Preview Round 6: Essendon vs Collingwood, MCG, ANZAC Day, 3:20 PM

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Kakkle

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Most important game of football for us in years. Win here and we will galvanise ourselves as contenders.


Lose, and we'll get 30 pages of how we can fit Cam Ellis-Yolmen, Lukas Webb, Luke Dunstan & Jarryd Lyons into the side next year.
 
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I think the result is secondary a bit.

I really want a team to make us not play our speed game. Drag us into a slog of defence vs defence so we can see how we hold up.

I really like pies as a side and they should be there competing come end of the year so I'm hoping we get a taste of finals like football in front of a finals crowd. That will do more for us early in the season then 4 points do.

There's no point blitzing through the home and away season through high scoring footy all year (not saying we will just as our strength) then come finals we get shutdown and lose 80-60.
 

cAsEy_18

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I think the result is secondary a bit.

I really want a team to make us not play our speed game. Drag us into a slog of defence vs defence so we can see how we hold up.

I really like pies as a side and they should be there competing come end of the year so I'm hoping we get a taste of finals like football in front of a finals crowd. That will do more for us early in the season then 4 points do.

There's no point blitzing through the home and away season through high scoring footy all year (not saying we will just as our strength) then come finals we get shutdown and lose 80-60.

A 20-point loss in a final? Man it’s been a long time since we got that close in one. We can only hope.
 
Lose, and we'll get 30 pages of how we can fit Cam Ellis-Yolmen, Lukas Webb, Luke Dunstan & Jarryd Lyons into the side next year.
Don't forget Dom Tyson.
 

LuckyLee

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I think both forward lines are capable of kicking plenty of goals if they get enough service. I'm glad that Elliot is back playing footy again even though it doesn't help our chances but it would have been tragic if a forward as talented as him was lost to the game. I think there will be some cracking matchups all over the ground and I'm particularly intrigued to see how our backline matches up against your forward line. Some of the small forwards vs small defender matchups should be very exciting both ways.

For mine the biggest edge to Collingwood is the ruck. It'd be hard to see Grundy not clearly winning vs Bellchambers around the ground (in hitouts I expect Bellchambers will be pretty solid). I expect Cox vs Daniher in the ruck to be a hitout win to Cox and around the ground win to Daniher but probably not a huge impact unless Cox finds himself on Daniher within our forward 50 which could be awkward for him. On paper Collingwood have a clear edge in the midfield but our midfield is in pretty good nick at the moment and playing confident footy and some of our speedy flankers like Fantasia are making an impact through there which muddies up the matchups. If there's one bloke who always tears it up vs us its Sidebottom. I'd actually like to see us play McGrath on him who will actually play accountable footy and has a good engine and some defensive nous, unlike what we normally do which is play Zaka who normally doesn't get anywhere near him and just plays his own game.

Anyway should hopefully be a cracking game and it will be interesting to see which team can force their style of play onto the other.
Interesting that you singled-out Sidebottom because I reckon he has been our most disappointing "big name" player so far in 2019. His numbers are down but most importantly, so is his impact. Too many dinky little sideways chip kicks and not enough penetration. Perhaps ANZAC Day will bring out his best. If Pies win, I'm tipping Taylor Adams for the Medal. His kicking can be dodgy at times but he is so fierce at the contest. A wrecking ball.
 
Interesting that you singled-out Sidebottom because I reckon he has been our most disappointing "big name" player so far in 2019. His numbers are down but most importantly, so is his impact. Too many dinky little sideways chip kicks and not enough penetration. Perhaps ANZAC Day will bring out his best. If Pies win, I'm tipping Taylor Adams for the Medal. His kicking can be dodgy at times but he is so fierce at the contest. A wrecking ball.

mate there isn't anything surer in the world then sidebottom showing up for ANZAC day.

that bloke always seems to show up and do damage regardless of his form on the big day.
 
Most important game of football for us in years. Win here and we will galvanise ourselves as contenders.

No.

Don't need to win this to be contenders. We just need to show consistency.

If we are toe 2 toe with collingwood deep into the 4th then we will be seen as a legit force, they are the current benchmark.

Even if we lose we are back to 3-3
 
Interesting that you singled-out Sidebottom because I reckon he has been our most disappointing "big name" player so far in 2019. His numbers are down but most importantly, so is his impact. Too many dinky little sideways chip kicks and not enough penetration. Perhaps ANZAC Day will bring out his best. If Pies win, I'm tipping Taylor Adams for the Medal. His kicking can be dodgy at times but he is so fierce at the contest. A wrecking ball.
Sidebottom in his last 10 games against us has averaged 27.8 disposals and hasn't dropped under 25 at all.
 
I’m hoping De Goey stays up forward. Think Ambrose will take him. De Goey would be Pies best mid if they left him there.

A few holes in that Pies defence as well. Who’s going to take Tippa and Raz? Maynard? Hope so.

At the G they’ve lost to Eagles, Cats and just got over Dogs and beat a injury hit Tigers.

They’re a good side no doubt but we can definitely win this one.
 

OsteitisPubis22

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Looking forward to this one!
If we get the choccys, we will be in a good spot to target a top 4 finish!

3 changes -
Out: Baguley, Ham, Ridley
In: Smith Zaharakis Francis

I feel intercept marking will be important in this one, Collingwood like to get the ball in, they are fantastic when it hits the deck, if we can bring in another strong intercept player, we might be able to reduce the influence of Thomas, Stephenson and other smalls.

B: Ambrose Hurley Saad
Hb: McKenna Hooker Redman
C: Mcrath Heppell Zaka
HF: Smith Daniher Fantasia
FF: Tippa Stringer Brown
Fol: Bellchambers Shiel Merrett
Int: Myers Guelfi Francis Parish

Ridley done not too much wrong, I think, Guelfi can play both ends, so he would be the one to miss out!

Dons by 15


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
Jul 16, 2013
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Looking forward to this one!
If we get the choccys, we will be in a good spot to target a top 4 finish!

3 changes -
Out: Baguley, Ham, Ridley
In: Smith Zaharakis Francis

I feel intercept marking will be important in this one, Collingwood like to get the ball in, they are fantastic when it hits the deck, if we can bring in another strong intercept player, we might be able to reduce the influence of Thomas, Stephenson and other smalls.

B: Ambrose Hurley Saad
Hb: McKenna Hooker Redman
C: Mcrath Heppell Zaka
HF: Smith Daniher Fantasia
FF: Tippa Stringer Brown
Fol: Bellchambers Shiel Merrett
Int: Myers Guelfi Francis Parish

Ridley done not too much wrong, I think, Guelfi can play both ends, so he would be the one to miss out!

Dons by 15


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

Drop Ridley...

tenor.gif
 

Magpie Monopoly

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https://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/2019-04-19/analysis-freeflowing-pies-make-a-statement

I enjoyed this article on the Pies website. It’s an analysis of their Round 5 game against Brisbane and makes comparisons to their earlier “stodgy ball movement” etc. prior to this game. Statistically they were very similar to us against Brisbane, so basically when they played Brisbane they beat Brisbane the same way we did the week before. I actually tried to watch their game against Brissy but Foxtel downloaded the replay in such poor quality it was painful and I gave up and listened to it instead. Probably says more about the Lions than about Collingwood’s preferred style anyway, but I guess the main thing to take away from that for us is that they can match us if we try for a shootout.


I also saw some coverage at one point, possibly halfway through that game or on 360 or something, where they were discussing Grundy’s hitouts. He gets a prolific number of them but only a tiny number of them are hitouts to advantage. So we may well just rove off Grundy for the day, midfield vs midfield.


Over on MatterofStats there were a few interesting things;
Scoring shots per game are almost equal between the two clubs. Collingwood tend to restrict their opponents’ scoring though whereas we have been letting them get as many as we have. We have a lower conversion rate against though (our opponents are more likely to be inaccurate when shooting for goal). Collingwood’s conversion against is 10th highest in the comp. It’s the one area that they are worse than us on those stats.

The other thing is Collingwood haven’t lost a first quarter all year. Their first quarter percentage is 198%... they score almost double what their opponents do. This percentage is because they restrict their opponent to 1-2 goals and kick 3-4 themselves. Our losing games we’ve scored absolutely nothing in the first quarter. But the games where we’ve won we’ve scored 6-7 goals in the first quarter against Melbourne and Brisbane, and 3 against North (who kicked a bunch of behinds so our score at the end of that quarter is more flattering than it might’ve been).


So basically a fast start is going to be important for us and they are reasonably good at defending against such things. Their second quarters are crap though (ours are too but not as bad), perhaps it ends up as a bit of a seesaw game with each team dominating by turns.

Just thought I'd point out that that's not the case.

Of the 4 ruckmen in the comp who are solo, high volume ruckman who have played 5 games this year (Gawn, Grundy, Mcevoy and Witts) the stats are as follows:

Witts - Hitouts: 44.4, To Advantage: 11.4, Rate: 25.7%
Gawn - Hitouts: 40.8, To Advantage: 14.2, Rate: 34.8%
McEvoy - Hitouts: 30.6, To Advantage: 7.4, Rate: 24.2%
Grundy - Hitouts: 38.0, To Advantage: 12.2, Rate: 32.1%

Didn't see the segment you are referring to, but I don't think the stats being represented are correct (or potentially they were intentionally misinterpreted by the panel). Clearly up there with Gawn on an island for hitout damage.

Didn't mean to intrude, just thought you might be interested.
 
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