Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley reviews his team’s 28-point loss to Adelaide on Saturday night …
On the positives out of the game for the Magpies …
“I couldn’t question the effort. I thought we gave most of what we had. Brodie Grundy was good again in the ruck. James Aish probably played his best game for us. Our mids battled away and our mid mix is looking okay for us outside of centre bounce, which we were slayed in minus 10.
“(Brayden) Maynard and (Jonathon) Marsh down back showed signs and had their moments against heavy supply. There was a lot to like in it other than giving that (five-goal) head start away, which was too much for us to come back from.”
On the reasons behind the poor start …
“We gave up 3.1 from our forward 50m. The first 15 minutes was just a lack of discipline with the way we knew we had to defend. We also had four shots at goal from outside 50m from guys who were outside their range.
“We’ve been handling those situations a lot better (lately) but for whatever reason we just went away from what we’d coached and done before. When we cleaned that up, we looked a bit better. The horse hadn’t bolted, but we were coming from a long way back and weren’t able to get back to square at any stage.”
On whether the Pies have improved on last season …
“We’re 3-1 since the bye and we looked likely against a top-four side tonight. I think Adelaide’s footy has stood up against all comers. We lacked a little bit of polish in front of the ball and a little bit of consistency behind the ball. But we’ll take a fait bit out of today.
“There’s still another six games to work out where we stand in 2016 compared to 2015. If we maintain that effort … for the next six weeks, well find improvement and growth in the guys that were out there even just tonight.”
On Adelaide’s ability to control the centre clearances …
“It (the centre bounce) is one of the last untouched man-on-man contests. You know that you’ve got three ground level players and a ruckman (each). In the end, it comes down to gritting the teeth and getting it done.
“Sam Jacobs is one of the better ruckman in the competition. Brodie (Grundy) held his own, but there’s probably a little bit of guile there that he (Jacobs) was able to (provide and) give his ground-level players a bit of supply.
“For whatever reason, the three Adelaide mids at ground level were able to be a little bit cleaner. It was the first time we’ve been nutted in first possession across the ground in eight weeks, so for the most part in the last 6-8 weeks we’ve improved. But we lowered our colours in that midfield first-possession battle tonight against a pretty good midfield group.”
On Adelaide being able to find a way to score despite Collingwood’s good defence …
“They (the Crows) have got a really distinctive way that they attack. Whilst we were able to stop the end-to-end stuff after quarter time, which we scouted but weren’t able to get done, a little bit was our use. We turned the ball over in bad parts of the ground and Adelaide have been able to come back and hurt us the other way. It was just some finish with ball in hand, being able to take your chances when you get them and then being able to finish off our defensive plays at the other end.
“For the most part we were there, but we were beaten in contests in that back 50m. Some of our turnovers were pretty hard to defend.”
On improving that polish in the forward half …
“We missed (Alex) Fasolo tonight. We won’t have (Jamie) Elliott for the rest of the year and ‘Swanny’ (Dane Swan) potentially. You put some class finishers in front of the ball – they’re our (Eddie) Betts, (Charlie) Cameron and (Richard) Douglas. They’re those three players for us that would make a fair bit of difference in giving us some bite when we go into our front half.
“We’re also still working on that connection between our mids and forwards and making sure we get that right. Adam Treloar has played a handful of games with Darcy Moore, so he’s got to get a feel for what that’s like and Darcy’s got to get a feel for what Adam Treloar does when he’s coming out of midfield. That shared experience is something we can’t magnify – we can only take it game by game.
“We’ve seen some pretty steep growth in the last month. We want to see that continue for the rest of the year.”
On whether the Pies are still hanging onto the hope of playing finals …
“One thing we haven’t given up on is providing our best footy as often as we can. I thought our effort was good tonight, but we just lacked polish and the finish in the offensive elements and also in our defensive elements.
“We’ve started slow the last two weeks, so clearly we need to start better. You can’t afford to give good sides a start. We were able to chase down GWS (last week), but we weren’t able to chase down Adelaide tonight. We need to start better against North next week.
“We’ll get to Etihad Stadium, both (teams) on a six-day break. They’re season is on the line and we still consider that our season is on the line. We still want to play the footy that we’re capable of as often as we possibly can. We’ve got to keep winning.”
