‘Never seen that': Collingwood tactic causes stir after Fremantle defeat

News.com.au

a day ago

Collingwood rolled the dice with a tactic many footy commentators had never seen before in the frenzied final moments of their loss to Fremantle.
The Magpies' lost back-to-back games for the first time in 12 months in their Sunday showdown at the MCG, giving up a 22-point lead in the final quarter as the fast-finishing Dockers ran over the top of them to win a thriller by one point.
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Essendon icon James Hird on Sunday night praised Collingwood for the club's late tactical switch despite the team falling short.
The Brownlow medalist exposed the team's risky move to avoid committing to tackles in the final minutes as they chased a match-winning goal.
Speaking on Channel 9's Footy furnace, Hird highlighted moments where Collingwood players deliberately held back from tackles in order to avoid ball-ups and stoppages.
'Collingwood do 'one percenters' better than everyone else,' Hird said.
'You look at these couple tackles here, the group tackles where the players are held. They tackle here and then he (Steele Sidebottom) backs off. They're backing off because they want to keep the ball in motion.
'This is why Collingwood, even though they lost, for me is such a well coached team. Every part of the game is coached down to the minutia of that.
'That must have been practiced and I reckon they would have gone back and said if we're a goal down with two minutes to go, we do not want stoppages, we want the ball in motion.
'How do we keep the ball in motion? This is the way we do it.'
Leading footy journalist Tom Morris said he had never seen the tactic before.
Hird responded by saying: 'I've seen it, but not to this extent. That's why Craig McRae is up there with the best coaches in the competition along with a couple of others because his coaching staff are teaching their players in moments how to be so successful.'
It wasn't enough to get the Pies over the line with the Dockers' win setting up a hot fight to finish on top of the ladder.
Collingwood did everything but beat the Dockers as McRae's men finished with massive buffers in contested possessions (151-131), tackles (86-65) and inside 50s (63-40), but they were undone by their lack of forward efficiency.
'This is one of those games you look at, 'OK. We've got some work to do', and I'd rather be learning those lessons now than learning them later on in the year,' McRae said.
'It just didn't feel like we connected that well this week again, but it's one of those hard games when you dominate so much of the territory, you're winning it back and you go into such density, so it makes it really hard to score.
'But I can't help but feel frustrated at that game because you feel like you did so much right and then you don't get the nourishment of a win.
'I also would've thought we did enough right to get the job done today.'
Collingwood are renowned as the close-game specialists since McRae took over in 2022, but after only losing four of 25 games decided by six points or less in the previous three seasons, they've now fallen short in three such games this year.
'Yes and no,' McRae said when asked if he was still backing the method that had served them so well in tight finishes heading into 2025.
'This is not something you've ever got handled, because every game is opportunities live and delayed moments.
'Managing those moments will be forever something we need to do, and if the scoreboard's an indication, we haven't managed it well enough.
'Have we lost our spark? You'd hope not.'
Collingwood have taken the liberty of resting players over the past fortnight, given their lead at the top of the ladder was 10 points prior to Round 17, but now that it's shrunk to two, McRae insisted he wouldn't change the way they approached the management of his charges.
'We'll do what's best for our group for what that looks like and when it needs to be in that situation,' McRae said.
'Hard to manage at the moment too many because we haven't got too many others available but the reality is we'll keep doing what we're doing ... it's a long year.'
The premiership coach took comfort from the fact that his side suffered some similar hiccups late in the 2023 season before going on to win the flag that year.
Meanwhile, McRae forecast forward Tim Membrey and onballer Tom Mitchell would both be available for their clash with Richmond next week.