This time last year, Collingwood was sitting at 2-9 in 16th place on the ladder in Nathan Buckley’s final season in charge.
They would go on to finish 17th, the team’s worst-ever placing. Regime change came to Collingwood with the arrival of Craig McRae, but just like at Hawthorn, most pundits had the Pies likely to finish in the bottom four or five teams in 2022.
Fast forward 11 rounds, and there is a very different atmosphere, and a very different Collingwood team on the park.
The Magpies are in 10th spot, with a percentage of over 100, and at the halfway mark they have already matched the number of wins tallied in the 2021 season.
But it’s not just wins and losses that have changed — under Craig McRae, the team’s whole approach has changed. It’s not just visible, it’s visceral. Put simply, the Pies are taking the game on in 2022.
There’s plenty of evidence for this, but it all starts with metres gained.
Collingwood is playing a more dynamic, go-forward game this season, and the metres gained stat shows that effectively. The Magpies have gone from 17th in the league last year to sixth, and it’s not just the familiar names that are getting it done.
Jack Crisp is the main man, averaging 504.18m a game. This doesn’t put him in the top 10 for the league, but the difference this season is that the lift is across the board at Collingwood. In 2021, five Magpies averaged more than 300m gained a game, this year it’s 11.
Included in that latter number is Josh Daicos (364.45m a game) — who has improved by 130m a game on last season — and his brother Nick, who has made a big impression at the Pies in his first season, averaging 329.8m.
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But what do the numbers mean?
The big overall improvement puts them in the same category as the Tigers and Saints — teams who finished last year outside finals but are now in the eight or knocking on the door.
But the numbers also mean the players are instinctively backing themselves to play on, to attack. The Pies are ranked second in rebound 50s, as they play on more from the back half.
Players like John Noble, who is top-10 at the club for metres gained and capable of laying tackles, rebounding and going inside 50, are the face of the new Magpies.
Another key statistic is Collingwood’s number-one ranking for intercepts in 2022, with four players ranked in the top 30 in the league — Jeremy Howe, Isaac Quaynor, Brayden Maynard and Darcy Moore.
The difference is, instead of following the intercepts by playing it slow and keeping possession — the older style that got them to a grand final back in 2018 — the Magpies are showing themselves capable of going coast to coast and scoring quickly on opponents.
Clearly, Howe is the highest profile of the interceptors with his spectacular hangers, but again Collingwood is not a one-man band in this area.
The Magpies are number one in tackles laid. They are also the team opposition players are least likely to lay a tackle on — they’re hard to stop when they get going.
The downside is that they’re third in clangers in 2022, but like the number one and two in that category (Richmond and St Kilda) it’s a by-product of the need to keep things moving and take the game on.
The next item on the agenda is eliminating both the big losses — like their defeats to the Tigers and Bulldogs — and the totally unexpected ones, like their round four stunner against the Eagles.
Where to from here?
The Magpies have already done much more than expected of them in 2022, and have completed the first part of the season looking like they are capable of getting to September.
With six wins on the board already, Collingwood has a key couple of weeks leading into the bye, with Hawthorn at the MCG this Sunday, followed by the acid test of the Demons at the same venue a week later.
The run-in is more than reasonable for the Magpies, with a series of winnable games against the likes of GWS, Gold Coast, the Kangaroos, Crows, Bombers and Power that could possibly see the side clinch a finals spot ahead of a tough three-week finale against Melbourne, Sydney and Carlton.
For Collingwood fans, it’s shaping as an exciting second half of the year — the new man in charge has their team playing a cohesive game with a workable plan.
Barring a sudden complete collapse by his team, it is clear that McRae is set for a strong introduction to his senior coaching career.
Source: AFL NEWS ABC
