Great article and your analysis is spot on. The Magpies game style has been woeful for most of the past ten years. Malthouse may have given up on discipline in 2011 as you say, but the team was an absolute joy to watch that year. They gelled beautifully and looked like champions. I haven’t seen that since, except maybe in the 2018 final series, particularly that match against Richmond (strangely also in that West Coast final in 2020 – a game out of the ordinary, where did that come from?). If I have to watch another year of that pap I may have to let my membership go. Time for Buckley to deliver, or hand over the reigns.

Good article. Good to know I’m not alone in my disappointment in Collingwood over the past years. Suddenly after 2011 their game style deteriorated into a cramped, stifling, energy-sapping style which seemed to be aimed more at stopping the opposition than taking on the game. And it seems to have been accompanied by a steady erosion of skills. There have been occasions when they have broken free from that style – the 2018 finals were an example of that – but by and large they seem to be lurching from crisis to crisis with no clear plan for the future. The current leadership appears to be bereft of any ideas. Really disappointing.

Brilliant 😂 . Gould’s inane Sydney-centric commentary was a serious flaw in Nine’s telecast, along with the rest of the flaws. They should put it on Foxtel so that we have the choice.

There’s a staleness about Collingwood’s approach to the game and has been ever since Malthouse left. Their style is cramped, defensive, it feels constrained and is very frustrating to watch. There was a brief breakout in the 2018 finals when suddenly a new Collingwood emerged that was creative, adventurous, playing with flair and daring, with great skills and execution. And there have been flashes since. But mostly it’s a dire affair and it’s been some time since I have enjoyed watching them play. They have many talented players in the team and I don’t doubt their commitment. But I feel their game style crushes their player’s ability to play football and they will not succeed until they change their approach.

What a dreadful way to introduce an article. “The Storm have earned a reputation over the years for dirty play…” Who came up with that one-eyed partisan cheap shot? And who says they’re earned that reputation, with what proof? Actually the Storm have earned a reputation over the years for being a supremely professional rugby league side that has delivered consistently high performance over many many years, and given their fans many superb moments of delight. They have consistently developed champions of the game, and some of the best players in Rugby League history. Whoever wrote that crap as an opening line ought to be given some tuition in real journalism. Partisan garbage.

I don’t believe that distraction was a factor in 2011. I attended almost every game that year and the team were a joy to watch. They were away with a blaze in the Grand Final until late in the third term, when injuries and a hard season began to take their toll. Ben Reid was playing with an injury in the final quarter and Tom Hawkins ripped us apart in a just few moments that I will never forget for the rest of my life. That Collingwood team, 2009-2011 was the best I’ve seen play in decades of following the ‘Pies.
Since then however there have been many times when I have despaired at the way the ‘Pies play their football. There was a moment of relief in the final series of 2018 – the old ‘Pies game style returned and they were fantastic. But outside of that brief period there have been many examples of WTF?

Great article and sums up exactly the way I feel as a lifelong ‘Pies supporter. I’m disappointed more than anything. Up until recently everything Eddie has done at Collingwood has made me proud to be associated with the club. The Adam Goodes gaffe and this latest miserable moronic mockery of Caroline Wilson have soured that feeling. I hope Eddie manages to overcome this and avoid a way of repeating it ever again, so that he can be admired and respected for his mountain of good work, rather than his occasional monumental lack of maturity.

Well said Angela. Only those who haven’t been on the receiving end of persistent ridicule and abuse can dismiss such comments as ‘banter”. It is small boy stuff really, but then that’s what footy culture always has been, and why the AFL as the industry leader wants to stamp it out. It’s pie night ‘culture’, without any sign of culture at all, and it belongs in the past.

Eddie’s comments are very disappointing. Coming on the back of his equally stupid comments about Adam Goodes it’s reminiscent of the bad old days at Collingwood under Allan McAlister. In addition to his boofhead comments about Caroline Wilson, Eddie’s blasé comments about throwing around ten grand, even fifty grand on such a stupid exercise show just how out of touch with the real footy fan he has become, moving in the upper strata of the nouveau riche as he does these days. Eddie’s obviously become a silver tale financially, but his common lack of grace remains. Stop admiring yourself in the mirror Eddie. Your footy team’s in trouble and your world is beginning to show cracks.

Fascinating. Who says football isn’t rocket science?!

Obviously Murdoch thinks we’re all sheep, waiting for the dog to bark so we all know where to run to. His arrogance to frame the news to drive his own agenda knows no bounds. It’s why I haven’t bought a Murdoch paper in years.

Good well balance and perceptive article. You have summed up the situation perfectly. Let’s hope that out of this debacle better governance of AFL clubs emerges. If so the pain and the damage of the past few years will not have been in vain.

Is your viewpoint based on evidence or have you just imagined all this? If based on evidence, what is it?

You are right. The club has handled it well. There is no point in speculating as to how the club would have handled it had it been one of their star players involved. That is just conjecture; we will never know. But I expect that they would have handled it the same way. People make mistakes, and young players are highly vulnerable. Keefe and Thomas are not the first young players to put their foot in it. But they do have a track record now at Collingwood for handling these issues well, fairly but firmly. They are a very professional outfit.

Seen that sketch in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, where the black knight has his arms and legs chopped off and King Arthur walks away, and the black night keeps egging him on?

King Arthur: Look, you stupid b@@#$@d, you’ve got no arms left!
Black Knight: Yes I have.
King Arthur: Look!
Black Knight: Just a flesh wound.

Hmmm. Jeremiah 5:21 “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not”

In other words: “There are none so blind as those that will not see”. 😉

Suggest name change from Red B to Red Herring. Surprised you didn’t throw in our drug problem. Maybe that’s coming?

I thought he was found guilty of poor governance and suspended for a year. Funny, I must have imagined it.

The players at Essendon have not yet been found guilty, not yet. I do think they are unfortunate victims of poor leadership. The governance issues at Essendon however are well established. Firmly on Hird’s plate are the failures there. Pity he wouldn’t listen to anybody, other than his lawyers. In particular he should have listened to David Evans. David Evans came out of the affair with his reputation enhanced, as a person who displays leadership, puts his staff’s interests to the fore and accepts responsibility for his mistakes. If Hird had taken a leaf out of Evan’s book, I reckon this whole saga would now be ove, the players would have come through with minor suspensions, and Essendon FC would still have the respect of the footy public. What a difference a stubborn refusal to admit your mistakes can make. Hird, not ASADA, is responsible for the damage to the players.

Good article and hits the nail on the head. All the fuss over the poor governance at Essendon has masked the poor leadership at the football level. As the tide of the former goes out, the rubble of the latter is left strewn on the beach for all to see. Hird is at the centre of both. The smell of the seaweed at Essendon won’t subside until the chief kelp is cut loose and washed away.

Good article. I started off not supporting Goodes and I still don’t like or approve of his spear dance aimed at the crowd. Lewis Jetta’s even less. I don’t like being lectured and Adam Goodes does seem to have a penchant for lecturing others. When it comes to our shameful history, I don’t think it helps to take sides, or condemn one side or the other. The events of those times must be seen in the prism of those times, and the cruelty inflicted on the indigenous population was also inflicted on the convicts, on the poor and on the underprivileged. The working class in industrial Britain suffered terribly. The sailors of the great Royal Navy that discovered and settled Australia also suffered terribly. They were less than salubrious times.

We have to face all that together, Australians of European, Asian and Indigenous decent together, face it together, find a better way and move on. It would certainly be unfortunate if that booing continued, now that it has been called out as racism. Because continuing it would be racist, divisive, distracting and damaging to our game, and to our image as a nation.

As far as I am concerned, one or two boos is fair game at the cauldron of the Coliseum. If someone stages, boo him. If someone throws a punch, boo him. If the umpire misses an obvious free kick and the other side gets a goal as a result, boo and spit chips. But constant booing is harassment. Constant booing is bullying and has no place in our modern, more enlightened world. I for one will not boo.

I read somewhere that more than 70% of statistics are just made up.

What a simplistic point of view you have of Democracy. You should read a bit more history and philosophy and try to get a better understanding. Democracy has got nothing to do with booing, and as for ‘rights’, what gave you the idea that anybody has the right to have ‘rights’? Where do your ‘rights’ come from? What proof do you have that you have any ‘rights’ at all?

The ‘right’ to boo is what democracy is all about? You must be joking.

I’m not sure I understand this article. Are you just having a laugh or do you mean it? Do you really want to see a society with unbridled ‘freedom’? Ignoring the fact that such freedom is impossible (since one person’s total freedom is another person’s imprisonment), a society without rules and restrictions on will is a society, like nature, where the stronger rule the weaker, where dog eat dog, and where every day becomes a battle for survival for all. ‘Freedom”? I think you’ve been paying too much attention to republican American propaganda.

I’m not a big fan of Adam Goodes these days, but I won’t boo him. Nothing to do with ‘freedom’. I won’t boo him because it is now getting boring, worse it is bringing our great game into disrepute and it is tarnishing our image as Australians.

You want to boo? Do it in the bathroom while your shaving.

You’re as bad as that other bloke with your red herrings. Actually, if you go back and check what happened, Collingwood fans haven’t done anything to Adam Goodes. As for Eddie, he did make a fool of himself, but at least he apologised. Let’s see if your dysfunctional hero has the courage to do the same. And while you’re at it, try and keep on topic for gawd’s sake.

Now you are being silly. Eddie may have put his foot in his mouth on occasion, I’ll grant you, and he has since apologised. He has also done some great and generous things for football, the community and certainly for the Collingwood Football Club. Tomic and Kyrgios on the other hand have brought disapprobation on a grand scale, and have damaged the image of what it means to be Australian. Their disgraceful behaviour shows a deep and unhealthy obsession with themselves. Get some perspective and try and avoid red herrings in future.