I think we are trying to play similar style to Collingwood strangely enough. The main difference is their preparedness to take the dangerous kick in the back half & more often than not pull it off. Phillips, Langdon, Howe & Dunn are all pretty good kicks and they take the 45* angle kick to open the ground up while Melbourne presses up hard. They held their structure forward of the ball too. How many times were players isolated goal side of their opponents on the break? I reckon Stephenson, WHE, Cox and Mihocek(?) were beneficiaries of holding their position while those D50 kicks opened up the field, allowing them space to run back towards goal. It doesnāt have to be perfect after that initial exit kick because of the space the opposition press allows. Itās smart play.
Today was a battle of two forward half teams but Collingwood dominated clearances and the contested work, DeGoey was outstanding in the contest and away from it. Sidebottom is a gun yet is somehow IMO underrated. Pendlebury & Trelaor were solid. Adams stuck to his limitations, ordinary kick but good in close hands. Play to your strengths which is something I think weāve been poor at at times.
When weāre faced with a hard pressing team, weāve been more inclined to chip it around and allow the press closer to goal. It makes life too difficult for the defenders to exit, the effect is two fold, opposition have more repeat entries and opportunities to score and makes it harder for us to transition. Collingwood were no doubt working on this last year. There was good aspects to their play last year, they just couldnāt get the quality forward entries. Theyāre getting them this year and theyāre converting much better.
Last year in his column Hirdy wrote that Pies would be top 4 by end of 2018 if they kept the faith in Buckley. I thought he was mad. Never doubt the Hirdy.
Ironically, weāre gonna need FCFC to get good again, before we are a chance. We form what a young Obi-Wan Kenobi would call a āsymbian circleā with them.
I donāt know TBH. There were aspects of the way they were playing last year that are the same, ie that 45* kick from defence but they werenāt nailing it often last year, their forwards pushed too far up the ground and when they got clean ball through the midfield, their forwards were quite often out of position making midfield to forward connection difficult. Theyāre better structured forward of the ball this year, theyāre executing skill better and theyāre applying much more pressure this year. They were over 200 in the pressure rating today, for the sixth time of the season. They didnāt hit that rating at all last year IIRC, they were close against Freo in Perth.
Take out that putrid game against hawthorn in round one and i actually think Collingwood have been reasonably consistent this year. They pushed GWS all the way in round two before GWS started having players dropping like 9 pins. They were solid against Carlton, terrific in Adelaide, too good on ANZAC Day, good until the last qtr against Tigers, ok against Geelong in a low scoring tussle, workmanlike against lions, dogs & saints. I think overall theyāve closed the gap markedly from their best to their worst. A challenge we must face head on.
Wrong. Collingwood are playing large parts of our 2017 game plan. but they have a better midfield than us, and a top ruckman is giving them first use. Gawn looked slow and Gawn is supposed to be THE top ruckman.
However, Collingwood have not beaten many of the ātop teamsā yet. Lets see how they go against Tigers, West Coast, North, Port and the Swans. Its not an easy draw for them.