The Collingwood Magpies and the Essendon Bombers are set to fight out one of the most anticipated Anzac Day matches in recent years as both sides come into the big game with momentum.
A few times in the not-too-distant past we’ve seen one or both of these sides enter this fixture low on form or confidence or both, so it’s a nice change of pace to have both coming in off the back of impressive wins.
Collingwood, after an 0-2 start to the season, got their first win against Carlton in Round 3, then backed that up with a remarkable performance against Adelaide last Friday.
Essendon are the only other side in the league so far to have a win over the Crows, which they took in Round 1. It was followed by two losses, but they notched their second win last week against the Power.
Collingwood have named an unchanged side for the match, while the Bombers have had to replace Orazio Fantasia who will miss through injury, bringing in Jackson Merrett.
The Dons are fielding the more experienced side of the two. Their 22 has played a collective 2027 AFL games compared to Collingwood’s 1854.
So far this year the more experienced team is winning roughly two out of three times.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Collingwood have been lauded as having one of the more stacked midfields in the competition for a while now, but their Achilles heel over the past few years has been a lack of ability to turn this into points on the board.
The Magpies are third in the league for clearance differential so far this year with +5.75 per game, no doubt helped by the good form of Brodie Grundy, whose dominance is giving the Pies +14.25 hitouts per game (fourth best in the league).
The bad news for the Pies – and they’ve learned this in previous years – is that clearances do not win football games. Over the first four rounds the side winning the clearance count has been at best a 50/50 chance to win the game.
The fact that the No.1 team in the league for positive clearance differential is winless Brisbane should make you sceptical of how valuable they are to win.
Instead, the feather in Collingwood’s cap is their tackling pressure. They average nearly 1.4 tackles per minute of opposition possession.
It’s the third-best tackle rate in the league, behind only Gold Coast and North Melbourne, whose numbers are currently overinflated by their tackle-heavy game in the Cairns Aquatic Centre.
Collingwood could quite fairly call themselves the league’s No.1 tackling team, and the effort they are putting in there is paying off.
They force a turnover roughly every 37 seconds of opposition possession, the third quickest side to force a turnover in the league, behind only North and Adelaide.
The end result is that the Pies score 56.25 points per game from turnovers, or +1.5 points more than their opponents. It’s not world-beating numbers, but it’s giving them the chance to win games more often than not.
Four out of five teams who have a better tackle rate in a game win that game, as do nine out of ten teams who score more points from intercepts than their opponents.
Something else to make Pies fans proud is that they seem to have shaken the inaccuracy that so often saw them shoot themselves in the foot in 2017.
Collingwood are converting 65 per cent of their shots on goal this season, which makes them the second most accurate side in the AFL behind the West Coast Eagles.
One last little tidbit on the Pies – they average +5.5 free kicks per game, the best differential of any side in the league.
Don’t let this send you into a huff though, the numbers say the side with more free kicks wins less than half the time.
(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
What about Essendon? Their big strength right now is that they have one of the best forward lines in the game.
The Dons have a really nice mix of dangerous tall and small options who can chime in for a goal on a regular basis. Essendon average 9.5 individual goal kickers in each game so far this year, more than any other team in the league.
They score from 47 per cent of their inside 50s, the third best rating of any team behind Geelong and Richmond, and they find a mark inside 50 on roughly a quarter of all entries, second best behind only the Western Bulldogs.
They’ve got a big advantage in both of these respects over Collingwood, who have the third-worst forward efficiency and second-worst mark-inside-50-rate in the competition.
What it all adds up to is that Essendon score 1.91 points per minute in possession, the fourth most of any team, while Collingwood can manage only 1.65 – not bad, just so-so.
It’s worth noting, however, that the Magpies’ forward efficiency and points per minute in possession have both improved markedly in the past fortnight. They might be up there with the better sides in the league soon.
Essendon’s numbers through the midfield are generally below par this year and odds are Collingwood will beat them through the middle of the ground.
They’ll need to put in a sharp performance inside the forward 50 when opportunities come in order to build their own confidence and, ideally, hinder Collingwood’s.
The Pies have improved with every game they’ve played this year though, in particular in terms of their ability to capitalise on their midfield dominance.
If that keeps up then you’d expect they’ll get the win – so the big question is will it? Or has the past fortnight just been a flash in the pan?
There’s a significant risk I’m setting myself up for Nathan Buckley to fool me twice here, but I’ll tip the Pies to maintain the momentum and win this one by 12 points.
That’s my Anzac Day forecast – what’s yours?
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