Experienced Pies Roll Young Roos

The Age

Monday September 4, 2006

STEPHEN RIELLY

THERE was no need to consult the local tea leaf reader before venturing to predict the outcome of yesterday's match between Collingwood and the Kangaroos at the MCG.

The Magpies, guaranteed finalists, armed themselves with experience for the occasion by bringing Nathan Buckley, Chris Tarrant and Shane Wakelin into the 22. Next week, not next year, being the priority.

The Kangaroos, on the other hand, put a team on the ground that was an eight-year-old short of a little league side. No fewer than nine of the Roos chosen to finish off the season for the club were 22 or younger.

Dean Laidley's centre-square combination at the opening bounce included Hamish McIntosh, a 22-year-old ruckman, Andrew Swallow, a 19-year-old first-year player, Daniel Wells, a star but still only 21, and Daniel Harris, the grey beard of the group at 24. This was a call to 2007, perhaps 2008, being answered.

As if to emphasise the point, when the final term opened, with the Kangas surprisingly only 22 points adrift, the team's leading goal kicker, Nathan Thompson, and best player, Wells, were on the interchange bench and Brad Moran, a 200-centimetre soccer convert playing in only his second match, was chasing the great Buckley.

Which helps to explain the 10 goals Collingwood subsequently produced and the 68-point win it marched away with, a blast reminiscent of the second-half mauling the Kangas received when the teams met earlier in the season.

If the clearly different priorities made the result an easy one to forecast, though, they clouded the worth of the manner in which it was reached. The Magpies were dancing like a heavyweight by the end but until Paul Licuria, Tarkyn Lockyer and Alan Didak zipped three unanswered goals past the Roos in time-on of the third quarter, they were scarcely better than the third worst team in the competition.

To that point, the sides often bore an unflattering resemblance to one another. There was lots of industry, lots of milling and buzzing about but little finesse. For much of the first half, in particular, it was as if the teams took it upon themselves to trade turns at trying to smuggle the ball across enemy lines, hoping to avoid detection by playing inconspicuously.

Each crept around the boundary playing a hesitant form of the game that needed disguises, false passports and the cover of night. Without them, the game was littered with faltering, broken chains of ideas that suggested a lack of confidence rather than any ingenuity.

It was a six-goal to five-goal game at the half, with Anthony Rocca, Chris Tarrant, Sean Rusling, Nathan Thompson and David Hale all goalless. Sav Rocca was the only strong-marking forward to announce himself in the first 60 minutes but after two first-quarter goals he was drawn into the black space from which no forward escapes - the dungeon of James Clement.

Sav bade AFL football a farewell with a performance that, in one way, was typical of his career. With four kicks he drove home three goals. But he was also sharply reminded by Clement of how difficult the game has become for the mark-and-kick player of today, a lot very different to the one he encountered as a debutant in 1992.

When, late in the third term, the game and the gap between the teams finally opened up, it was scarcely a surprise that it was the Collingwood midfielders who profited most, not least Paul Licuria who kicked three of his four goals in the last term.

Mick Malthouse had at his disposal a group of hardened, experienced players wanting to be in the team next week. Wells, Harris and Brady Rawlings apart, Laidley had few players to move in and out of the centre square who were able to stand their ground, a fact the Roos have been living with since the losses of Adam Simpson and Shannon Grant several weeks ago.

Centre-square rotations, experience and desire finally told against the Roos. Dane Swan, Scott Burns, Ben Johnson Shane O'Bree and Licuria rolled over their rivals and out of the middle in the final quarter. They were mighty, even if the opposition wasn't.

DETAILS

COLLINGWOOD

3.3 6.7 10.13 20.19 (139)

KANGAROOS

3.4 5.5 7.9 10.11 (71)

GOALS

Collingwood: Licuria 4, Egan 3, Tarrant 3, Lockyer 2, Didak, Buckley, R Shaw, Johnson, Lonie, Swan, Rocca, Holland.

Kangaroos: Rocca 3, Corey Jones 3, Watt, Green, Harvey, Rawlings.

BEST

Collingwood: Johnson, Burns, Clement, Licuria, Egan, Fraser, Tarrant.

Kangaroos: Wells, Harvey, Harris, Petrie, Rawlings, Watt.

INJURIES

Collingwood: T Cloke (shoulder) replaced in selected side by Tarrant; Prestigiacomo (migraine).

Kangaroos: Green (cut head).

UMPIRES

James, Head, Ryan.

CROWD

49,040 at MCG.

© 2006 The Age

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