By Michael Gleeson
Nick Daicos was having a bad game before it became a terrible day.
And as terrible days go, this is close to as bad as it gets for Collingwood – losing their second-best player and young Brownlow favourite. Out played, out-muscled, out-thought, Collingwood then added injury to insult.
Short of losing Darcy Moore who, putting aside his uncharacteristically poor game against Hawthorn when he fumbled to give up goals, remains their most important player, losing Daicos is a nightmare scenario for the loss of his run and artful creativity.
Nick Daicos in the thick of it for Collingwood against Hawthorn.Credit: AFL Photos
Yes, he would have to confront the reality that every club would now apply a Finn Maginness-level tag on him after the Hawk diligently blanketed him out of the game. Now Daicos has six weeks to heal and confront that inevitable heavy tag when it comes weekly.
The momentum Collingwood had following the Port Adelaide win has now not only been halted, there is a negative momentum to their season now that they will find hard to redress without Daicos, or Nathan Murphy who was also injured.
The impact of the Daicos injury is profound for it magnifies an already significant problem for them.
Daicos and Jordan De Goey are their key points of difference in a spluttering midfield. Collingwood already had a problem with an old, slow midfield, but losing Daicos has accentuated that problem.
Collingwood lost the centre clearances by 18 to three against Hawthorn. Remember this was the top side against the third bottom side. That was the worst centre clearance differential by any Collingwood team in 20 years.
Three centre clearances for a match was the second worst for any team this year, behind only GWS who had two centre clearances against the Demons in round 16.
It was also the second game for the year Collingwood did not score from a centre clearance, which is hardly surprising given they only had three of them.
But this is not a new problem, even if it happened to be a problem of historically bad proportions. The problem for Collingwood is that the centre square was a major issue last year, and it has become so again this time around.
Chad Wingard put the Magpies’ midfield into perspective afterwards: “We kind of allowed uncontested marks that were going sideways or backwards. We really had a focus on trying to stop their run. We also knew we had an advantage ... in the centre bounce…”
This year the Magpies rank equal 10th for centre bounce clearance differential – that is they have won slightly more centre clearances than they have lost, where last year they ranked 16th overall, losing the differential by an average of two per week.
For the first half of the year Tom Mitchell, the player brought in as a panacea for centre clearance maulings, was terrific, but his past six weeks have been poor. He has been rested and subbed out a couple of times. On Saturday he had a black mark on his thigh as he sat on the bench, suggesting he might have been carrying a cork, which might explain his form. Something has to.
Compounding the problem is that Taylor Adams has also been poor. There was a query on whether Adams and Mitchell could play in the one side when they recruited Mitchell because they are both slow inside mids. Scott Pendlebury, also playing on the ball, is clever but has never been quick.
For most of the year this was not a problem because Mitchell was doing what he was brought in to do and clearing the ball, and Adams was surprisingly effective as a half-forward. But now Mitchell’s form has fallen away and Adams is not picking up the slack.
If Mitchell and Adams are not clearing the ball they offer little in run.
That is why Daicos’ absence now is so damaging for Collingwood, and why it raises such questions not only for the midfield but more broadly for Craig McRae.
Collingwood has a number of issues to address across the field, from the impact of Murphy’s injury, to Ash Johnson demonstrating no improvement on Mason Cox in an unthreatening forward line. But Daicos’ absence is the most significant.
McRae now faces a challenge the like of which he has not confronted in his short senior coaching career to date. When he took over and the Magpies lost games, there were no expectations of his team. Now there are. How will he unlock his midfield problem at a time when teams are also changing how they defend Collingwood to take pace out of the game and deny them the corridor?
The Hawks’ homework
That game illustrated as much about the growth of the Hawks as the loss of momentum of the Magpies.
Firstly, Hawthorn were prepared to tag Nick Daicos, but Collingwood were unprepared to put the same level of work or attention into Hawthorn’s most creative player, James Sicily, who was superb with 37 touches, 19 marks and three goal assists.
Last week Ross Lyon spent a lot of time devising a plan for Sicily and it worked. Collingwood could not subdue him.
Further, the Tom Mitchell performance created an irresistible pointer to his former club’s decision to trade him. The Hawks were questioned for the depth of the cut they made to their list with trading out Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara.
Yes, there was also the not insignificant matter of them paying $750,000 of those two players’ wages to play elsewhere this year, and they got very little back in trade terms, but Saturday was a showcase of why Hawthorn was happy to cut those losses to foster a new midfield.
Will Day has needed to play every week and Jai Newcombe is a bull. Hawthorn’s younger midfield looks more advanced now than they might have been with the old players still there. Mitchell was good for the first half of the year for Collingwood, but Hawthorn’s view would have been: “So what? We need a midfield for the next 10 years and that is improved by giving Day more time on ball.”
Saturday made for a persuasive argument.
Paddy Dow in action against St Kilda.Credit: Getty Images
Dow not out
Seven wins in a row for the Blues for the first time in more than two decades, fifth place on the ladder, and now seemingly certain to play finals for the first time in a decade: There can be something to backing in your coach.
Carlton’s second-half recalibration was impressive and they had myriad contributors but Paddy Dow deserves credit.
A regular whipping boy at Carlton for not immediately reaching the levels expected of a pick No.3, he was good on Sunday. Where it takes him next who knows, but as an isolated performance, Dow was good.
For a perennial fringe player he looked more like a player who felt he belonged at the level in the second half than he hitherto has in his career. He had seven clearances for the game, which were important, but it was his ability to intervene in play at the right moments in the last quarter in particular that were as important. He had strength in his play to stand in tackles and not panic into handball that spoke to a growing maturity about him.
Melbourne big man Brodie Grundy.Credit: AFL Photos
A not so Petty problem
Football can be cruel. Only last week Harrison Petty settled Melbourne’s festering forward question.
A week later and he is out, with a mid-foot injury very similar to the one that cost him six weeks earlier in the year. It compounds the problem of Bayley Fritsch’s injury, so while they are expected to get Clayton Oliver back soon after missing him since round 10, this is cruel for Petty and frustrating for Melbourne after just unlocking the forward key.
Of course the injury reopens the question of their forward mix and brings Brodie Grundy back into the picture. It’s hard to think the picture for Grundy is any different for him as a forward now than it was a month ago when he was dropped to the VFL. You don’t learn to be a centre half-forward in three weeks, so the only change really is necessity. But necessity is said to be the mother of invention, and hopefully it can be the mother of re-invention for Grundy and Melbourne.
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