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The Collingwood Football Club are widely regarded as one of the most successful and powerful football clubs in the Australian Football League.
However, closer inspection of recent history suggests they may be anything but. Since the formation of the Australian Football League which replaced the Victorian Football League, Collingwood has tasted the ultimate success twice.
It is not a bad return when you consider traditional rivals Melbourne and Richmond have not drunk from the cup once.
Yet Collingwood’s two premierships pale into insignificance when compared to Hawthorn’ return of four flags over the same period. Considering the financial strength of Collingwood, is two flags a worthwhile return on investment?
Even more damning is a closer inspection of history that has Collingwood competing in 43 deciders since the inception of the VFL/AFL competition, for the modest return of 15 flags.
If the ball had bounced to the left hand side of the post instead of the right during the dying seconds in the first 2010 decider, it would be a return of 14 premierships.
It becomes more interesting for Collingwood if you take a closer look at player movement and in particular elite player movement in recent seasons. If Collingwood are the most successful and powerful club in the league as most of their supporters will have you believe.
Would not Collingwood have pulled off at least one major recruiting coup over the journey of the AFL competition? Yet history will tell us all of the biggest player movement stories – think Tony Lockett, Gary Ablett, Chris Judd, Lance Franklin and Patrick Dangerfield – have failed to involve a move to Collingwood.
When Chris Judd decided to leave the West Coast Eagles and flagged a return to Melbourne, it was Collingwood’s mortal enemy Carlton who sold Judd their vision and secured his signature. If Collingwood were the Australian sporting juggernaut they claim to be, wouldn’t at least one superstar player have nominated the Magpies as their club of choice in recent history?
In the past 15 seasons Collingwood has only been able to lure one All Australian representative to their playing ranks, Luke Ball. Considering St Kilda were prepared to let Ball go through to the preseason draft with no compensation, he could hardly at the time be considered one of the competitions genuine stars.
As the AFL enters trade period, recent news reports have linked Collingwood to veterans Chris Mayne, Nick Dal Santo and Daniel Wells. Respected football commentator and analyst Robert Walls did not hold back when asked what he thought of these potential trade developments. Walls said, “I think it’s wrong for Collingwood to do that because they’re not standing for anything, they’re all over the place. I’d be disappointed if Collingwood were doing that.”
Collingwood are one of the financially strongest sporting clubs in the competition, so why haven’t they been able to generate a multi-million-dollar trade? Jaeger O’Meara the young superstar who recently flagged an interest to play his football in Melbourne and sought a club, recently committed to Hawthorn and Collingwood were not even mentioned as a contender.
Watching Collingwood get repeatedly beat up around the ball this season, one can’t help but think what a difference O’Meara would have made in Magpies colours next season.
It’s not to say they haven’t gone close, Johnathan Brown admitted recently in the prime of his career, he went a long way down the road in negotiations for a relocation to the Lexus Centre. Yet ultimately Collingwood could not close the deal and secure his signature.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire craves success and loves a scrap, and is quick to remind anyone and everyone of Collingwood’s position on the Australian sporting landscape. However, one could be mistaken recently for believing his sole purpose in life has been to remove the Sydney Swans cost of living allowance, exclude the Greater Western Sydney from the next two national drafts and instruct the Victorian Government to build a 60,000 seat stadium on Hisense Arena’s current land.
While McGuire has been distracted waging war, Western Bulldogs President Peter Gordon emerged as a figure of influence in football. Gordon orchestrated the move of former number one draft pick Tom Boyd to the Western Bulldogs. One wonders if Collingwood even considered making a play for Boyd, the whispers from the day Boyd landed at the Giants was that he would be returning to Victoria, sooner rather than later.
Given Boyd’s performance for the Dogs in this seasons grand final, it could prove to be the greatest recruiting coup since Barassi went to Carlton. Factor in the dramatic fall from grace for former Collingwood forward Travis Cloke, and Collingwood supporters must be wondering what Boyd would look like in black and white.
Eddie McGuire is quite possibly one of Australia’s biggest media individual success stories, considering his relative humble upbringings. An unsuccessful stint as CEO of Channel 9 aside, everything he’s touched has turned to gold.
He could offer potential players commercial and media opportunities fellow club Presidents could only dream of. So why then has Collingwood failed to shock the football world with a significant recruitment strike? Disregard the notion its actually quite difficult with the rules the AFL has in place to regulate player movement. Has there been an occasion in recent times where an elite player has nominated a club they would like to play for, and not turned out for that club the following season?
A rugby league supporter and casual Greater Western Sydney supporter recently commented, “All I hear is all this noise from Eddie about how big and powerful Collingwood are, yet they don’t win anything. I don’t hear a peep out of Hawthorn’s President and they have won three out of the last four flags.”
Given Collingwood’s lack of recent success compared to their status and financial position, Eddie might want to let go of his fixation on NSW clubs. He might want to focus his attention on orchestrating a recruitment drive that really establishes Collingwood as the most successful and powerful sporting club in the land.
Or perhaps Eddie is a visionary and will outsmart everyone, believing women’s sport is going to take the Australian sporting landscape by storm. Might explain why Collingwood launched perhaps the biggest recruiting raid in the history of Australian sport, when they recently formed their women’s netball squad and the equivalent of a dream team.
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