points to ensure they’ll finish the weekend inside the top eight.

Collingwood were clinical going forward, as the likes of Brody Mihocek and Jack Ginnivan picked up right where they left off on Anzac Day, combining for seven goals, while Jack Crisp (28 disposals, eight marks, seven clearances) and Scott Pendlebury (25 disposals) led the way in the middle.

Gold Coast, however, will lose no admirers for their effort as they found chinks in the Magpies’ armour by picking holes through their zonal defending and allowing both Levi Casboult and Mabior Chol to stamp their authority on the game up forward. Touk Miller (36 disposals, 10 clearances, two goals) and Noah Anderson (32 disposals, eight inside 50s) were among Gold Coast’s best, making the most of the ruck dominance (45 hitouts) of Jarrod Witts, who was imperious in the middle but couldn’t stop the Suns falling to 2-5.

Just like last season’s contest, a ruckman faced the gargantuan task of going up against one of the competition’s best.

However, unlike the previous meeting when makeshift Suns ruck duo Caleb Graham and Chris Burgess went toe-totoe with Brodie Grundy, it was Magpies youngster Aiden Begg who was thrown into the pressure cooker on debut against Witts.

Begg was given first crack at replacing the injured Grundy and didn’t back down.