Collingwood Magpies 113 Hawthorn Hawks 68 (July 28, 2006)
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0 commentsCollingwood Magpies has punished Hawthorn Hawks for its inability to use the ball effectively and celebrated skipper Nathan Buckley's 250th game for the club with a comfortable 45-point victory at the MCG on Friday night.
Aided by some terrible decision-making early by the Hawks, the Magpies set up their 16.17 (113) to 11.2 (68) win with two five-goal bursts in the first and second terms as the brown and gold wilted under an impressive 63 tackles.
The Pies led by as much as 11 goals midway through the third term before the Hawks minimised the carnage by winning the second half.
While Campbell Brown, Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell could hold their heads high, the Hawks had very few other contributors, while the Pies had no shortage of winners around the ground.
Shown no respect early by Joel Smith, Alan Didak had a night out with 25 touches and three goals, while Leon Davis impressed with 24 possessions and Travis Cloke, manned up by Jarryd Roughead early, underlined his tremendous potential with 12 marks and two goals.
Zac Dawson was again given the job on Anthony Rocca but after conceding three goals in the first half was relieved by Robert Campbell and moved on to Travis Cloke.
Missing Mark Williams who was a late withdrawal, the Hawks lacked a target in their forward line and were not helped by the absence of Trent Croad in the second half.
After an encouraging three weeks, the Hawks did their best to butcher the ball in the opening quarter as a combination of indecisive disposal and the Magpies' pressure crippled the brown and gold.
Cloke intercepted an ambitious Jordan Lewis kick inside the Hawks' defensive 50 for the game's first, and when Heath Shaw and Anthony Rocca followed course the Pies had opened a three-goal lead inside 12 minutes.
The Hawks stemmed the bleeding for the next 12 minutes but were unable to set up any meaningful shots on goal and later punished by Tarkyn Lockyer and Buckley.
Hawks supporters had to wait until the eight-minute mark of the second term for their team's first goal, while the wayward Pies kicked four behinds before Cloke broke their run of outs.
Leading by 33 points after keeping the Hawks goalless in the first quarter, the Pies could have put the game beyond doubt in the opening minutes of the second term but kicked three straight behinds before John Barker kicked his team's first major of the match.
The Hawks then enjoyed their best period of the match as the experience of Shane Crawford, who was proving a handful for Shaw, produced back-to-back goals, reducing the margin to 25 points.
But the Pies nailed five goals in as many minutes to blow the gap out to 56 points at the long break.
With the sting out of the match, the Hawks doubled their score in the third term, winning the quarter in the process.
They jumped out of the blocks in the final quarter with two goals in as many minutes to Mitchell and Lewis, but Didak's reply put the margin back out to eight goals, extinguishing any hopes the Hawks had of a miracle win.
To the Hawks' credit, they also won the final term but the Magpies had already flown the coop.
Collingwood coach Michael Malthouse conceded an opportunity was lost to win by a greater margin but overall the win was all he wanted.
"We'll take the four points, and if someone had have said 40-odd points, I would've taken it everyday of the week," Malthouse said.
"It could've been bigger, but we didn't have the football as much as what we needed to, to put more pressure on them, and our kicking for goal was quite ordinary."
Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson said while the game was all over by half-time due to the Hawks' poor field kicking, he was encouraged by his team's effort to win the second half.
"Our first half we were pretty poor at finding our targets. Collingwood scored seven goals in the first half from our turnovers. Take away those seven goals and its three goals each," Clarkson said.
"It's very simplistic and the game doesn't unfold like that, but when you turn the footy over in that sort of manner then a handy side with powerful forwards are going to hurt you."
"To the credit of our guys we addressed those sorts of things at half-time when we had a bit of time to look at the game and at least we came out in the second half and played a little bit better and won both the third and the fourth quarters so that was encouraging, but unfortunately the game was shot at half-time."
COLLINGWOOD: 5.4 11.9 13.14 16.17 (113) HAWTHORN: 0.1 3.1 6.2 11.2 (68)
- GOALS -
- Collingwood: Rocca 4, Didak 3, Buckley 2, T.Cloke 2, H.Shaw 2, Lockyer, O'Bree, Tarrant
- Hawthorn: Barker 2, Crawford 2, Franklin 2, Birchall, Brown, Lewis, Mitchell, Roughead
- BEST -
- Collingwood: T.Cloke, J.Cloke, Didak, Buckley, H.Shaw, Clement, Johnson, Fraser, Rocca
- Hawthorn: Brown, Mitchell, Hodge, Crawford
- INJURIES -
- Collingwood: Clement (corked buttocks), Davis (left ankle)
- Hawthorn: Croad (concussion)
- CHANGES -
- Collingwood: Thomas (shoulder) replaced in selected side by Davis
- Hawthorn: Williams replaced in selected side by Barker
- REPORTS -
- Collingwood: Nil
- Hawthorn: Nil
- UMPIRES - McBurney, Grun, Jeffrey
- CROWD - 54,306 at MCG
reprinted courtesy of afl.com.au
Date
July 28, 2006
