Restart. Pre Match. Pies v. Tigers. All comments.

[watt price tully]

[Piesnchess]

[Piesnchess]

FWIW, in this somewhat mickey mouse season, i think we can beat the Tigers by around 22 points, i think we match up well on them, more so than any other team. I hope the seagulls enjoy a good live game, at the near empty MCG !

[scoobydoo]

[scoobydoo]

[Magpietothemax]

I can hardly wait to see what our selected team will look like. TBH, i have absolutely no idea. I was shocked in Round 1 when we selected Callum Brown, Tyler Brown and Josh Daicos all in one team, but was proven gloriously wrong. The selectors in the last few years have been absolutely nailing it on average, and I have full confidence in them again...until the team is announced!! I am already super excited, super nervous and super looking forward to seeing who is selected to play in the beloved black and white for Round 2, 2020. Go Pies!!

[Lazza]

[Raw Hammer]

[Magpietothemax]

[BazBoy]

Where do our strengths lie to take on not only last years premiers but other contenders (plus a dark horse up and comer)

Is it our back six —rucks/mids —or fwds

For mine can’t decide as all three have strengths

[Pies4shaw]

When TFC comes back, it’s our back six.

[BazBoy]

I’d go backs. ✔️

[Pies4shaw]

On the question of relative quality of sides, the present side is well-short of the 1990 or 2010 teams. I was watching the 1990 QF replay again during the week and was struck (yet again) by how versatile that team was. Fast running, highly-skilled players were everywhere, surrounding Tony Shaw as our in and under player and our key backs were able to play as key forwards to ensure that the opposition couldn’t set up with a structure to exploit Gavin the Great’s and the Marvel’s lack of height and weight.

That West Coast side played ridiculously tough, skilled football in that game (and it is worth bearing in mind that they played in 3 of the next 4 GFs and won 2) but lost by 9 or 10 goals that day because the ‘Pies overwhelmed them with numbers (and ball skills). Interestingly, we seemed to field a team full of half-forward flankers and mids that day - there weren’t too many players given purely negative roles and there was an abundance of genuine skill - Barwick, Morwood, McKeown, Kelly (most of the time), Christian (much of the time), Banks and Gayfer up back, Daicos and Brown as the forwardline (you would trade 3 De Goeys to get either of them) and a revolving midfield of Shaw, Russell, Francis, McGuane, Crosisca, Manson (who killed the game on his own in the first 15 minutes), Monky, Alan Richardson, Millane, Wright and Turner. It is also worth bearing in mind that when McKeown couldn’t take the field later in the finals, Starcevich came in (and was, in my opinion, the spark that won the Grand Final) and Michael Christian (who destroyed the Eagles and could have been BOG in that first finals win under Matthews, playing mostly as a very creative and beautifully skilled high CHF) went down back and Starce played the role Christian had against the Eagles.

Apart from a more or less irrelevant observation that the football played in that 1990 game by both sides was exciting and hard in a way that modern footy almost never is, I do think that we have many more ordinary players in the present team.

As for the comparison with 2010 (and 2011), our present midfield is about half as good. Pendles and Sidey are still there but the imports do not replace the quality we had in Swan, Thomas, Ball, Wellingham, Johnson, Didak, Blair and Beams. And, of course, we have replaced our epoch-defining star tall forward with a VFL fullback.

I remain hopeful, mostly because dilution of the talent pool means that most sides field genuine common or garden potatoes in important positions (even in Grand Finals) but it’s hard to get too enthusiastic about the talent-level of our present team.

I hope that doesn’t sound too harsh - I love the players and want them to win every game but my head tells me that, on the whole, they are a long way short of any of the really great Collingwood teams we have seen. Maybe that’s still good enough in an era of mediocrity. I don’t know.

[Piesnchess]

[masoncox]