Preview Our 2011 Premiership Season

[JG13]

As we head full steam towards round one beginning with Richmond and Carlton on the 24th of March 2011, we begin to wonder what is in stall for our mighty club this year. Can we go back to back? Who will rise and make a name for themselves? Who will become vital to our setup? How will Krakouer and Taz fit into the side? and the list goes on. So I have decided to go through the fixture and talk about how i see the first game or the season playing out and who could be vital for us and also maybe along the way i might make a few big calls.

Feel free to add your thoughts.

Round One: Port Adelaide Saturday March 26th 2.10pm at Etihad Stadium: A great way to start the year against a lowly Port. When we played the Bulldogs last year i was worried that we might not get off to the season on a winning note and therefore lose some confidence. But i have no such thoughts this time around with the Pies recieving a nice comfortable win to start the year. It will be a great opportunity for whoever is in the starting twenty-two (particularly fringe players) to make a statement and keep their sport in the lineup. I expect Andrew Krakouer to be in that lineup barring any injury and he will certainly get off to a great start causing havoc across half forward. Whilst Brent Macaffer will kick an unassuming three goals. If rumours are correct Leon could play a nice role across half back but i cant see this happening, as Maxwell makes sure his back six gets off to a great start. Ben Reid begins his journey to his first all-australian running off Schultz to collect 20 possession and 5 rebounds from defensive fifty. Pendlebury and Thomas to take yet another step up into elite territory as Daisy shakes all perceptions he is a soft player. Bother gather disposals in the high twentys as swan lurks in the background swooping upon 37 possessions.

Pies win comfortably without raising a sweet, by 35 points
Collingwood 16.10 106 Port Adelaide 10.11 71

Browlow Votes:
1. Pendlebury
2. Swan
3. Krakouer

Pies Best: Swan, Ball, Reid, Thomas, Pendlebury, Krakouer, Macaffer
Ports Best: ......LOL

Thoughts welcome, along with how the rest of the coming games might pan out. Cheers

 

[Rusty22]

Fookin pumped i am.
So we have the power round 1, should be interesting aye.
They have dangerous players like pearce, boak, Rodan, and ebert who always usually plays well against the pies.
But then,the mouth watering happens for me, when we go through our tantelizing midfield, with krakour included adds a bit of flavour.
Ill make a bold statement here and say port will kick less then 6 goals for the match.Our backine will absolutly shred there forwards apart,cant see the power challenging us anywhere to be honest, jolly will rape brogan in the ruck, and pendles and swannny will dominate, ahhh geeez arnt you guys pumped!!!
Pies by 88 points
Best: Dawes 8 goals, Swan, Pendles, Harry O
powers best: Rodan,Ebert, Boak
GO YOU WOOODS!

 

[JG13]

will be interesting about how we go about it
do we take the calm approach and just play out the game still winning comfortably, or will we like Rusty said absolutely blitz them on every line and win by over 80 points

I can see both happening though now the thought has been planted in my mind i can see us really trying to play as hard as we can and getting off to a flyer.

Pies have a pretty easy initiation into the 2011 season with only carlton posing a threat, though on the day we unfurl the flag surely we cannot lose that. would be a major embarrassment

 

[Swooop]

Thing I like about this year is that we have many great players, sufficient depth, exciting younger guys and an amazing 'bottom 6'

Also great leadership and self belief and courtesy of the replay, almost unprecedented finals experience in an overall young list.

But maybe most important of all, we have such fierce competition for a spot in the 22.

Complacency, as a culture, would find this club a hard place to thrive, and individually, be complacent at your peril.

If we get beaten by a better team, so be it. I never mind that. ( well i do, but you know what i mean!)

I think we'll be a three goal better side than last year.

 

[Rusty22]

Yeh goood point, i think its best to go all out, show the comp that we are even bigger and scarier this year. No doubt port will be weak this year, but this quick start we need is essential.
We play the Dome alright, especially with our quick style of play, i can really see us belting some teams by bigger margins than last year, teams like brisbane, west coast, essendon, and also power will get hammered by us.

 

[Rusty22]

Thing I like about this year is that we have many great players, sufficient depth, exciting younger guys and an amazing 'bottom 6'

Also great leadership and self belief and courtesy of the replay, almost unprecedented finals experience in an overall young list.

But maybe most important of all, we have such fierce competition for a spot in the 22.

Complacency, as a culture, would find this club a hard place to thrive, and individually, be complacent at your peril.

If we get beaten by a better team, so be it. I never mind that. ( well i do, but you know what i mean!)

I think we'll be a three goal better side than last year.

Oppostion teams must be crappin themselves , when they see how good our young players are.

 

[JG13]

any predictions about krakouer and taz?

i can really see taz keeping leigh brown and our back six very honest
whilst krakouer should slot in very well from the start
as you said our bottom six is almost as good as most teams top 12
toovey will need to take another step to stay in the side but i think he will do that very well. whilst macaffer will show many that hes more than just a role player
wellers will begin to dominate some games and im so surprised not much has been written about this guy, but he is all class, has a great right boot and pace to burn
and im only just starting....could go on and on about dawes/brown/reid but we all know that its going to be predictable talk, coz THESE GUYS ARE GUNS

 

[Ed D]

Not to sound arrogant but considering the game is at the docklands I'd be a little upset if we won by 6 goals or less against Port of all teams. In saying that we didn't exactly blast a lot of teams out of the water last year and Port could be fired up for the game, but I'm hoping we win by 10 goals+.

 

[JG13]

Not to sound arrogant but considering the game is at the docklands I'd be a little upset if we won by 6 goals or less against Port of all teams. In saying that we didn't exactly blast a lot of teams out of the water last year and Port could be fired up for the game, but I'm hoping we win by 10 goals+.

i agree with this as i reckon there were a few games where we only won by about 25 points but really should have won by more than fifty. This comes down to relaxing and a typical collingwood thing of switching off a key points in the game. But i reckon this year it wont happen with so many strong players from the 18th player to the 25th. Complacency by any will be cut down very fast

 

[Rusty22]

If our kicking gets a little bit bettter, we could see some records broken

 

[JG13]

what about clokey this year if we can kick better like rusty said?
could be on track for a 60+ goal season, AA?

 

[Rusty22]

Im thinking Dawes wil have a blinder, 60+ goals for him and lets say 50+ for trav, 2 youngish forwards, we will be looking scary for years

 

[JG13]

Do you think reid will ever move forward at stages this year?
i love him at fullback, but he could become like lake and switch between forward and defence

 

[Swooop]

Do you think reid will ever move forward at stages this year?
i love him at fullback, but he could become like lake and switch between forward and defence

Can't see the need to move Reid forward, esp when he's only going to get better down back.

IF teams use our game plan against us, which I think they'll try and do, then I see a role for Reid, with his pin point racking kicks, as the 'go to' guy to kick the ball over the top of the 'press/swarm' whatever.

With Brown N and Taz to potentially take the KPB roles, it may free Reid up for a Maxy type role and also to be the designated kicker over the press.

If that is the case, then even more unlikely we'll see Reid up forward.

Having said that, it's always an option, esp if we want to change the match-ups if things not going well at any time.

 

[Rusty22]

Do you think reid will ever move forward at stages this year?
i love him at fullback, but he could become like lake and switch between forward and defence

if where ever in a lot of trouble, i think we should switch reid and cloke, some of you will laugh but, cloke backman wouldnt be too bad, takes plenty of contested marks

 

[JG13]

as swoop said, reid could be used extremely effectively as the man to kick over the press. I think we can see shaw go more into the midfield this year but there are just too many options there at the moment

Swan-midfield lock
Pendles-as above
Ball-as above

but we have thomas, beam, sidey, krakouer, dids etc. so this year will be very interesting season. Aside from onfield discussion a lot of time will be spent talking about just who will play where coz we have an embarrassment of riches right now

 

[vjknight]

for what my 2 cents will be worth to this chat, but in the 1st 3 rounds i see the north game as the danger. yes we are likely to come off a huge win against a poor port, and face a north team with a decent spread of midfield talent and inconsistent KPP's.
they are likely to be a team aiming for this game against us, and already have it in their planning. teams like north need major wins early to establish themselves, to drive memberships, and give their lot something for the year.

what are the danger games this year - is it club/location/emotion ?

 

[JG13]

to be honest the danger game for me is round three
i am freaking out about losing on the day we unfurl our premiership flag.
but aside from that, i can see the melbourne games shaping up to be big along with anyone challenging to get us off top of the ladder. St Kilda game will be huge and there will be fireworks mark my word

 

[Ed D]

It's so hard to know when you'll get a loss. It's not just about how the Pies are playing and going into a game both phyically and mentally, it's about whether the opposition team is fired up to take us on and if they have a special game plan etc, even coming off big games the week before etc.

It seems a lot of the time teams play at their best when they know they're up against potentially good opposition, and quite often seem "switched off" when they think they have the game covered.

Every team on their day can have a win against a team that's not switched on, that's going to be the key.

 

[Swooop]

TBH i think we'll approach every game like it's a danger game, and if so, that'll make me very happy.

And raw-talent wise, we are not that far ahead that we can afford this...our strength last year was a fanatical commitment across the field, a team without passengers by and large, a very competent bottom six and a pretty simple but very effective game plan where everyone knew their role at all times.

As soon as you take your foot off the pedal or relax 5-10%, in a comp like this, you're in trouble.

Hopefully Maxy/MM/Bucks won't allow that.

 

[mattys123]

what are the danger games this year - is it club/location/emotion ?

Ok, here's my list of "danger games" for 2011, and the reasons why they are danger games;

Round 2 - North Melbourne (Etihad); North are the best young team in the comp IMO, and will start the season very well, and we will be coming off a relative practice match in round 1 against the wooden spoon contending Port.

Round 6 vs Western Bulldogs (MCG); We seem to struggle after ANZAC day, and this year we get to play a top team, that usually starts the season on fire. Helps that it's at the MCG, but this could be our first loss in 2011.

Round 9 vs Adelaide (Etihad); They can't beat us at the MCG, but they have beaten us at the Docklands a few times, and we will "get up" for the Geelong match after a bye, so we may have a let down here.

Round 12 vs Melbourne (MCG); What the hell happened when we played them last year? We were an 8 goal better side then them, but in the end were lucky to take home 2 points out of a possible 8. QB is still their Grand Final too.

Round 15 vs Hawthorn (MCG); Will all depend on who's fit for Hawthorn, but there's no doubt we have struggled to beat them over the years, and coming off yet another good win in Sydney, we may be vulnerable against a probable top 4 side.

Round 23 vs Fremantle (Subiaco); Tough game, second last game of the year, where we will probably be safely in the top 2 (or at least the top 4), and Freo may have to win this to host a final (or even make top 4).


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I left out the games against StKilda or Geelong, they will still be bloody hard to beat, so they are more "obvious" danger games, where if you are even 5% off, you can lose.

For the record, I think we will win between 16 and 19 games in 2011.

 

[JG13]

Ok, here's my list of "danger games" for 2011, and the reasons why they are danger games;

Round 2 - North Melbourne (Etihad); North are the best young team in the comp IMO, and will start the season very well, and we will be coming off a relative practice match in round 1 against the wooden spoon contending Port.

Round 6 vs Western Bulldogs (MCG); We seem to struggle after ANZAC day, and this year we get to play a top team, that usually starts the season on fire. Helps that it's at the MCG, but this could be our first loss in 2011.

Round 9 vs Adelaide (Etihad); They can't beat us at the MCG, but they have beaten us at the Docklands a few times, and we will "get up" for the Geelong match after a bye, so we may have a let down here.

Round 12 vs Melbourne (MCG); What the hell happened when we played them last year? We were an 8 goal better side then them, but in the end were lucky to take home 2 points out of a possible 8. QB is still their Grand Final too.

Round 15 vs Hawthorn (MCG); Will all depend on who's fit for Hawthorn, but there's no doubt we have struggled to beat them over the years, and coming off yet another good win in Sydney, we may be vulnerable against a probable top 4 side.

Round 23 vs Fremantle (Subiaco); Tough game, second last game of the year, where we will probably be safely in the top 2 (or at least the top 4), and Freo may have to win this to host a final (or even make top 4).


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I left out the games against StKilda or Geelong, they will still be bloody hard to beat, so they are more "obvious" danger games, where if you are even 5% off, you can lose.

For the record, I think we will win between 16 and 19 games in 2011.

love your input there Mattys123, can see the bulldogs game as being a real barometer test for us. If we can win well then im sure we are on track but a little slip up here or there could give us a stark reality check. As you said our games against the hawks and the crows are notoriously tough and hard to win, but i reckon we can beat the crows comfortably. the hawks on the other hand we need to stop buddy and i think taz is the man to do that. Freo imo will replace the bulldogs in the top four and that game as you mentioned will be great preparation for finals for our boys. It will be a great test and depending on where we are on the ladder, it could either be a vital must win game, or like the round 22 game last year, it could just be a rest game for many players.

I can see us playing well against the top sides, but the lower ones particularly those beginning the climb up the ladder will definately mark down the pies games as ones where they can test themselves against the best. These are the games i am most worried about however if we are on our game, it shouldnt be a problem. I really hope taz and kraks can keep our boys on edge, and moneybags should make sure everyone performs coz he can play in a variety of positions to great effect

 

[Ed D]

The depth and fighting for senior spots is going to help. I think Malthouse is well aware of coming off a GF and having a mediocre following season, and the real positive is that the side is so even that apart from a handful of players, nearly everyone is replaceable so they can't relax.

Already we've heard not only from Mick but also Maxwell that the players are aware they need to fire and are training and preparing well for the proper season. All the signs sound good, that as soon as they came back to training they were focussing on 2011. It also helps that there are a lot of level headed leaders within the club.

A few losses across the way could be good to keep the team in check, although I don't think it's needed. Some scares/challenges within games and being able to fight back to get a win could be enough.

It's going to be an interesting year.

 

[JG13]

I pretty much agree with all that you have said Ed D, i can imagine nick and mick (rhyme) will be pushing hard to make sure everyone is on the same page and just as hungry as last year. Mick will know about the pitfalls of having a premiership hangover and he knows the pain of being down the bottom of the ladder unlike many of our youngsters who have come in recently. I think krakouer and taz will add that extra energy and freshness to the side that will rejuvenate them this season.

Just wondering your thoughts on how we will approach the pre season round robbin game? Who will play and how much time will they be going at it with 100% effort? Will be interesting to see if we can catch onto any minor tactical changes and also who had gotten really fit and big over the preseason. Your thoughts?

 

[Rusty22]

North a danger....NO , too young and too weak.
Carlton wil be our danger this yearalong with hawthorn. When is kruezer tippped to be back, the blues fit and firing are a good side, but when they dont play there best they are weak as piss.
Ill be sweating like an arab in customs when we come up against gold coast, something tells me we may struglle against them.
and guys when is our first nab game, friday night or saturday night?? thanks