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The Collingwood Magpies travel to Metricon Stadium to face the Gold Coast Suns, with both sides looking to cement themselves in the eight. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary from 4:40 pm AEST.
Gold Coast have slowed as of late, losing four of their last five after a barnstorming start to the season.
The Pies have been up and down, but have done what they needed to in a run of games against teams near the lower regions of the ladder. They were pushed by the Dogs but showed what they can do at full flight in the first quarter of last week’s game against Carlton.
Last season’s match up between these sides represented Gold Coast’s most important game of the year, a seven-point victory against the odds. Collingwood allowed Suns captain and eventual Brownlow medalist Gary Ablett free run over the game, letting him set up play and damage the Magpies going forward without a tagger.
That won’t be the case this week. Brent Macaffer has all but started his job on Ablett and will be hoping to quell some of the star’s influence.
The Suns have responded in kind, with coach Guy McKenna taking aim at Travis Cloke, saying that they would be “reminding him” about his set shot technique throughout the game.
Even without the coach’s mind games, Cloke has enough worries coming into this match. Gold Coast defender Rory Thompson has performed strongly against Cloke in both of the games he’s played against Collingwood, recording 23 spoils and only allowing two goals.
The Pies will no doubt come out the gates firing, but defeating the Suns at home is certainly not the fait accompli it was in the Sun’s formative years. Gold Coast have won five out of seven games at Metricon this season, only dropping matches to top-four sides Hawthorn and Sydney.
For the Suns, Seam Lemmens and Aaron Hall come in for Matt Shaw and Luke Russell. These swaps could be considered somewhat like for like, but will look to add some more dash to the GC suns side.
The Magpies have dropped Jesse White after a poor performance, while two important players in Jamie Elliot and Luke Ball miss through injury. Collingwood have opted not to bring in Nick Maxwell or Kyle Martin and instead Marley Williams, Brodie Grundy and Tom Langdon return to the setup. Expect Tyson Goldsack to spend most of his game up forward with Langdon back in, with Jarrod Witts also spending a fair chunk of the match up front.
Both sides will need a significant scoreboard contribution from their midfields. The contested possession is another crucial battle and the Suns are ranked first in the competition in that area this season (the Pies eighth). It should be a cracker to watch as two of the strongest and classiest midfield groups in the competition go head to head.
It looms as a hugely important contest for both sides. If Collingwood want to keep their top four aspirations alive, coming away with four points from this game will make that equation a lot simpler for them. If the Suns want to prove they belong, there’s no better time to do it.
For mine, the Suns will have the edge slightly at home and will sneak past Collingwood.
Join us for the live blog of what could well be the match of the round at 4:40pm AEST.
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