Post-Match. Pies demolish Dees. Comments.

[Donny]

Collingwood 15.13.103
Melbourne 8.9.57

Goals: Lippa, Bobby, Cameron, Nick 2, Macrae, Crisp, Parker, H-E, Elliott, Richards, Sidey 1,

Disposals: Josh, Nick 40, Lippa 30, Pendles 23, Allan, Richards, Noblet 21, Crisp 20, Sidey 18, Parker 17, Maynard 15, Elliott, Bobby, Howe 14, Cameron 10,

Tackles: Allan 6, Sidey, Parker 5,

AFs: Nick 157, Lippa 139, Josh 137, Pendles 90, Sidey 93,

Let's hear ya

[Jezza]

Can’t say that wasn’t one of the most bizarre finishes to a season that we’ll ever experience.

​Nice way to finish the season despite no finals. Won 4 of our last 5 games and have some reason to be optimistic heading into 2025.
​
One of the highlights of the night was seeing Allan step up to the plate and kick his first career goal.

​Best wishes to everyone in the off season. Here’s to a successful 2025.

[Pete 70]

Who’d a thought that Freo free kick right in front of goal robs us of the chance to play finals. Still bitter.

[Haff]

Who’d a thought that Freo free kick right in front of goal robs us of the chance to play finals. Still bitter.

Didn’t gas it against Sydney and probably making it.

[Haff]

Personally I’m glad that’s over. We’re better than not playing finals. No excuses for mine but we’ll be ok for next season then a long time in the wilderness as well bottom out right when Tassie come in. Ah well. Guess we just hope we can snag another one next season.

Ed Allen plays in the best 23 please!

[i hate carlton]

Great match - incl the 60 minute final quarter!
Those draws really cost us. We could have been in the middle of the 8.

[ANNODAM]

Allen looked good!
Nicky D Brownlow medal fingers crossed.
Are the only positives from this debacle.
Schultz last week was a fluke.

That is all & Riff for #4 in ‘24.
Over & out, have a neat Summer y’all!

[lazzadesilva]

Who’d a thought that Freo free kick right in front of goal robs us of the chance to play finals. Still bitter.

I hear ya! Most here are a forgive lot I reckon but good to see you maintain your rage. No one is ever going to tell me that umpires have no influence on the results that is utter garbage. If at all they have too much influence but at least we definitely know that now.

[Presti35]

What a weird feeling after this match.

[Jen2310]

The kids showed something
Parker, Ed. Even Fin was good when he came on as sub
Next year its time to start trusting the kids more.

Best game ive seen parker play, and he hasnt even had a pre-season yet.

[Jezza]

Fly's presser

For a performance like that, can you harness that heading into the off-season?

"Tonight was pretty important for a lot of reasons. You talk about you come here with nothing on the end of the outcome really unless you kicked a ridiculous score. We built the week up around our fans and a higher purpose. You put the Collingwood jumper on and our incredible supporter base, we got to honour that and honour the jumper. Apparently there's close to 800,000 supporters who had to come to support us at home games. Thank you so much for the year. Clearly we're sitting here not where we want to be. I said to the playing group, 'We'll sit and watch finals with a bit of a sick feeling in our guts, because we want to be playing finals at this time of year'. But the game gives you feedback. We're here 24 rounds in, and the game tells you where you sit, and right now we sit on the out. We've got work to do".

It's obviously a new experience for you missing finals after qualifying in the previous two years, how are you approaching it on a personal level?

"It's been a challenging year. Every coach in every footy club will tell you their story, we've all got our own story to tell. It's going to be hard watching, it will be. You can say we're playing a brand of footy that may challenge a few in finals, but that's been a bit of pie in the sky stuff. We'd like to think that four of our last five games have been wins and our form, other than 10 minutes against the Swans, has been pretty strong. We're starting to steer the ship a little towards where we want to be, which is important to us".

It looks like you will be retaining most if not all the 30+ aged players on your list and it's well-documented that you are one of several clubs to have an extensive injury list this year. Do you feel if you keep everything together and get a good run, you can get into the top 8 next year?

"I haven't looked at the live ladder, but I can imagine we're only a couple of games off 2nd or 3rd [spot], I'm not sure. That's small margins isn't it? With all the story we want to run with, we're not far off based on 24 rounds, but we've still got work to do. This is a marathon of a season. We thought you needed 14 wins to get there, and that's reality of not getting there. We got 13 [wins] and we needed more than that. Lots of lessons learnt, lots of lessons learnt internally and then lots of lessons about individuals as well".

How much have you learnt about the younger players? All four of the younger players you brought in performed well tonight. Going forward, how important is that for regeneration of the group as well?

"So pleasing to see Ed Allan probably turn his last 4 or 5 weeks around at VFL level to really spike; 9 or 10 possessions more than what he had, clearances, contested possession. All the numbers and then to go out and do it out there. To transfer that form to AFL has given us all a little bit of excitement. We're going 'hang on a minute, this young kid is coming', which hopefully spurs him on to want more of that and then comes back bigger and hungrier. Some pleasing signs; Wil Parker, Joey Richards played a lot of footy, Charlie Dean did a job tonight. Throughout the year everyone got exposed so we learnt a lot about our list, which is important now to reset and go forward".

On Ed Allan, it was a deliberate decision to start him at the centre bounce. A bit responsibility for him, how did you see his performance?

"I'm probably going to repeat what I said. We're just rapt with his endeavour; his contest to contest. He's an elite runner. He's played 2 games, but it's really pleasing to see the 2nd game where we put him around where we wanted to be. We draft him as this guy. It's really pleasing to see him perform on the big stage".

Do you anticipate you will be busy in the Free Agency/Trade area when you look for improvements in your list?

"I hope so. We sit here wanting to improve, so whether that's acquisitions or bringing in talent to make us better, I'm hoping to be really busy. It's not my job, but I'll be pushing people, what's going on, let's look at all avenues to make us better".

Will a key forward to help out Dan McStay possibly be one to look at?

"I would love a key forward. Tonight we had none at some stage. I don't want to denigrate Dan [McStay] or Checkers, but they've been out for a major part of the year which has left a big hole. If you know any out there who wants to come and play for Collingwood, then let me know. They're hard to find".

40 disposals each for Nick and Josh Daicos. You must be happy to have those two on your team?

"Yeah, every week you must ask me about Nick. It's hard to add more layers to Nick. Josh in the last six weeks we've put him to half back and we got a spike. It's exciting. Metres gained, great ball use, overlap run. Every team wants a weapon off half back and Josh has become that for us. We take that away of the last six weeks with great comfort thinking this is going to be really important for us going forward".

Did Josh Daicos play under duress through stages this year?

"Yeah he did. He probably had three weeks where he didn't train at all. We had many like that, but we're not alone. I'm certain 18 clubs would have something similar".

Do you think this could be the performance that tips Nick Daicos over the edge to win a Brownlow Medal?

"Well, it would be nice for him to get rewarded. He's an elite player in the competition. There's a couple of really good players out there. We got exposed to Isaac Heeney in a quarter [and going] 'wow, that guy is a really good player'. I'm a massive fan of Bont [Marcus Bontempelli], massive fan. I watch him from afar. This mob next door, I haven't had a chance to reflect on Melbourne. Max Gawn is a player of a generation isn't he with the way he goes about it. They've had a tough year and they're a very competitive group so I wanted to pay my respect to Melbourne and Goody [Simon Goodwin] with the challenges ahead of him".

Darcy Cameron has been one of the success stories of the year for you guys. Was it good for his development to go up against one of the best rucks in Max Gawn?

"Yeah, he's gone forward a couple of big steps. His year this year would arguably be in the top 2 or 3 of our best players in our best and fairest. I'm not sure where that sits in the competition because I don't watch every game and every individual, but he's been an elite player in our team. Marking the ball extremely well, got sticky fingers. He's had a terrific season".

On the lightning break where there was 10 minutes to play in what was effectively a dead rubber, what do you say to your players in that moment to go 'come on boys, let's go again'?

"It's a crazy time because you don't know when and how. We're all sitting there waiting for confirmation on what it looks like. Pretty simple, we don't have long but coaches talked about where we were going to play players. The main message was we want to get to the line and we want to finish well for our fans. Don't let up. You see us fight to the last second last week. We want to fight to the last second every week. We're 10 goals down against the Hawks, we want to kick the last goal. That's the DNA and culture that we want. We want to fight, we're winners. We want to act like winners right to the end. A lot of behaviours we want to keep repeating so that was the main message. Get to the line and finish strong for our fans".

Was it a concussion for Darcy Moore?

"Yeah, he had some delayed symptoms at half time and made the call straight away. Seems okay in the rooms. I wasn't aware of the incident, so I can't comment on that".

Brayden Maynard being booed. Do you have anything to say to him about it?

"No, like I've said before at home when I'm watching footy and you hear booing, I just say to little Charlie, my 8 year old saying "Charlie, we don't boo, we're not booers in our household. That's just our household".

https://www.afl.com.au/video/1203026/fu ... 4421119001

[stoliboy]

So we finish the year 9th or 10th on 52 points.

Fly made a comment in his press conference about how they were targeting 14 wins to play finals but that 13 wins is usually enough (we had 12 wins + 2 draws).

I went back and had a look at the AFL Ladders back to 1990.

13 wins would have made finals every single year from 1990-2023. 2022 is the first year for a 23 game season though.

Still we weren’t good enough. But we’ll be back next year!

[LaurieHolden]

When Lipinski is played in his natural role as an outside runner, he's a different player.

The sooner we can get Mitchell, Macrae, Allan into the inside mix the better for the likes of Naicos & Lipinski.
We had Allan and Macrae in that role last night and they performed well.

We really need to be recruiting some outside running class to balance this out. Bailey Smith is gone, but there'll be others.

[RudeBoy]

It was good to finish the season on a good note. Great to see Allan play such a great game. He's given me great confidence that he'll become a regular senior player for us next year. The other good thing was there were no other injuries.

[daics aka the ruckman]

The game was a bit sloppy at times. Both teams just winding up the year.
Good to see the younger players getting game time and looking comfortable.
I wish our players would go for goal when they hit the fifty meter line. Maynard, Bobby especially had opportunities but didn't take them. Will Parker took two bounces and took the opportunity.
Moore Concussion. Clowns on Fox saying Moore contributed by going down for the ball. Pickett chose to bump and not go for the ball. 3 weeks.
List management now an interesting topic.