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The Collingwood Magpies and the Fremantle Dockers face-off in an intriguing match at the MCG tonight. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary from 7:50pm (AEST).
While this match is not overly important in the context of the premiership race, it nevertheless shapes as an even and interesting contest.
While Collingwood have been poor for most of the season, they played two excellent games against Geelong and the Western Bulldogs before the most recent wave of injuries hit their ranks.
However, Rounds 9 and 10 appear to have anomalies, as the Pies went on to suffer bad defeats at the hands of Port Adelaide and Melbourne at the MCG before their Round 13 bye.
However, while their recent form is terrible, they’ll be out to prove a point to themselves and to the rest of the competition.
On the other hand, Fremantle, having started the year with ten straight losses, enter Round 14 on the back of three straight wins.
As such, regardless of the quality of their opposition in the past three weeks, Fremantle will go into this game highly confident of taking the premiership points back west.
In team news, Collingwood have made three changes. James Aish, Travis Cloke and Nathan J. Brown are in, with Jarrod Witts, Ben Crocker and Jack Frost left out of the 22.
In contrast, Fremantle have made just the one change from last week’s victory over Port, with Jack Hannath coming in for Tanner Smith after a week’s omission.
On paper, Collingwood and Fremantle appear to be pretty well matched across the ground. However, although Fremantle have hit a purple patch of form, Collingwood will be absolutely desperate to win after two straight losses at the MCG.
Another loss tonight would see the Magpies slump to 15th, and while they have been pretty bad at times this year, there’s no way that they will let that happen without a fight.
Collingwood’s midfielders will provide greater intensity than Port’s did last week, and they should be able to get the better of the young Dockers brigade.
While Fremantle would love to win, they seem to have less incentive. I expect that the Pies will start the match with a bang in the first quarter and hold on for the victory.
Prediction
Collingwood by 23 points.
See the result differently? The Dockers to have a ‘Pie Night’ of their own? Please let me know! And, of course, don’t forget to join The Roar tonight at 7:50 pm (AEST) for live score updates and debate in our live blog.