Who will be a genuine challenger for Magpies?

 

Roar Rookie

By Leigh Eustace, 6 Apr 2011 Leigh Eustace is a Roar Rookie

Tagged:

 AFL, AFL finals, Collingwood Magpies, Fremantle Dockers, Geelong Cats, Hawthorn Hawks

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Who is going to take on Collingwood? Geelong in two games have been honest, but far less than the team that’s dominated the previous four years.

St Kilda likewise are on the decline, an injury to their spiritual leader coupled with a style of football that looks to have finally caught up with them.

As for aspirants to tackle a Collingwood who so far show no symptoms of a premiership hangover, they have looked to be few and far between.

Until the third term Sunday at the MCG.

Hawthorn under-delivered in their opener, but a fired-up Adelaide, spurred on by the faces of the inaugural Crows side gracing their change rooms pre-game, were a tough opponent.

Make no mistake, Adelaide is destined for the finals this year and they’ll be extremely tough to dislodge at home.

The Demons got the jump but about ten minutes into the third stanza, the rest of the league sighed at the relief that we may have finally found a combatant for the raging Magpies.

Utter domination doesn’t come close to describe the show the Hawks put on, and whilst some may lament the Melbourne footy club for the way they came out after half time, especially after the most gallant of first halves, Hawthorn clocked in for season 2011, albeit six quarters late.

In regards to the reigning premiers, North Melbourne puffed and puffed with a stuck out chest pre-game, but it was just that, puff.

It was earmarked as a day to stand up as a club, the whole “earn our stripes” shenanigans. They looked second rate to Collingwood as they were handsomely taken to pieces Saturday afternoon.

Suggestions have been made that the Collingwood and North lists could, even should, be comparable, but the performances and development between the two couldn’t be wider. Promising signs for the Pies, worrying times for the Roos.

Not worrying for the Suns, mind you.

Sure the margin was extreme, but with 12 debutants on Saturday night, what would one expect? These guys aren’t gunning for a premiership in year one, the real tussle will be snatching back the cup from Carrara in three or four years’ time.

It was a premature reaction to a problem much less severe than the one the rest of the comp will have in only a handful of seasons’ time.

Carlton did what they had to do, but anyone looking for a form line for the Blues needs to play it safe. They fell over the line against Richmond, and walked through a Saturday night at the Gabba with little opposition. Queue Friday night football.

Richmond are on the rise. No-one should expect finals anytime soon, but the improvements there for all to see.

The emerging midfield brigade should have Tiger fans salivating, there’s a clear and genuine determination and enthusiasm to get better that showed on Friday night, and they’re brutally unlucky to not be two from two and the story about town.

Their opponents are in a bit of stick. Quite frankly a Jobe-Watson-inspired sit-in offers a more exciting brand of footy than the Saints right now.

They are slow with limited forward options, so their plan of playing ultra-defensive, showing no dash or daring in transition and dropping the ball on their captain’s head means only one of two things can happen: either win by a little, or get overrun and drop games.

It’s a dangerous margin for error. They lost a game they could have won against Geelong, and scraped in for a draw against Richmond.

The Saints have dropped six points already, remember that come finals time. If you’re too close to the edge, don’t flirt with fate.

Same goes for Fremantle. How frustrating must it be for their supporters, who turned up in big numbers to see them sport a jumper that the league can finally take seriously, to see them lose after out-playing a well-fancied Geelong still brimming with talent.

That inconsistency they can’t shake proves their downfall again.

The Cats, though, get 2011 off to a great start: they could have so easily been nought from two, and no-one would have really criticised them for it with the reigning Grand Finalist and Freo at Subi in successive weeks.

That said, if the Dockers can work out how to be driven enough to play to their potential, they could be up there with Hawthorn.

What Hawthorn did in the third term against Melbourne, Fremantle could do to just about anyone playing at home.

When we look for competition for Collingwood, we’ve identified Hawthorn and Essendon.

If Fremantle get their act together, they have the ingredients to put together a mesmerising tilt, and who knows, perhaps crack through that glass ceiling that for the last 16 years has apparently been made of reinforced steel.

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