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.