Footy Fix: Jack Ginnivan just sealed a finals spot - and he might be the Pies' September secret weapon

Let’s get something straight before we begin: Collingwood have not played a more meaningless game than their crushing win over Essendon on Friday night.

You couldn’t possibly say the Magpies are back to their fearsome best despite putting the Bombers to the sword. A 12 goals to two first half was as much the fault of a diabolical performance from a team that seemingly shut up shop two weeks ago, and in the second the Pies played like a team already beginning preparations for a qualifying final in two week’s time.

It’s impossible to read anything into the Pies’ improvement in defending inside 50s or increasing their forward half intercepts exponentially, such was both the tameness of Essendon’s ball movement and their enormous amount of backline turnovers to repeatedly gift the minor premiers goals.

Jordan De Goey’s return to the midfield provided plenty of extra drive, but even in that regard the quality of the opposition was so pitiful it’s impossible to make any judgements on how he and they will fare against a far more power-packed Melbourne on-ball group in the qualifying final.

For 90 per cent of the players on both sides, this game ceased to matter in the least about 15 minutes into the first quarter, by which time the Pies already had four goals to nil on the board.

For the fringes of the Collingwood team, though, it meant everything, with the chance to cement a spot in a finals best 22 on the line. And it’s that group which will surely have gladdened Craig McRae’s heart as much as the win itself.

Mason Cox once again showed his quality as a backup – and maybe more – ruckman to Darcy Cameron; Will Hoskin-Elliott ran tirelessly on the wing to finish with 19 disposals, 16 of them kicks; Oleg Markov provided half-back dash and safe ball use in equal measure; even Finlay Macrae laid a team-high seven tackles in just a half of footy to give himself a fighting, if unlikely, chance of scraping into the qualifying final 23; Tom Mitchell dominated the clearances in more of an inside game than usual for his best performance in the second half of the year.

Most significant of all, however, was Jack Ginnivan, and coming to the business end of what must have been a frustrating season, that he was arguably best afield, and clearly so when the match was up for grabs in the first quarter, is the most encouraging takeaway the Magpies have had for a number of weeks.

Jack Ginnivan celebrates kicking a goal. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Ginnivan became a figure of controversy last year for his alleged embracing of footy’s dark arts, but at his core he remains a smart, skilful pure small forward with excellent timing and a love of the big moments.

All were on display as he led the charge in the Pies’ first-quarter dismantling of the Bombers, a term characterised as much by his excellent work up the field as the two goals he managed closer to the big sticks.

It’s an area of Ginnivan’s game that was his weakest link last season: averaging under 10 disposals per game and fewer than 1.5 tackles in an otherwise excellent campaign meant, despite a superb haul of 40 goals, his spot was far from secure when Bobby Hill was added in the off-season – especially when an off-field indiscretion saw him suspended for the first few weeks of the year.

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17 disposals is his highest figure in more than 12 months, and here’s a quirky stat for you: it’s the first time Ginnivan has ever had more than 15 touches in a game as well as over two goals. More than half of each were managed in the first term alone, with his nine disposals including a goal assist and three score involvements – both of which he’d double by the final siren.

Just one tackle for the night is the area of Ginnivan’s game that remains a clear work in progress, but there were two or three occasions he was able to lay hands on a Bombers defender without impacting the disposal and thus being rewarded with the tackle stat, so it was hardly a reflection of a lack of defensive intent.

In any case, it’s efforts like this during the third quarter, where he read Elijah Tsatas’ kick into the corridor as it was happening, arrived to spoil Nic Martin and bring the ball to ground, keep his feet where the Bomber lost his and calmly steer a left-foot pass to Hill running into an open goal, that really demonstrate the quality of his evening.

Beau McCreery’s intense tackling pressure makes him an almost certain inclusion for the qualifying final, having served his one-match suspension; but Ginnivan’s work as a high half forward suggests that McRae was experimenting with a more wide-ranging use of his goalsneak to figure out how to incorporate both of them, as well as Bobby Hill, into the same 22.

Just five of Ginnivan’s touches came inside 50, a stark contrast from last year’s final round against Carlton, where his three-goal haul came from a 50 per cent split of disposals inside and outside the attacking zone.

All three of his majors came out the back as the Bombers were caught woefully out of position by both their own ineptitude and the speed of the Pies’ ball movement, but none of it was cheating on Ginnivan’s behalf: the third of his goals, in which he sprinted forward from Mason Redman when the Magpies turned the tide upfield and won himself a high free kick as a desperate dive from the Bomber nearly took his head off, the perfect example of his work rate up the ground and then back towards goal.

The upshot out of his performance is this: Ginnivan would be exceedingly unlucky to lose his spot in the 22 in a fortnight’s time.

Darcy Moore will be back, most likely for Billy Frampton, as will McCreery; while Nick Daicos has already been ruled out of week one of the finals but will surely feature in September at one point. That creates a real logjam for spots in the premiership favourites’ best team, the good kind of headache after weeks of injury struggles.

Putting the three-goal haul aside, Ginnivan showed a capacity to fill the role of high half-forward the Pies have usually slotted a midfielder, often Patrick Lipinski, into this year; that he was able to consistently be that link player, with his four inside 50s fourth-most among Magpies, makes him just about indispensable after a performance like Friday night’s.

Once in September, too, he is the kind of player who should relish the stage, and importantly, his goal nous will be a crucial trait with majors likely to be very difficult to come by, particularly against the Demons’ notoriously stingy defence.

Ginnivan didn’t feature when the Pies managed just 17 scores, a season low, against Melbourne on King’s Birthday, a match in which neither McCreery nor Hill gave the Dees’ defence too many headaches.

Damaging at ground level, with strong hands overhead and the ability to make something out of nothing, Jack Ginnivan’s best makes him a secret September weapon for Collingwood.

Now that he’s just about rubber-stamped his spot in the Magpies’ best team again, and found himself a handy niche to keep it moving forward, it’s his chance to turn a frustrating 2023 into one to remember forever.