Easy Win, But Malthouse Left Feeling Uneasy

The Age

Monday April 7, 2008

Len Johnson

MICK Malthouse had one substantial beef about Collingwood's performance in beating Richmond by 44 points at the MCG yesterday.

The Magpies dominated most aspects of the game and have now won two from three, their only loss being by two points to Brisbane Lions at the Gabba in round two. As expected, Richmond, pretty much a unanimous pick to finish bottom four again this year, did not trouble them unduly.

Except in the area of clearances. Collingwood did not so much lose the clearances, said Malthouse, it was "smashed".

Richmond won the clearances 33 to 23, all that edge coming at the centre square. That the Tigers were unable to capitalise on this advantage, was in no small part due to the counter-attacks Collingwood built from its back line.

For Malthouse, it was a new experience this year and one he is keen not to see repeated as the Magpies face old foe Carlton next Sunday, followed by North Melbourne, Essendon and Hawthorn.

"It is the first time this year that we have been really taken to (at) the clearances," he said. "I don't know what the scores were from clearances but we were absolutely smashed."

Malthouse said that part of the game review would focus on what had happened at the clearances and "we had better work that out pretty quickly, given who we play over the next month".

While one coach was worried about his side's performance at the game's starts and re-starts, the other was worried about the start, full stop.

For the third game in a row, Richmond found itself in the position of having to chase down an opponent.

"(Our) starts are killing us," said coach Terry Wallace. "We've played three games now. We were five goals behind Carlton in round one and we managed to get out of that and win the game.

"Last week, it was 11 scoring shots to four in the first quarter and this week they've had seven of the first eight scoring shots.

"We've clearly got to be working on our first quarters and be better than that early in games.

"When you play two top-four sides from last year and you give them a start, they don't let you back in."

Wallace also thought the Tigers were over-reliant on handball and that his players' propensity to handball instead of kick under pressure had to be addressed and changed.

The Tigers have small forward Kayne Pettifer on report for allegedly striking Collingwood's Nick Maxwell in the second quarter of the game and Graham Polak and Chris Newman will be assessed for concussion after receiving heavy knocks during the game. Polak was off the field for the rest of the first half after he was accidentally connected by Anthony Rocca's knee in a marking contest. He returned in the second half and played up forward, kicking a goal.

Newman was downed in a heavy collision with Collingwood's Dane Swan, which looked legitimate but earned the Collingwood man the ire of Tiger supporters for the rest of the afternoon. Newman stayed on the field and soon afterwards kicked a goal, the second of four in a row the Tigers scored either side of half-time. The match review panel will decide whether there was more to it than first appearances suggested.

© 2008 The Age

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