Pie In The Sky?

The Age

Monday September 8, 2008

Rohan Connolly on Monday

COLLINGWOOD is clearly a team that thrives on a challenge. The Magpies inevitably seem to pull out their best when the odds are clearly stacked most tellingly against them.

Hence their capacity already this season to have beaten the otherwise unbeatable Geelong. To have rebounded from the potentially fatal Heath Shaw affair and the subsequent club-imposed suspension of him and Alan Didak. And on Saturday, to have beaten Adelaide in a final at the Crows' own AAMI Stadium, a second win in an interstate final in two years.

Now there's another mini-mountain to climb. To become only the third team since the revamping of the final eight in 2000 to reach a preliminary final from the bottom half of the eight. And make no mistake, these Pies are more than capable of doing so.

They've already beaten Saturday night's opponent, St Kilda, twice this season. They'll have an extra day to prepare than the Saints, and certainly won't have to work as hard to keep the mood around the club buoyant, Ross Lyon's team the latest in a long line to have had Geelong sink the slipper of harsh reality into their standing in the AFL pecking order.

They'll also have some genuine claims based on something other than blind hope that they just might be able to at least offer the rampant Cats a contest should they make it all the way to the grand final.

The biggest problem for Collingwood in this scenario, of course, is that it will play Hawthorn in the preliminary final should it knock over the Saints. And as much as the Magpies have been able to stretch the Cats, they haven't come remotely close to pushing the Hawks this season, two meetings resulting in losses by 65, then 54 points.

The Magpies don't mind the one-on-one stuff at all, part of the explanation for their continued dominance of Sydney. Against the teams who play spare men, and like to zone off, a la Alastair Clarkson's side, it's a different story. But at least Hawthorn or Collingwood would be far from lost causes against the Cats come grand final day. Frankly, it's hard to say the same about the Saints, the Western Bulldogs or Sydney.

Geelong has 41 wins from its past 43 games. The Magpies wiped them in one of those losses. The other was by five points. The Cats yesterday dismissed St Kilda's attempt to challenge the status quo with contempt, only inaccuracy costing them a margin that might have been more than 100 points at one stage.

Even Lady Luck doesn't seem capable of interfering with the prospect of a second successive Geelong flag. Brent Prismall is desperately unfortunate, having finally won a spot in this great team, to have surrendered it, quite possibly for most of next season as well, after rupturing knee ligaments. Paul Chapman has concerns over a hamstring and quad.

Chapman is a great player and would be a significant loss. But another premiership pair in James Kelly and David Wojcinski are fairly handy replacements.

Perhaps the most we can expect is for an opponent to make the Cats work considerably harder for the honour than they had to yesterday, when they simply brushed off the Saints like a pack of pesky schoolboys. In difficult conditions that required strength and commitment, Geelong had so much more, reflected in 123 contested possessions to 91, double the Saints' amount of contested marks, and an emphatic 37-27 win in the clearance count.

That's a drubbing in the "physicality" stakes by any measure, and a real concern for Lyon coming up against a team that has beaten his for contested ball in both previous meetings this season, and that has its hardest nut and skipper Scott Burns set to return this week.

The other qualifying final loser, the Western Bulldogs, have their concerns, too, of course, following Friday night's drubbing at Hawthorn's capable hands. But the Dogs will be happier coming up against Sydney than they would have North Melbourne, two wins over the Swans already this season some cause for comfort, as is the advantage of an extra day to prepare, and its opponent having to front up after a taxing four quarters on a soggy ANZ Stadium.

The Swans' win over North Melbourne was arguably as good as they can get. The Bulldogs' pitiful effort on Friday night was as poor as Rodney Eade's side has been since its miserable end to 2007. It's hard not to see the Dogs bouncing back.

So might the Saints, but doing so might well be a far bigger ask. Collingwood is clearly one of the better-credentialled teams the bottom half of the eight has had for some time. To overcome it, St Kilda won't be able to rely upon a better preparation, nor better recent form.

In fact, in this week's formguide, history is about the Saints' only friend. And perhaps not even that, given their opponent seems to enjoy challenging even that.

Roos need a clean-up, not a reconstruction

THE temptation is to come down hard on any finalist bowled out of September as quickly and comprehensively as North Melbourne was on Saturday night, and the Kangaroos will surely cop their share of critical whacks to the head this week.

The bald statistics aren't great. The 35-point loss to Sydney was another sizeable finals defeat. It comes on top of 106-point and 87-point floggings last September. Another 87-point thumping in a previous straight-sets exit back in 2005. Four heavy defeats in their past five finals appearances.

But you hope cooler heads prevail at Arden Street, if not among the more rabid elements of the media who, having never rated the Roos anyway, need little encouragement to sink the boots in.

We tend to have pretty short memories in this industry, and they seem to get even shorter come September. Just a fortnight ago, North was about to shape up to Geelong in what appeared a legitimate grand final preview. It went into that game having pushed the Cats all the way in their first meeting of the season, and beaten both the other two teams above it on the ladder.

The shock loss to Port Adelaide in the final game proved as costly a home-and-away defeat as there has been in recent memory. North lost a double chance and guaranteed finals in Melbourne, condemned instead to a knockout final interstate at a venue it had never played at before. Now it's out altogether.

But that doesn't cancel out the considerable gains made over the past six months. Yes, Dean Laidley's team will finish 2008 lower on the ladder than it did in 2007. Yes, it won fewer games this season. But surely the Roos' greatest detractors would at least acknowledge they have more strings to their bow now than this time last year.

Ground-level forward pair Matt Campbell and Lindsay Thomas have been revelations this season, helping North post sufficient winning tallies even in the absence of key targets such as Aaron Edwards and Nathan Thompson. Brent Harvey finally had his champion status acknowledged beyond the confines of Arden Street. Drew Petrie and David Hale have taken their games to another level. Youngsters such as Gavin Urquhart and Ed Lower offer genuine promise for the future.

What North needs now is refinement rather than retribution. Clearly, some tough decisions will need to be made on the list front.

Shannon Grant is already gone. Nathan Thompson is keen to have another crack at it in 2009. Perhaps Laidley might need to talk him out of doing so. Corey Jones is contracted but, dropped for Saturday night's game, must have a question mark about his future. Jess Sinclair is another who might be in trouble. So might Shannon Watt.

Daniel Harris presents an interesting debate for Laidley and co, too. He's still a key part of a midfield set-up that doesn't run deep enough, but not seemingly a favourite of the coaching panel.

North will have to extend its engine room by a few more bodies yet. Andrew Swallow appears a forgotten man, but had quickly become one of the Roos' key ball-winners a year ago. Ben Ross is worth persisting with. Jesse Smith has an important role to play in defence next year, as, does Lachlan Hansen.

As good as Michael Firrito has been this season, Josh Gibson, too, they simply don't have the strength or height to cope consistently with key forwards the calibre of Lance Franklin, Matthew Pavlich, Brendan Fevola, Jonathan Brown or Daniel Bradshaw.

These are North's problems. Significant enough to address in time for some smart trading for draft choices, then the strategic use of those picks. But in surgical terms, it's a clean-up and scrape, not a reconstruction.

The ladder will say the Kangaroos finished eighth in 2008 as opposed to third in 2007. The reality is a lot more positive than that.

© 2008 The Age

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