How is it that Collingwood lack basic skills?

I’m not one to sit there and dissect strategies, match-ups, and that sort of thing. I really just know what I see and what I understand in that moment.

Maybe that’s not a lot but, on the other hand, sometimes it helps you dilute the essence of something beyond the grander inferences.

Because, sometimes, things are simple.

So this is my rant from the stands, my rant from a supporter frustrated and losing hope (yes, already), my rant about something that seems so intrinsic and fundamental to football – whether it’s played today, or 150 years ago – that I just don’t get how it hasn’t been remedied in some form.

It’s a rant about skills.

Nowhere has this issue been exemplified greater than at Collingwood for the last three years and two rounds. It’s the Pies’ white whale – the obsession to pursue something so all-encompassing, something that might bring value and meaning and satisfaction to the damned team (Collingwood teams have often been damned – just check out the grand final record), but which ultimately dooms them time and time again (probably as often as Moby Dick is read).

Here’s a hypothetical scenario that’s reflective of what I’m talking about:

Jeremy Howe kicks out to Brayden Maynard. The team begins to spread. A short pass to Scott Pendlebury at half-back. Teammates stream away. A handball to Taylor Adams. Opposition try to hem Adams in. A handball to Adam Treloar. Treloar breaks the lines. Opposition fall away behind him. Treloar kicks to Jack Crisp.

Now you see the numbers of teammates forward of the ball. The opposition are befuddled. It’s a beautiful tapestry of black and white unfurling all over the ground. The opposition are unraveled trying to cover it.

Crisp prepares to kick. It’s intended to a teammate a mere 15 metres away. There’s no immediate pressure. The teammate is open – nobody close enough to impact him. It’s a gimme. A certainty. Tomorrow’s Tatslotto’s numbers. You wouldn’t miss a pass like this. You couldn’t. I could kick this on my opposite foot (and I have enough trouble trying to kick on my preferred foot). Teammates continue to spread with the artistry of an exploding firework. Nail this pass and the team is well and truly away.

Crisp kicks.

And he misses.

Under no immediate physical pressure, he misses his teammate, who’s in the open.

Turnover.

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Every Collingwood player is now grossly out of position. The opposition have metres on them. They break hard. It takes at least a second for the Pies players to react and adjust – they were fully invested in the chain of possessions, unbelieving that it could come undone, and are stuffed from how hard they were spreading.

In that second, the opposition have already gained invaluable space. Collingwood are neither in position to implement a zone, nor to go directly man on man. They all look grossly out of position – unstructured. In fact, in the time it’s taken them to contemplate all this, several opponents have gained such distance on them, that they charge into an open and uncontested forward 50. The result is a goal.

I’ve seen this so often in the last three years and two rounds.

When Collingwood are able to string a chain of effective possessions together, they can look scintillating – for example, their 7.5 opening quarter against Geelong in Round 9 of last year; or their 9.2 third quarter against North (after trailing by 39 points at half-time) in Round 9 of 2015.

These are two examples where the Pies performed for whole quarters. Often, you’ll see it in glimpses. It’ll tantalise. It’ll seduce. It’ll make false promises.

It’ll, inevitably, break your heart.

Now you have to ask how effective is a gameplan that relies on absolute disposal efficiency, accepting that players are human and are going to make mistakes – and then compound that by the fact that Collingwood’s list has a number of good uses of the player, but perhaps only a couple of great users.

Then ask why these players are so often making such simple mistakes – and by basic, I don’t mean a player fails to pinpoint a teammate 5- metres away, surrounded by nine opponents. Often, it’s a simple kick that misses a teammate 20 metres away, or a bad handball that, at worst, misses a teammate, and, at best, forces them to stop and prop and puts them under immediate pressure.

These are basics of the game, taught from the moment you pick up a ball and play kick-to-kick – hit the guy on the other side. You grow up, play in the park with friends, and your only mandate is pass to a teammate. It’s drilled into you as you start playing club football. You learn this before you learn anything else.

It’s the equivalent of learning to walk. How do players suddenly unlearn this as a requirement?

It can’t be simplified to Nathan Buckley not training the players correctly. I find it hard to reconcile that a guy who was one of the best and most precise kicks the game’s ever seen wouldn’t know how to set-up training drills to hone his players’ skills.

In any case, it’s training. Just like during pre-game warm-ups, players nail passes, shots at goals, and execute infallibly. I just can’t query that as a cause.

So are the players just bad? I’m sure some are, but you also see good players with reliable skills fail to execute. It’s really an epidemic that spares nobody in the team. That also invalidates experience as an argument – sure, it will apply to some players, but not all of them.

So is it pressure, or inferred pressure? I’m sure that can be a contributor at times, but not all the time. Then what’s left?

Now, it’s just speculation. Player fatigue? Is the gameplan too taxing? Is training too taxing? Are they too exhausted to execute? Do the players not care enough? Are they too lackadaisical?

Are they – at least on a subconscious level – not playing for Buckley? Are they not respectful or frightened enough of him as a senior coach, that they’re indifferent to the repercussions of failure?

Has some mad scientist come back from the future with a gravitational raygun which they point at Collingwood players to undo their best intentions?

Who knows.

The only certainty is this keeps happening, and because this keeps happening, the Pies keep unravelling – offensively, structurally, and in terms of improvement. They then rely almost exclusively on defensive pressure and frenetic tackling, and it’s that off by a microbe, they look lacklustre.

Skills – it shouldn’t be that hard, so why do they continue to be Collingwod’s undoing?

And when will they improve?