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AFL top 100: Round 1, Game 2 (Magpies vs Bulldogs)

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Roar Guru
28th January, 2021
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The second game of Round 1 features two teams that finished in the bottom half of the final eight and they will be looking for improvement to lift them higher up the list: Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs.

As every team needs to improve to even maintain their spot on the ladder, both sides will be hoping for improvement to come from the maturing of regulars on their lists and the influx of new talent. Collingwood will welcome back the injured Jeremy Howe who missed most of last year, and hopefully find room for the promising Will Kelly while the Bulldogs will be strengthened by the addition of Adam Treloar, whose untidy departure from Collingwood will add spice to the contest.

The Bulldogs may also unveil the most talked-about new recruit since the draft was finalised: Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, who turns 19 in April. Ugle-Hagan was originally from Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve and is the first indigenous player to be chosen as the first draft pick since Des Headland in 1998.

Coaches Luke Beveridge and Nathan Buckley will cross swords for the ninth time. After winning the first match between the two coaches in Round 17, 2015, Beveridge quickly built on this in the ‘Dogs golden year to increase it to 3-0 and then 4-0 in the 2017 first-round clash. Since then it has been all the Magpies way with the Round 1 meeting last year being the most one-sided game of the eight so far, resulting in a 52-point win to Collingwood and squaring the ledger at four-all.

As you would expect in a club that has played more games than any other in their 125 years in the competition, it is a high achievement to make it onto the list of the top 100 game-players at Collingwood and only three exceptionally talented members of this club will be seen in the black and white when the season commences for the club in March.

Brodie Grundy made it into the top 100 game players in the Round 13 win over North Melbourne and by season’s end – aided by two finals – had climbed up the list to equal 92nd with the 1970s and 1980s player Ricky Barham. Barham was recruited from South Warrnambool and became a crowd favourite in the Number 1 guernsey. Grundy’s first game this year will take him to equal with the recently retired Ben Reid who – hampered by injury and form – played only 16 games in his last three seasons.

The Bulldogs joined the competition much later in 1925 and have had much less success in their 97 years in the competition, but – with a spirited and talented team – now have no less than seven top 100 game-players in the club. Even more pleasing for the traditionalists is that three of the players are sons of past top 100 game players at the Bulldogs.

In total, five of the Bulldog’s top 100 game-players will improve their ranking in the first game they play: The leading current day game player Easton Wood will go past one of the greatest Bulldogs of all time in Charlie Sutton and join three-time best and fairest winner Harry Hickey and 1960s player Gary Merrington. Others to climb the ladder are Jack Macrae, Mitch Wallis, Jason Johannisen and Lachie Hunter.

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From an AFL top 100 perspective, Collingwood’s greatest game player of all time, Scott Pendlebury, will play his 317th game and – although it will not alter his 53rd position on the AFL all-time top 100 game-players – it will add one to his record as Collingwood’s longest-serving captain.

Collingwood’s Jack Crisp – if he plays – will extend his record of consecutive games to a remarkable 142 games, a record that started with his final six games at Brisbane in 2014. He is two season ahead to the next best total by Essendon’s Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.

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