Collingwood Magpies fluff their lines, frustrating the likes of Craig McRae, Nick Daicos and Scott Pendlebury, but the Fremantle Dockers win comes from two bursts
Adelaide: Gather Round was designed as a showcase of the game; It’s like a music festival without the glow sticks.
Friday night was a window into a type of game that ultimately convinces no one but then excites everyone.
Sometimes games are good just because they’re tight. The Collingwood-Fremantle match was competitive. That was enough for the Dockers, who had put most of a foul-filled and wet night behind them, were down the right side at the right time and left the Magpies to their third defeat of the season.
For a play that was rude and unkind, wretched and wretched, it was intriguing in a cruel sense. It was punctuated by moments of liberation from Fremantle that felt all the more exciting for their rarity. It culminated in an unexpected final few minutes.
In a way, winning the game was just two brief bursts of freedom; both were from Fremantle. In those periods, by very narrow margins, they shrugged off the timidity of the rest of the game and attacked boldly. The first was when they scored three goals in seven minutes in the second quarter, and the second was in the final when they scored twice in one minute to snatch the lead from a disgruntled Collingwood.
Josh Treacy’s goal with 90 seconds left – flying behind Jamie Elliott and stepping back just inches away from the tying shot – was as important as anything else on the night. Sam Switkowski’s dragging of the ball 15 meters from the goal may be controversial.
But as critical as everything Fremantle did to win the game were the things Collingwood did to lose it. Having held territory in a low-scoring game for most of the night and narrowly ahead on the scoreboard, the team found more ways to miss the goals they needed to score than to kick them; hitting the post or even kicking the ball out completely. There were 5.9 hits for the night.
One of the shots given to me was from Nick Daicos. Yes, it would be unfair to leave him out, given that he is one of the best players on the field despite limping off early with a calf that is still not right. Just doing this made him remarkable. The theme of the night was Lachie Schultz missing three shots and getting cut down on another tackle 10 meters out.
There were also moments like Billy Frampton’s. He was otherwise very good, but he had a moment where he kicked the ball into the lane and turned the ball over for the game-winning goal.
Collingwood led for two-thirds of the game, with 16 more points in the 50s than Fremantle and 10 points in the 50s to the Dockers’ five. They should have finished the game in the third quarter. The era under Craig McRae, where the team came from behind and won close games, is now just a memory.
Once again this year they were outplayed around the ball in the centre, losing center spacing (5-8) and spacing overall. This was partly due to Luke Jackson’s dominance on a lone play after Sean Darcy left the game with a concussion in the first half.
McRae later acknowledged his team’s tendency to get outplayed in midfield, but to that end he saw a glimmer of light in the performance of debutant Angus Anderson, who had a particularly good third quarter and scored. He’s a debutant but at 22, he’s no youngster as he’s been battle-hardened in the SANFL. An old man has hair and a mustache and attacks the man with the cannon of another generation.
In the end Fremantle played what could arguably be a patient game (they won, so they have the right to call it whatever they want), but it was a frustrating way to watch with no players in the forward line as the forwards were all concentrated in Collingwood’s half.
It was difficult to experience the adventure coming from defense when there was no one in front of the ball. Yet they very regularly bombed long to mark Isaac Quaynor, Brayden Maynard or Jeremy Howe. Eventually, Howe was left alone with no one within 250 feet. At one point, not only may Justin Longmuir have asked whether this was the wisest move to continue nurturing Howe, but McRae may have been given a pause to reflect on the 35-year-old versatile player and wonder at what point this year has led him to fix a forward line that continues to fall apart. It should be very soon.
Luke Ryan was excellent for the Dockers, Alex Pearce was better. Even though their numbers were not very good, their impact was great.
Elliott had a chance to take the lead late on, he was 40 ahead but couldn’t hold on. The spilled marker went forward for Jye Amiss to mark the almost mirror image spot and convert the chance to put the Dockers just one goal ahead. Frustratingly for Maynard, he had beaten him in the night’s contest, but by the end of the siren the striker had scored two of his side’s seven goals.
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specializing in AFL and athletics.Connect with: X or email.
