And so ends one of the stranger seasons I can remember as a Pies fan. From a humiliating defeat in round 0 where we looked old, slow and cooked; to a rare patch of form where we looked basically undefeatable; to an inexplicable late-season fade out where we looked old, slow and cooked; to a vintage backs-to-the-wall interstate finals win against the minor premiers; to an error filled prelim misfire where we looked old, slow and cooked.
It's a difficult one to unpack. But since we may as well use this forum to dump our varying degrees of Collingwood-related trauma, here we go...
(and apologies in advance for the long read, maybe put the kettle on or something)
The Defence.
Throughout the opening half of the year, and despite being mauled in the midfield on multiple occasions through the latter stages of the season, the defence stood firm. While Darcy Moore was down on form for large portions of the campaign (although notably brilliant against Adelaide), others stepped up in his stead – Big Bad Billy Frampton made the lockdown KPD role his own, and can hold his head up very high, after not being considered best 22 at season's start. IQ played a career-best year, and was rarely beaten, adding intercept marking to his bag of tricks. After a middling 2024, Maynard rediscovered his brutal best. Josh was a constant highlight rotating through the HBF position. And Perryman was un-flashy, but workmanlike and reliable – an impressive return playing a role he wasn't recruited for, after Reef went down in the opening rounds.
Team defence, too, was outstanding up until about Round 14, and the way we structured up the ground made it exceedingly difficult for the opposition to move the ball. Strategically, this was the highlight of our gameplan in 2025 – we stifled, we smothered, and we made scoring hard for almost any opponent.
Personnel seems well-stocked down back, with all of Moore, Frampton, Howe, IQ, Maynard, Jaicos and Perryman above average for the level. I really loved what I saw from Parker in the Crows final, too. Houston had, inexplicably for such a quality player, an awful year – but he's proven quality, dual AA, and much like the now-loved Lachie Schultz, you'd have to back him in to return to form after another preseason of learning the style.
But one wonders... did our defence-first ethos end up crueling our scoring ability? Which leads us onto...
The Attack.
There were moments when we showed our run-and-gun, fast-play, move-the-ball-forward-at all-costs-style. And when we did, almost without fail, it worked. Think the third quarter of the Adelaide final, the second quarter of the prelim, the games against the Lions at the Gabba, Freo at Subi, the first Hawks outing, the second half against Gold Coast, and literally any game we ever play against Port Adelaide.
But those moments were, for the most part, fleeting. We won games largely by strangling in defence, then scoring as an afterthought. Certainly, we didn't look anything like our free-wheeling selves of 2022/23, which is the most exciting football I can remember the Pies playing. And to be honest... the most effective. Our list in 2022 was nowhere near the quality it is now, and despite this, our manic, high-speed game made us such a threat that we ran the eventual premiers to within a kick in the qualifying final (and probably should have won). And the next year, it delivered the flag.
This year, however, I'm sure most will agree that on far too many occasions, we were treacle-slow and unimaginative when we got the ball in hand. Think the King's Birthday match, where we continually bombed long to Steven May and Max Gawn. The dour wins over West Coast, Carlton (first time out) and Richmond. And both MCG matches against Brisbane (apart from Q2) where we seemed desperate to kick it on Membrey and Mihocek's heads so Harris Andrews could intercept.
Why have we moved away from our run-and-gun method? Is it other teams learning to counter that particular tactic? I'm not convinced, as to my eye, we seemed reticent to ever even attempt it on most outings. Is it our forwards not connecting with our mids? Again, I think that connection holds a direct correlation to the pace we were putting on the ball – when we moved it fast, we did, in fact, connect. When we moved it slow, we were asking Membrey, McStay and Checkers to compete against a pack of half a dozen opponents, which is something our undersized keys are simply not cut out to do.
Which leads me to ask – is it a conscious decision to retain defensive structure in case we turn the ball over? I'm really concerned that this is the root cause. And I'm concerned because I think that's the exact same strategy that broke Buckley's team in 2019. I have vivid memories of beating Richmond early in that year with a "new-and-improved" style which was all methodical movement, pinpoint passes. And the problem is, on that night, it worked. Really, really well. We were ON. We played some of the most precise football I've ever seen. We dominated possession, and dominated the Tigers, it was as one-sided a contest as I've seen against such a quality side. But unless the team was operating at 110%, it wasn't replicable. Unless we were consistently drilling Buckley-like pinpoint bullets into our now-crowded forwardline, this game style completely destroyed our ability to score... as we saw for the remainder of 2019, then on into the 2020/21 seasons.
Which was why Fly's appointment and the breakneck-speed style which followed was such a breath of fresh air. We were free again. Just look at his first game in charge, in '22 against the Saints. We threw caution to the wind, moved the pill literally as fast as we could, and worked it out as we went. We gave our forwards one-out looks, and they capitalised. These things have to be taken in balance, and you can't just fully commit to attack at the cost of defence – I totally understand that. But my great fear now is that the coaching group has prioritized rock-steady defence to the point that it's once again destroying our ability to score. And if that's the case, I fear we may be in for a repeat dose of the dark days of 2020/21.
In my opinion at least, we need to rediscover that offensive dare which made us such an exciting team to watch in Fly's early tenure – even if it means taking some risks and exposing our defence more than we've been comfortable with late in season '25.
Personnel wise in the forward 50, I think we're all aware of the need for a quality KPF who can play genuinely tall. It seems to have been a void on the Collingwood list since Anthony Rocca retired. We've done remarkably well to win a flag and stay competitive with Mihocek, McStay, Membrey and Cox (and even Billy Frampton famously pinch-hitting up front), but all those guys lack either size, quality, or both. Compounded by our slow-play style, on too many occasions, they've just really struggled to compete. West may or may not be the answer – I love him, but I feel he's tracking as more of a Mihocek-style workhorse than the dominant pack-crashing beast we'd love so dearly.
We do seem to be in a good spot for smalls and mediums, though, and I think rolling out a forwardline which contains Elliott, Hill, McCreery and Schultz will be enough to cause headaches for most teams. I'm still bullish on Harvey Harrison when he returns, too.
The Midfield.
We got a mixed bag this season, dealing out some absolute masterclasses in the middle, and receiving some absolute thumpings.
Essentially, it looked like when Nick was on, so were we. But if Nick was having an off day or copping a particularly strenuous tag, it meant we were losing the midfield battle comprehensively. Too much was left to too few, and injuries combined with a drop off of form to players like De Goey, Crisp and Mitchell left us far too light on for big-bodied mids who can impact at the coalface and do the hard stuff.
The emergence of Ned Long helped to offset this somewhat, and it's no surprise that in the games he played well (Sydney, Brisbane at the Gabba, Essendon, the Crows final to name a few) we looked a million times better in the guts. It highlights a glaring need we've had for a long while now, which was covered by the canny recruitment of Mitchell in 2023: a genuine inside bull. This, to my eye, is the biggest hole in our list (yes, even including a dominant key forward). Because without this type of player, and if Ned is having an off game as youngsters inevitably do, we struggle to get first hands on the ball, we cede territory all game, and then we struggle to move the ball forward with any threat given our aforementioned lack of desire to go fast anymore. A genuine extractor and tackling beast would be the at top of my shopping list, and it's not something that would need to cost a fortune – an elite version in the mould of Dunkley, Newcombe or Rowell would obviously be a amazing, but a moneyball pickup at the level of a Tom Atkins type could give us 90% of the benefit at half the cost.
Or, maybe that player is already on the list, and a permanent midfield move for McCreery or Perryman could help fill that hole. I'm still not convinced, and I feel like quality midfield depth – as evidenced last night by Brisbane's 7th and 8th rung mids still meaningfully impacting the contest last night – is our biggest limiting factor right now.
In terms of personnel, we're never gonna be out of the contest when we have Nick. He's tracking to be the best Collingwood player I've ever seen. But I do still fear we're paper-thin in this area. De Goey battled injury all year. Crisp looked tired by season's end. Pendles and Sidey were incredible for their age, but that other side of that coin is you can't disregard their age – they drop off will come, and soon. I'll give Lipinski his dues for being incredibly clean in the high-pressure Adelaide final, but he's always gonna be the icing on a midfield cake, and not the cake itself.
Chappell Roan really impressed me, not just in his ability to cover the ground and distribute well, but also to contest and make great decisions under high-pressure. I think we've found one here. The jury is still very much out on Ed Allan, whose run and delivery is great, but contest work terrifies me. He's young, he has time, he's just no guarantee.
Similarly, Ned is better placed, but the jury is still out there. If he improves by the same amount he did from season one to season two, we'll have a real player, and that dominant inside bull we so desperately need... but if this is his limit, and he can't find a way to contribute his poorer games, he won't be the solution. Another leap from Ned next season could well be the difference between being competitive again and being an also-ran.
Overall, I do see the midfield as our most concerning line, and the one I'd move heaven and earth to bolster with genuine A grade talent.
The Coaching.
Leaving my earlier point on our slow ball movement aside for a moment, the coaching staff had an up and down year, reflected by a season of up and down results. Their recovery after a shocking opening round loss to then win 10 on the bounce was truly breathtaking, but the subsequent resting of players and flirting with form really did seem to affect the morale of the group. You could argue it worked, because we did sneak into 4th position and were fresh enough to play Adelaide off the park in the first final, but our landing in 4th place was more by luck than design. You wouldn't want to be relying on Port Adelaide to beat anyone, let alone Gold Coast, to guarantee you a second chance.
Furthermore, the choices about when to rest players felt like they lacked an understanding and feel for our predicament. We went heavy on resting with the Freo and Gold Coast games, and lost both, while simultaneously fielding stronger teams against easybeats Carlton and Richmond either side of those matches. Some smarter management there may have preserved momentum and prevented the loss of confidence which followed.
That being said, Fly's messaging remained refreshingly proactive, positive, and perpetually interested in self-improvement. I don't agree with every lever he pulled, but I also have the utmost faith in this team analyzing their own mistakes and learning from them.
The Improvers.
Lachie Schultz, take a bow. After a tough first season where you were trying your guts out but it just wasn't clicking, you've turned pretty much all of your doubters into your biggest fans. My personal highlight of the year was his crunching tackle in the Crows final where he flew in from out of screen and almost killed Rory Laird, leading to the Daicos pass and Elliott goal to just about seal the game in Q3. Watching him throwing himself at smothers and desperately lunge for tackles is what we go to the footy for. He bleeds black and white. I love him.
Billy Frampton. After starting the season in the 2's, I thought he was our best key defender for the back half of the campaign. Both his finals were exceptional. He used to terrify me, but now I have absolutely no qualms about rolling him out as our lockdown key back. Amazing turnaround, and credit to the Big Boy. He played his heart out.
Jamie Elliott: you were already one of my all-time favourites, now you might just be #1. After all he delivered us over the past three years – the hangers, the clutch set shots, the game-winning goals in the dying seconds and even after the siren – he somehow gave us even more this season. 60 goals and absolutely robbed of an AA guernsey, he was immense, and I'd be giving him the Copeland if it were up to me. Please don't leave us.
Darcy Cameron. It's amazing what he's been able to produce, coming to us as a reserves KPF for a random pick in the 40's. Adding the defensive marking string to his bow was one of the season's highlights. He's singlehandedly turned what could have been a quasar-sized list gap post-Grundy into a position of strength. Amazing effort.
Nick Daicos. Nothing can be said that hasn't been said already. If you take Nick out of this side, we'd be in so much strife that I'm not even gonna think about it. He's only 22. The fact he's our side means that no matter what happens, we're always gonna be a chance against any opposition.
The Battlers.
Mihocek. Checkers has been brave for a long time now, but age and injury have finally caught up with him, and he's less able to punch so far above his weight as he once did. Too many times we saw him outmarked by an opponent that was just too big and too strong. If he does leave, it will be devastating personally, but not devastating for the team's results. He deserves a fat paycheck to end his career, which has been both late-start and minimum wage for too long. But on output, we shouldn't be the ones to provide that paycheck. He may end up staying due to lack of offers after his finish to the year, which would also honsetly be a great result. You'd love to keep a heart and soul player like him. We just can't afford to overpay here.
McStay... yikes, I just don't know what happened here. Maybe he too was battling injury, but his form drop off was just about as severe as I've seen at AFL level. So much so that we (rightfully) ran with big Mase in the finals instead, who, for all his flaws, offered more than Dan did for the back half of the season. McStay strikes me as a confidence player, and he just lost every ounce of the confidence he had in round 15, and it never came back. Having him playing his best footy would have been so helpful. His efforts in the 2023 finals series literally got us to the big dance. He has the talent, he just lost the bit between the ears. He's got the whole offseason to reset. We really need him to.
Houston. Played an all-timer against his old side in the second game, then... just never really got going after that. New team blues, perhaps. He's quality, and you'd back him in to turn it around, but that was a bizarre season from a high calibre footballer. We needed more, and it just never came.
Bobby. Through no footballing fault of his own, but boy did his absence hurt us. We looked a different team when he was out there. I really wish they'd rolled the dice on him for the prelim, but I understand why they didn't. If he can put his personal issues behind him, he'll be our biggest recruit for 2026. If he's on the move back to WA, we're gonna miss him dearly.
Where to from here?
It's clear we're still in win-now mode, if you listen to the coaches. We'll get a decent crop of F/S and academy picks this year, in what's already a weak draft, so losing this year's first rounder in the Houston trade doesn't hurt as much as it otherwise would. Young talent is, as ever, a pressing need, though, and we'll need to hit with some draft picks sooner rather than later if we're to avoid a drop off. Historically, though, we've managed to do this for 25 years now. We're a well-run club. You just gotta hope we continue to be well run.
Personnel wise, the vast majority of what can be another premiership side is there, injuries and form permitting. You'd be as confident in our back six as you would be for any other team in the league. A gun key forward could genuinely transform our forward line, which is otherwise very sound. But most of all, some high-quality midfield depth is the area of greatest need. Whether that comes from internal improvement, positional changes, or an aggressive trade period, something has to change in there. It can't just be Nick and then daylight to second.
So to wrap it up, what levers would I pull within the current squad to give us the best chances in 2026? From the top...
Jaicos back to the wing, Houston the distributor from defence. Dan didn't get going this season, and I think a large part of that was Josh's surprisingly good form as a defender. The issue there is that Houston is tailor-made for that rebounding defender role, whereas Josh can be equally effective in other parts of the ground. Considering our lack of depth through the centre, I'd be moving Josh back to the wing role he won a B&F in, and trusting Houston to learn the ropes down back and be the player we know he can be.
McCreery to spend more time on ball. Beau was fantastic in bursts through the centre square. I think there are some doubts on his ability to be as effective in a non-centre-bounce clearance situation. Maybe there are some football IQ deficiencies which make him less effective when it's not as simple as see ball, get ball, and if not, kill man who has ball. But he's shown enough power in there to warrant a more full-time role as the bone-crunching mid. If it fails, we know he's got the chops as a manic pressure half forward which we can always fall back to.
Perryman to play defensive mid. This is the role he was recruited for, and he honestly performed it pretty damn admirably in the round one hiding against GWS. But he was forced to play back after Reef went down, and we persisted with it all season because he was always reliable down there. With the emergence of Wil Parker, though (whose Adelaide final I was really impressed by) I'd much prefer to give Perryman another shot to make that defensive mid position his own. He's not the same level as Josh Dunkley, but as a big body who loves to tackle, I think we could get above-average output from him in a similar role.
And now, the controversial one... If we can't recruit a star KPF, find a decent KPD and play Moore forward instead. Darcy played a career game against the Crows, but for most of the year, he was just okay. He was spoiling instead of going for his marks, he wasn't intercepting and setting up rebound play at nearly the level he was in 2022/23, and he was beaten by just-okay forwards like Voss and Morris on multiple occasions. Whether that's a symptom of his form or some broken gameplan mechanics is kinda irrelevant. The point remains: we simply weren't getting enough out of him. Now, if he comes out and plays like he did against the Crows in round one next year, then cool, end the discussion, he's our general down back again. But it just feels like wasting such a huge asset if all we're gonna use him for is spoiling. Finding a 200cm, mobile, lightning fast marking option on the open market is gonna cost more than we can afford to give. But my thinking is, we have one of those guys on our list already. We simply have to get maximum value out of him. And I think giving him a chance up forward could extract that bang for buck we weren't getting for great patches this season.
And finally, bring back the dare. Shift away from the defence-first mindset and play with the speed and freedom required to generate threatening forward entries, even if it means risking shipping more goals the other way. We can recalibrate and rebalance as required, but as it stands right now, we've swung far too hard in the direction of defence, and while it's made it hard for other teams to score against us, it's made life hell for our own forwards. Let's rediscover that game-breaking, risk-taking flair which made us such a delight to watch in 2022/23.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
I'd love to know from other die-hard Pies: what worked for you in 2025? What didn't? And what would you change as we head into what's going to be a defining season in 2026?
It's been a pleasure posting with you all this season. Go 'Pies.
It's a difficult one to unpack. But since we may as well use this forum to dump our varying degrees of Collingwood-related trauma, here we go...
(and apologies in advance for the long read, maybe put the kettle on or something)
The Defence.
Throughout the opening half of the year, and despite being mauled in the midfield on multiple occasions through the latter stages of the season, the defence stood firm. While Darcy Moore was down on form for large portions of the campaign (although notably brilliant against Adelaide), others stepped up in his stead – Big Bad Billy Frampton made the lockdown KPD role his own, and can hold his head up very high, after not being considered best 22 at season's start. IQ played a career-best year, and was rarely beaten, adding intercept marking to his bag of tricks. After a middling 2024, Maynard rediscovered his brutal best. Josh was a constant highlight rotating through the HBF position. And Perryman was un-flashy, but workmanlike and reliable – an impressive return playing a role he wasn't recruited for, after Reef went down in the opening rounds.
Team defence, too, was outstanding up until about Round 14, and the way we structured up the ground made it exceedingly difficult for the opposition to move the ball. Strategically, this was the highlight of our gameplan in 2025 – we stifled, we smothered, and we made scoring hard for almost any opponent.
Personnel seems well-stocked down back, with all of Moore, Frampton, Howe, IQ, Maynard, Jaicos and Perryman above average for the level. I really loved what I saw from Parker in the Crows final, too. Houston had, inexplicably for such a quality player, an awful year – but he's proven quality, dual AA, and much like the now-loved Lachie Schultz, you'd have to back him in to return to form after another preseason of learning the style.
But one wonders... did our defence-first ethos end up crueling our scoring ability? Which leads us onto...
The Attack.
There were moments when we showed our run-and-gun, fast-play, move-the-ball-forward-at all-costs-style. And when we did, almost without fail, it worked. Think the third quarter of the Adelaide final, the second quarter of the prelim, the games against the Lions at the Gabba, Freo at Subi, the first Hawks outing, the second half against Gold Coast, and literally any game we ever play against Port Adelaide.
But those moments were, for the most part, fleeting. We won games largely by strangling in defence, then scoring as an afterthought. Certainly, we didn't look anything like our free-wheeling selves of 2022/23, which is the most exciting football I can remember the Pies playing. And to be honest... the most effective. Our list in 2022 was nowhere near the quality it is now, and despite this, our manic, high-speed game made us such a threat that we ran the eventual premiers to within a kick in the qualifying final (and probably should have won). And the next year, it delivered the flag.
This year, however, I'm sure most will agree that on far too many occasions, we were treacle-slow and unimaginative when we got the ball in hand. Think the King's Birthday match, where we continually bombed long to Steven May and Max Gawn. The dour wins over West Coast, Carlton (first time out) and Richmond. And both MCG matches against Brisbane (apart from Q2) where we seemed desperate to kick it on Membrey and Mihocek's heads so Harris Andrews could intercept.
Why have we moved away from our run-and-gun method? Is it other teams learning to counter that particular tactic? I'm not convinced, as to my eye, we seemed reticent to ever even attempt it on most outings. Is it our forwards not connecting with our mids? Again, I think that connection holds a direct correlation to the pace we were putting on the ball – when we moved it fast, we did, in fact, connect. When we moved it slow, we were asking Membrey, McStay and Checkers to compete against a pack of half a dozen opponents, which is something our undersized keys are simply not cut out to do.
Which leads me to ask – is it a conscious decision to retain defensive structure in case we turn the ball over? I'm really concerned that this is the root cause. And I'm concerned because I think that's the exact same strategy that broke Buckley's team in 2019. I have vivid memories of beating Richmond early in that year with a "new-and-improved" style which was all methodical movement, pinpoint passes. And the problem is, on that night, it worked. Really, really well. We were ON. We played some of the most precise football I've ever seen. We dominated possession, and dominated the Tigers, it was as one-sided a contest as I've seen against such a quality side. But unless the team was operating at 110%, it wasn't replicable. Unless we were consistently drilling Buckley-like pinpoint bullets into our now-crowded forwardline, this game style completely destroyed our ability to score... as we saw for the remainder of 2019, then on into the 2020/21 seasons.
Which was why Fly's appointment and the breakneck-speed style which followed was such a breath of fresh air. We were free again. Just look at his first game in charge, in '22 against the Saints. We threw caution to the wind, moved the pill literally as fast as we could, and worked it out as we went. We gave our forwards one-out looks, and they capitalised. These things have to be taken in balance, and you can't just fully commit to attack at the cost of defence – I totally understand that. But my great fear now is that the coaching group has prioritized rock-steady defence to the point that it's once again destroying our ability to score. And if that's the case, I fear we may be in for a repeat dose of the dark days of 2020/21.
In my opinion at least, we need to rediscover that offensive dare which made us such an exciting team to watch in Fly's early tenure – even if it means taking some risks and exposing our defence more than we've been comfortable with late in season '25.
Personnel wise in the forward 50, I think we're all aware of the need for a quality KPF who can play genuinely tall. It seems to have been a void on the Collingwood list since Anthony Rocca retired. We've done remarkably well to win a flag and stay competitive with Mihocek, McStay, Membrey and Cox (and even Billy Frampton famously pinch-hitting up front), but all those guys lack either size, quality, or both. Compounded by our slow-play style, on too many occasions, they've just really struggled to compete. West may or may not be the answer – I love him, but I feel he's tracking as more of a Mihocek-style workhorse than the dominant pack-crashing beast we'd love so dearly.
We do seem to be in a good spot for smalls and mediums, though, and I think rolling out a forwardline which contains Elliott, Hill, McCreery and Schultz will be enough to cause headaches for most teams. I'm still bullish on Harvey Harrison when he returns, too.
The Midfield.
We got a mixed bag this season, dealing out some absolute masterclasses in the middle, and receiving some absolute thumpings.
Essentially, it looked like when Nick was on, so were we. But if Nick was having an off day or copping a particularly strenuous tag, it meant we were losing the midfield battle comprehensively. Too much was left to too few, and injuries combined with a drop off of form to players like De Goey, Crisp and Mitchell left us far too light on for big-bodied mids who can impact at the coalface and do the hard stuff.
The emergence of Ned Long helped to offset this somewhat, and it's no surprise that in the games he played well (Sydney, Brisbane at the Gabba, Essendon, the Crows final to name a few) we looked a million times better in the guts. It highlights a glaring need we've had for a long while now, which was covered by the canny recruitment of Mitchell in 2023: a genuine inside bull. This, to my eye, is the biggest hole in our list (yes, even including a dominant key forward). Because without this type of player, and if Ned is having an off game as youngsters inevitably do, we struggle to get first hands on the ball, we cede territory all game, and then we struggle to move the ball forward with any threat given our aforementioned lack of desire to go fast anymore. A genuine extractor and tackling beast would be the at top of my shopping list, and it's not something that would need to cost a fortune – an elite version in the mould of Dunkley, Newcombe or Rowell would obviously be a amazing, but a moneyball pickup at the level of a Tom Atkins type could give us 90% of the benefit at half the cost.
Or, maybe that player is already on the list, and a permanent midfield move for McCreery or Perryman could help fill that hole. I'm still not convinced, and I feel like quality midfield depth – as evidenced last night by Brisbane's 7th and 8th rung mids still meaningfully impacting the contest last night – is our biggest limiting factor right now.
In terms of personnel, we're never gonna be out of the contest when we have Nick. He's tracking to be the best Collingwood player I've ever seen. But I do still fear we're paper-thin in this area. De Goey battled injury all year. Crisp looked tired by season's end. Pendles and Sidey were incredible for their age, but that other side of that coin is you can't disregard their age – they drop off will come, and soon. I'll give Lipinski his dues for being incredibly clean in the high-pressure Adelaide final, but he's always gonna be the icing on a midfield cake, and not the cake itself.
Chappell Roan really impressed me, not just in his ability to cover the ground and distribute well, but also to contest and make great decisions under high-pressure. I think we've found one here. The jury is still very much out on Ed Allan, whose run and delivery is great, but contest work terrifies me. He's young, he has time, he's just no guarantee.
Similarly, Ned is better placed, but the jury is still out there. If he improves by the same amount he did from season one to season two, we'll have a real player, and that dominant inside bull we so desperately need... but if this is his limit, and he can't find a way to contribute his poorer games, he won't be the solution. Another leap from Ned next season could well be the difference between being competitive again and being an also-ran.
Overall, I do see the midfield as our most concerning line, and the one I'd move heaven and earth to bolster with genuine A grade talent.
The Coaching.
Leaving my earlier point on our slow ball movement aside for a moment, the coaching staff had an up and down year, reflected by a season of up and down results. Their recovery after a shocking opening round loss to then win 10 on the bounce was truly breathtaking, but the subsequent resting of players and flirting with form really did seem to affect the morale of the group. You could argue it worked, because we did sneak into 4th position and were fresh enough to play Adelaide off the park in the first final, but our landing in 4th place was more by luck than design. You wouldn't want to be relying on Port Adelaide to beat anyone, let alone Gold Coast, to guarantee you a second chance.
Furthermore, the choices about when to rest players felt like they lacked an understanding and feel for our predicament. We went heavy on resting with the Freo and Gold Coast games, and lost both, while simultaneously fielding stronger teams against easybeats Carlton and Richmond either side of those matches. Some smarter management there may have preserved momentum and prevented the loss of confidence which followed.
That being said, Fly's messaging remained refreshingly proactive, positive, and perpetually interested in self-improvement. I don't agree with every lever he pulled, but I also have the utmost faith in this team analyzing their own mistakes and learning from them.
The Improvers.
Lachie Schultz, take a bow. After a tough first season where you were trying your guts out but it just wasn't clicking, you've turned pretty much all of your doubters into your biggest fans. My personal highlight of the year was his crunching tackle in the Crows final where he flew in from out of screen and almost killed Rory Laird, leading to the Daicos pass and Elliott goal to just about seal the game in Q3. Watching him throwing himself at smothers and desperately lunge for tackles is what we go to the footy for. He bleeds black and white. I love him.
Billy Frampton. After starting the season in the 2's, I thought he was our best key defender for the back half of the campaign. Both his finals were exceptional. He used to terrify me, but now I have absolutely no qualms about rolling him out as our lockdown key back. Amazing turnaround, and credit to the Big Boy. He played his heart out.
Jamie Elliott: you were already one of my all-time favourites, now you might just be #1. After all he delivered us over the past three years – the hangers, the clutch set shots, the game-winning goals in the dying seconds and even after the siren – he somehow gave us even more this season. 60 goals and absolutely robbed of an AA guernsey, he was immense, and I'd be giving him the Copeland if it were up to me. Please don't leave us.
Darcy Cameron. It's amazing what he's been able to produce, coming to us as a reserves KPF for a random pick in the 40's. Adding the defensive marking string to his bow was one of the season's highlights. He's singlehandedly turned what could have been a quasar-sized list gap post-Grundy into a position of strength. Amazing effort.
Nick Daicos. Nothing can be said that hasn't been said already. If you take Nick out of this side, we'd be in so much strife that I'm not even gonna think about it. He's only 22. The fact he's our side means that no matter what happens, we're always gonna be a chance against any opposition.
The Battlers.
Mihocek. Checkers has been brave for a long time now, but age and injury have finally caught up with him, and he's less able to punch so far above his weight as he once did. Too many times we saw him outmarked by an opponent that was just too big and too strong. If he does leave, it will be devastating personally, but not devastating for the team's results. He deserves a fat paycheck to end his career, which has been both late-start and minimum wage for too long. But on output, we shouldn't be the ones to provide that paycheck. He may end up staying due to lack of offers after his finish to the year, which would also honsetly be a great result. You'd love to keep a heart and soul player like him. We just can't afford to overpay here.
McStay... yikes, I just don't know what happened here. Maybe he too was battling injury, but his form drop off was just about as severe as I've seen at AFL level. So much so that we (rightfully) ran with big Mase in the finals instead, who, for all his flaws, offered more than Dan did for the back half of the season. McStay strikes me as a confidence player, and he just lost every ounce of the confidence he had in round 15, and it never came back. Having him playing his best footy would have been so helpful. His efforts in the 2023 finals series literally got us to the big dance. He has the talent, he just lost the bit between the ears. He's got the whole offseason to reset. We really need him to.
Houston. Played an all-timer against his old side in the second game, then... just never really got going after that. New team blues, perhaps. He's quality, and you'd back him in to turn it around, but that was a bizarre season from a high calibre footballer. We needed more, and it just never came.
Bobby. Through no footballing fault of his own, but boy did his absence hurt us. We looked a different team when he was out there. I really wish they'd rolled the dice on him for the prelim, but I understand why they didn't. If he can put his personal issues behind him, he'll be our biggest recruit for 2026. If he's on the move back to WA, we're gonna miss him dearly.
Where to from here?
It's clear we're still in win-now mode, if you listen to the coaches. We'll get a decent crop of F/S and academy picks this year, in what's already a weak draft, so losing this year's first rounder in the Houston trade doesn't hurt as much as it otherwise would. Young talent is, as ever, a pressing need, though, and we'll need to hit with some draft picks sooner rather than later if we're to avoid a drop off. Historically, though, we've managed to do this for 25 years now. We're a well-run club. You just gotta hope we continue to be well run.
Personnel wise, the vast majority of what can be another premiership side is there, injuries and form permitting. You'd be as confident in our back six as you would be for any other team in the league. A gun key forward could genuinely transform our forward line, which is otherwise very sound. But most of all, some high-quality midfield depth is the area of greatest need. Whether that comes from internal improvement, positional changes, or an aggressive trade period, something has to change in there. It can't just be Nick and then daylight to second.
So to wrap it up, what levers would I pull within the current squad to give us the best chances in 2026? From the top...
Jaicos back to the wing, Houston the distributor from defence. Dan didn't get going this season, and I think a large part of that was Josh's surprisingly good form as a defender. The issue there is that Houston is tailor-made for that rebounding defender role, whereas Josh can be equally effective in other parts of the ground. Considering our lack of depth through the centre, I'd be moving Josh back to the wing role he won a B&F in, and trusting Houston to learn the ropes down back and be the player we know he can be.
McCreery to spend more time on ball. Beau was fantastic in bursts through the centre square. I think there are some doubts on his ability to be as effective in a non-centre-bounce clearance situation. Maybe there are some football IQ deficiencies which make him less effective when it's not as simple as see ball, get ball, and if not, kill man who has ball. But he's shown enough power in there to warrant a more full-time role as the bone-crunching mid. If it fails, we know he's got the chops as a manic pressure half forward which we can always fall back to.
Perryman to play defensive mid. This is the role he was recruited for, and he honestly performed it pretty damn admirably in the round one hiding against GWS. But he was forced to play back after Reef went down, and we persisted with it all season because he was always reliable down there. With the emergence of Wil Parker, though (whose Adelaide final I was really impressed by) I'd much prefer to give Perryman another shot to make that defensive mid position his own. He's not the same level as Josh Dunkley, but as a big body who loves to tackle, I think we could get above-average output from him in a similar role.
And now, the controversial one... If we can't recruit a star KPF, find a decent KPD and play Moore forward instead. Darcy played a career game against the Crows, but for most of the year, he was just okay. He was spoiling instead of going for his marks, he wasn't intercepting and setting up rebound play at nearly the level he was in 2022/23, and he was beaten by just-okay forwards like Voss and Morris on multiple occasions. Whether that's a symptom of his form or some broken gameplan mechanics is kinda irrelevant. The point remains: we simply weren't getting enough out of him. Now, if he comes out and plays like he did against the Crows in round one next year, then cool, end the discussion, he's our general down back again. But it just feels like wasting such a huge asset if all we're gonna use him for is spoiling. Finding a 200cm, mobile, lightning fast marking option on the open market is gonna cost more than we can afford to give. But my thinking is, we have one of those guys on our list already. We simply have to get maximum value out of him. And I think giving him a chance up forward could extract that bang for buck we weren't getting for great patches this season.
And finally, bring back the dare. Shift away from the defence-first mindset and play with the speed and freedom required to generate threatening forward entries, even if it means risking shipping more goals the other way. We can recalibrate and rebalance as required, but as it stands right now, we've swung far too hard in the direction of defence, and while it's made it hard for other teams to score against us, it's made life hell for our own forwards. Let's rediscover that game-breaking, risk-taking flair which made us such a delight to watch in 2022/23.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
I'd love to know from other die-hard Pies: what worked for you in 2025? What didn't? And what would you change as we head into what's going to be a defining season in 2026?
It's been a pleasure posting with you all this season. Go 'Pies.
