Footy Fix: Ferocious Demons shut down the Magpie machine at last... but is it repeatable?

Put the final margin out of mind for a second: Melbourne totally, comprehensively outplayed Collingwood on King’s Birthday.

They thoroughly outhunted the Pies for the hard ball, with 139 contested possessions to 120, despite being without Clayton Oliver. They dialled the pressure up to 11, particularly in attack, with a whopping 17 tackles inside forward 50, to repeatedly force turnovers from Magpie defenders unaccustomed to the ferocity coming their way. And after a sluggish start in which they conceded the first three goals and looked set to be the latest team swamped by the Magpie machine, they utterly dominated the territory battle, producing 10 extra inside 50s and keeping it there for serious lengths of time.

Had the team not got a collective case of the yips to repeatedly botch simple set shots, and had they not been facing a Collingwood team that simply doesn’t know when it is beaten, the eventual margin could have, nay, should have, been six goals plus. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but this was a match that has to be analysed with that front of mind.

For the first time all year, the Magpies’ dazzling, rapid ball movement was shut down – I’d argue Brisbane beat them at their own game in their only other loss of the season. And the result should leave 16 other coaches furiously scribbling in their notebooks right about now… provided, of course, that what Melbourne pulled off is in any way repeatable by anyone else.

Let’s start at the contest. With both sides missing a star midfielder – the Dees’ loss of Oliver matched pretty squarely by the Pies being without Jordan De Goey – it was always going to be about which lesser lights could step up and perform their role.

It was a task made perfectly for Jack Viney, who, after a middling run of form in recent weeks, showed why he remains the heart and soul of this Demons team. The beating heart of the engine room, he set the standard throughout the afternoon that every one of his teammates followed.

By quarter time, Viney had a game-high five tackles to his name, repeatedly harassing, bullocking, and pressuring his Pies opponents around the ball. By full time, that had risen to 11 – and if you’ve ever seen Jack Viney play, you know he tackles to hurt.

Add to that 19 contested possessions, another game high, and nine clearances, far and away the most of anyone out there, and he was a fitting recipient of the Neale Daniher trophy. Perhaps the most impressive part of his afternoon was his three tackles inside attacking 50, second-most behind Alex Neal-Bullen: that, more than anything, was the stat that won this game.

Neither Petracca nor Angus Brayshaw were especially tidy by foot moving forward, particularly early, but inspired by Viney’s example, they tore in hard for the rest of the day, too. Given first use repeatedly by the tag team of Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy in the ruck, who for the first time in weeks looked exactly as menacing a partnership as you’d expect them to be, it was too much for the Magpies to bear.

It was noticeable that, when Craig McRae pulled his usual trick of sending Nick Daicos onto the ball in the second half, that the sharp, in and under handballs needed to get the ball to him on the outside were lacking.

Daicos, a clearance weapon at his best, had just one of those despite significant time on-ball in the game-changing third quarter, while Tom Mitchell, the man most likely to get it out to him, had just one after half time. Little wonder the Dees were so dominant around the ball all afternoon.

That ferocity at the contest was even evident in the last minutes, with the Pies mounting their comeback: how often have we seen Collingwood in that position get clean ball out of the centre and thrust it forward into clear space with dare and danger? They’re the number one team at scoring from centre bounces this year for a reason; yet with the match on the line, they were able to make both crucial bounces in the last minute scrappy, congested affairs, eventually winning the last one via a clearing Petracca kick that officially ended the fightback.

The Pies are middle of the road this year when it comes to their work at the coalface, but no team is more efficient than they are at converting them into chances and scores. It was some effort by the Dees to restrict them to only nine goals for the match, a third of those coming in the first 15 minutes.

Viney’s brilliance leads nicely into the Dees’ second trick: forcing turnovers in their forward half. The Pies’ claim to fame under Craig McRae has been electric, composed ball movement turning defence into attack in the blink of an eye, with sharp, penetrating kicks through the middle to catch defences on the hop. You know, like the famous one against Carlton last year.

This time around, whenever they looked to pull the trigger, the Demons were alert. Rarely in the last 12 months have Collingwood come up against a team that defend at them; time after time, they’re able to handball through a press and charge at teams which have their loose defenders retreating back towards goal with every step, and the results are usually in their favour.

This time, helped by suffocating pressure on their defensive transitioners that resulted in scrubby kicks galore, the Pies just couldn’t get any reliable ball movement going their way. By the midpoint of the second term they were going at 41 per cent by foot in their forward half, about 50 per cent down on their usual standards this year; I’d wager that figure would have dropped into the mid-30s by the end.

It was evident in plays like Scott Pendlebury loping towards 50 in acres of space in the last quarter, steadying, and kicking straight to Adam Tomlinson. It was especially evident in Brayden Maynard looking to lead a charge through the centre, but hitting a wave of Demons pressure, letting the ball spill free, and allowing Viney in to gather, blind turn into space, and hit up Jacob van Rooyen inside 50 for the goal that ended up winning the match.

That play was, first and foremost, set up by Jake Lever charging at Maynard, rather than retreating like most teams do. You see it in the pic below from Fox Footy: Lever guarding the centre corridor as he did all day, waiting for the perfect moment to strike and impact the contest; then, the moment a John Noble handball with three Dees swarming him misses Maynard, he pounces, forcing the turnover. Viney does the rest.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Dees had a plan all afternoon for Nick Daicos, to prevent his involvement in chains like this.

It was simple: Neal-Bullen would keep a close eye on him whenever the Dees were without the football, while his teammates would regularly set up a wall just in front of any Magpie ball-carrier, particularly from a mark, when Daicos drew near.

Apologies for the blurry photo, but you can still see what’s going on: Pendlebury has the ball and his first instinct is to try and give to Daicos; but Neal-Bullen has other ideas. Not too many teams even put this much attention into him.

But it’s not that simple; otherwise it would play right into Collingwood’s hands. Noble comes flying past a second later, either to receive from Pendlebury or force Neal-Bullen to abandon Daicos to guard the more dangerous player. It works: Neal-Bullen leaves Daicos and rushes to cover him.

That’s where the wall kicks in: Kysaiah Pickett and Joel Smith, both trailing behind Noble, move in front of Pendlebury, one on either side, blocking up the path into which Daicos can run. Pendlebury and Daicos both see this, and don’t bother with a handball receive.

Given both Daicos’ elite skills and the Magpies’ year-long desire to get the ball into his hands at all costs, to deny them this is noteworthy, and it certainly had an impact in how poor they were moving the ball into attack.

By three quarter time, Daicos had two inside 50s, down on his season average of four, and one score involvement, a mile down from his season average of nearly seven. He’d have just one score involvement in the last quarter, too; the goal he kicked to draw the margin to four points, having been shifted forward in the last in a desperate attempt by McRae to fix their ball movement problems.

Given Daicos still had 27 disposals, this was a tremendous example of how to effectively nullify his influence without needing to totally shut him out of the game.

The result was the Demons winning 32 forward half intercepts, with less effective ball users like Maynard, Taylor Adams and Will Hoskin-Elliott forced to step up and be the distributors inside 50. With the Dees’ defensive structure looking as sound as it has been all year, helped by Adam Tomlinson’s presence as a key back freeing up Lever and Steven May to do intercepty things, the marks on the lead the Pies have made their trademark this year dried up.

Lever, as it happens, had just one intercept mark all afternoon, while May and Gawn had four each. But for intercept possessions, Lever was right up with the best for the day with eight, equal with May.

Going the other way, the Dees kicked 2.10 from their forward half intercepts, with gettable shot after gettable shot squandered having set them up so perfectly. This was a six-goal hiding of a quality team in a four-point thriller’s clothing.

So, what can we learn from this? I’d argue not much. The Pies looked for all the world like a team knackered, and reports of a bug floating through the camp during the week make plenty of sense. You’d certainly not expect to see the likes of Pendlebury butchering the ball inside 50 like he did all afternoon on a regular basis, pressure or no. Next week’s bye comes at a perfect time for them to refresh, still percentage clear atop the ladder and looking a shoo-in for top two at least (touch wood quickly for me, Magpies fans).

The Pies also ran into the perfect opponent to capitalise on an off day: the Demons are the number one side in the comp at generating forward half turnovers, thanks to their bevy of pressure smalls led by Neal-Bullen and Kysaiah Pickett, while their miserly defence is difficult to score on if you don’t have a big brute of a key forward to keep May occupied. Brody Mihocek, having an outstanding season, just wasn’t able to stop him having a huge say on proceedings, nor make the most of the very limited chances that came his way.

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All up, it was a perfect storm that hit Collingwood at the ‘G – it’s both a miracle and a sign of how outstanding they are that they could have pinched it anyway in the last 30 seconds.

The big story out of this is Melbourne. A sleeping giant for much of the start of the season, they’ve been threatening to entrench themselves in the top four without ever looking like being a top-two rival to the Magpies or Port Adelaide or even Brisbane.

That changes now: for the first time all year, they have a serious scalp to their name, made all the more meritorious by the absence of Oliver.

For all the concerns about them, the Dees are third with a 9-4 record, an exceptional percentage, a bye to refresh, and having racked up 18 scoring shots on the best defence in the league.

They’re back.