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Time has run out for the Magpies​

Collingwood’s chances of making finals now appear worse than slim, with injuries robbing them of talent and the synergy needed to play the high-octane brand of football that defined them in the first two years under their coach Craig McRae.

Opponents are also taking the pace off the game. Beau McCreery’s pressure up forward has been sorely missed in the past two rounds, while key players in last year’s premiership run are out of form or missing the hunger that drove them in 2023.

On Friday night, Geelong took 145 marks as they controlled the tempo, having the ball in their possession for 46 per cent of the match. In contrast, the Magpies had the pill in their possession 36 per cent of the time. That left the ball in chaos for less time than the reigning premiers prefer. Essendon did the same a week earlier.

The Magpies wanted to apply pressure, but they were confronted by a method that fought fire through back burning.
McRae admits the time to make finals is running out. That time appears to have passed unless the Magpies turn the miraculous come-from-behind wins they mastered under the premiership coach into something on a grander scale and come from 12th to finals and flag contention with six matches remaining.

Soon the talk will turn to Graham Wright’s future, the decisions to be made on veterans such as Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom, the poor form of skipper Darcy Moore, which players are emerging in the already arrived at Nick Daicos-era, and whether, after being strong in all but one season between 2018-23, the time has come for the club to take a quick step back to take many steps forward.

Not having a first-round draft pick this season – traded to Fremantle last year for Lachie Schultz – will delay that march forward, but the club will reach a critical juncture at season’s end where cool rather than emotional decisions need to be made when it comes to list management calls.
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www.theage.com.au

Time running out for Magpies, Greene is good for football: Key takeouts from round 18

Collingwood’s chances of making finals now appear worse than slim, Sam Mitchell’s coaching ability has been on display this season and the Bulldogs’ roller-coaster continued with an impressive win over Carlton.
www.theage.com.au www.theage.com.au
 

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Jen2310 said:



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Well said Bucks

It’s what many of us in here have been saying, but perhaps not as eloquently as Bucks.
 
Vicky Park said:
Well said Bucks

It’s what many of us in here have been saying, but perhaps not as eloquently as Bucks.
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Yep. The injuries have finally caught up to us. Even when we were starting to get players back, we got even more injuries.

The positive I guess is that some of the younger players got more senior experience this year than expected.
 
ElliottsMaggies said:
Yep. The injuries have finally caught up to us. Even when we were starting to get players back, we got even more injuries.

The positive I guess is that some of the younger players got more senior experience this year than expected.
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I also think some of the criticism of Fly, and what he should and should not be doing, could perhaps be paused until we have a healthier list which has had the time to connect again. Then we’d have a more realistic view of how the game plan is going this year.
 
ElliottsMaggies said:
Yep. The injuries have finally caught up to us. Even when we were starting to get players back, we got even more injuries.

The positive I guess is that some of the younger players got more senior experience this year than expected.
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Almost ironic that we played better when our younger players were playing, and lost less games than we have now. But as bucks said, it has tired them out and by bringing back experienced players from injury we don't have the synegy. Being out for periods of time hasnt helped.
 
Jen2310 said:
Almost ironic that we played better when our younger players were playing, and lost less games than we have now. But as bucks said, it has tired them out and by bringing back experienced players from injury we don't have the synegy. Being out for periods of time hasnt helped.
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It happens to a lot of teams with young sides..they can have spurts of good games & can start to tire by the middle/end of the year if they started quick out of the blocks early on. Others start off slowly & start to hit their straps later in the year like Hawks seemed to have, for example.

We see a lot of the younger players in all sides each year start to tire by the end of the year.

It's not unreasonable to think our synergy, connection & confidence would be down with all these constant personnel changes. You can do it for a while, but it's unfortunately been non stop for us this year. Combined with assistant coaches changing probably hasn't helped with consistency & messaging either.
 
ElliottsMaggies said:
It happens to a lot of teams with young sides..they can have spurts of good games & can start to tire by the middle/end of the year if they started quick out of the blocks early on. Others start off slowly & start to hit their straps later in the year like Hawks seemed to have, for example.

We see a lot of the younger players in all sides each year start to tire by the end of the year.

It's not unreasonable to think our synergy, connection & confidence would be down with all these constant personnel changes. You can do it for a while, but it's unfortunately been non stop for us this year. Combined with assistant coaches changing probably hasn't helped with consistency & messaging either.
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Lets hope Hawks youth running out of steam, happens this week.
 

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Jen2310 said:
www.theage.com.au

Time running out for Magpies, Greene is good for football: Key takeouts from round 18

Collingwood’s chances of making finals now appear worse than slim, Sam Mitchell’s coaching ability has been on display this season and the Bulldogs’ roller-coaster continued with an impressive win over Carlton.
www.theage.com.au www.theage.com.au
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Sure, we’re 12th.

But we’re also 2 games and percentage off 2nd place, with 6 games yet to play and Cox, McStay, McCreery and Mitchell to come back in over the next few weeks.

This time last year we were starting to drop games and losing our Premiership favoritism and yet we turned it around when it mattered.

It’s still possible for us to go back-to-back. And it’s still possible for us to finish bottom 4. Nobody knows where we’ll end up. There are still a few more twists and turns yet to play out in our season yet.
 
76woodenspooners said:
Sure, we’re 12th.

But we’re also 2 games and percentage off 2nd place, with 6 games yet to play and Cox, McStay, McCreery and Mitchell to come back in over the next few weeks.

This time last year we were starting to drop games and losing our Premiership favoritism and yet we turned it around when it mattered.

It’s still possible for us to go back-to-back. And it’s still possible for us to finish bottom 4. Nobody knows where we’ll end up. There are still a few more twists and turns yet to play out in our season yet.
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Will we have to forego the heavy training loads we had the luxury of being able to do last year as we had top-2 sewn up? I guess there'll be a lot of contenders in the same but, except Sydney?
 
Not sure where to put this; but a friend of mine went to a pies event at the club last night with most of the players... and here is what was said. She spoke to a couple, and there was a panel.

*Dan said he'll be putting his hand up to play, said he feels ready but it'll be up to the fitness department to decide.

* Fin said it's been tough for him, he was injured last year (back injury) and couldn't run, so it's just been about building his fitness up this year. Next off season he plans on getting stronger, and and running to build his tank.


* WHE said teams have worked us out and how they play this kick mark game against us, its been tough injuries wise as when they have players back, others go out so there is no continuity. They'd love a big forward.

*from the moment we played in a prelim and then GF, teams have started to work out how we play and hence started to take things away from us, studying us all preseason.

* Harry said at the start of pre-season, Fly changed the game plan and which is why we struggled and took some time to sort everything out, and then had to go back to the fundamentals.

* WHE sees his best position on the wing and thats where he would be playing if not for injuries in the forward line.

* Harry reckons he is pretty close to playing, they are happy with his realibility, sees himself long term in the de goey type mid forward player.
He has the speed of Beau, but wants to develop his physicality more.

*the boys been messaging Ginni, ans they been stiring each other up. Getting the banter going. WHE messaged him to see how his rehab was going

  • Illiroo said he builds his game off nankervis, like the follow up work. he wants to build up his size.
  • IQ said he needs to work on his offensive stuff and generating run. He was told 2 days before the game he was gonna play on Cameron. Said he was reasonable happy with it given Cameron generally kicks 6 or 7, he said great players always manage to find ways to kick goals

* some of those playing vfl talked about, some of them have learnt the words to the song but yet to sing the song given we are on a 11 loss , but hopefully against carlton is their best chance.
They said it was a tough game, especially when you have 200 gamers like stanley playing, and we have kids.
 
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This group is very capable of winning all remaining games (maybe not Sydney) but it’s going to take an immediate and miraculous turnaround to get that started. Something has to happen this week. Win over the Hawks and let’s go from there.

Then we need other teams to start losing around us and with how crazy this season is, there will be more twists and turns to come. Nothing is set in stone yet. Bring it on.
 

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