Sitting pretty but winning ugly. Should the Pies be worried or should everyone else?

The Age

a day ago

Dan Houston was the Magpies major off-season recruit, but to date – other than being best on ground in his first match in black and white – has been good but not great. Lachie Schultz, too, struggled in his first season at Collingwood last year, adjusting to their style of play. But between injuries this year, he has been very good. Schultz now understands where he best fits and the role he plays. With Houston the player and team are still fine-tuning that.
Collingwood likes handball chains in defence to find a free player to kick it inside their forward 50 metres. By bringing Houston in at the same time they moved Josh Daicos behind the ball, they now have two players designed to be their architects and distributors. To date, Daicos has been commonly used more than Houston in that role.
Houston's numbers are slightly down on his averages at Port Adelaide over the past few years – 17 touches a game at Collingwood down on 23 a game for Port. He has also had slightly fewer marks, tackles, inside 50s and rebound 50s a game at Collingwood.
The numbers are not alarming. They are partly explained by the fact two different teams play two different styles and ask different things of Houston in his role. He has not been poor – no Houston, we do not have a problem – but he has not been as influential as he was at Port.
The flip side of this is there is more growth in his game yet at Collingwood. His fellow defensive recruit Harry Perryman has been the better of the two additions to the team so far. Perryman has been excellent.
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Goodbye to the bye
The AFL has to say bye to the bye in its current format. Five shortened rounds in a row – nearly a quarter of the fixture – sucks the life out of the season.
Thursday nights have taken free-to-air footy off Saturdays, but the bye rounds have also created a black hole on Sundays, often with just two games. The byes have also meant for a lean football diet in Melbourne. In the past three weeks there have been two, three and two games each weekend in Melbourne.
With football played across four days, the reduced number of games from byes leaves the fixture stretched and thin for quality. This is compounded by the fact there are a large number of poor-to-mediocre teams this year.
Frankly, the logic of accepting byes are necessary is baffling – players are paid to play, so that's what they should do. But that argument was lost on the collective bargaining negotiating table years ago. So we have to live with each team getting a mid-season bye, and find a better solution to the current long winter crawl.
One full week off for all clubs doesn't hold great appeal without something to fill the void – an AFLW State of Origin game could and would work, but for the fact it is out-of-season for that competition. At least it is at the moment – the timing of the AFLW season has long been a moving feast.
Playing just one or two games – Friday and Saturday nights – for one week and giving the rest of the comp a week off was tried before but dismissed. It was felt to be too empty for that one week, but now feels like it might have been a better alternative than what we presently have.
Then again, this is a decision to be made by the people who brought us injury-ravaged, callow Essendon on Thursday or Friday nights in four of the next eight rounds. Oh, and they still have to fit them in during the last round – which has yet to be scheduled – for an extra game against Gold Coast for the cyclone-postponed opening-round match.
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This has happened despite the AFL having the flexibility of a rolling fixture.
Clearly the league over-estimated Essendon and Carlton, for that matter, in their scheduling of the second half of this season.
The AFL has been focused on change at headquarters with their executive. A change to the bye, better fixturing, servicing the TV-viewing fans – those who pay and those who don't – with football might be a good start for the new executive team.
Lynch crosses line
The term white line fever might have been coined for Tom Lynch. Off the field there is no more charming, genial figure. He is like an old labrador.
On the field he is a different person, more rottweiler than lab. It is like he releases his week's worth of suppressed anger and aggression in a two-hour window. Ordinarily, this helped give him a presence, on Sunday it simply made him look like an angry old man.
His hit on Jordan Butts – we've all seen the footage – was a swing in frustration. His statistics for the first half read: zero kicks, zero handballs, zero marks, zero tackles, five frees against. If you read stats alone, you would not have known he was out there but for five frees he gave away.
If you watched the game, you certainly knew he was there because he was the one waving his arms around, whinging and carrying on at the umpires. He threw Butts to the ground minutes before he struck him in the head. He was angry that Adelaide players were dropping in the hole in front of him, and he wanted them to know it. Oh, they knew it.
Injury and age has stopped him being the player he once was. His team is a long way from the team it was when he was in his prime. His hit on Butts looked to be the lashing out of a man raging against the fading light.
How many weeks will he get for it? It looked like he meant to punch him in the head, and he succeeded, so it was intentional, not careless, and it was high. What was the impact? Who knows? But the potential to injure was very high. It should, and probably will, go straight to the tribunal.
Will his likely suspension matter in the context of Richmond's season? They play Geelong next week. Ordinarily, you would say missing Lynch would hurt them, but not if you're going off his stats against Adelaide.
Humphrey quietly makes a mark
Mac Andrew got the big bucks. So, too, will Matt Rowell after confirming his new contract this week. But Bailey Humphrey is quietly becoming the player every team is going to want because he is now turning into the player he was projected to be.
He is naturally a player with strut. But for his early years in the AFL he tried too hard to live up to the comparisons with Dustin Martin. Now he is playing like he knows he belongs in the AFL.
In a midfield where the focus is Rowell and Noah Anderson, Humphrey is the disruptor. He has the burst of speed from the contest the Suns needed.