Collingwood Magpies versus Geelong Cats at the MCG; Round 18; scores; fixtures; results

Loading

“It was clear, wasn’t it?” he said, “right from the start”.

“It’s a really, really difficult one to adjudicate because in the moment, you’ve got to work out whether the ball’s gone 15m. You only get a split second to work out whether you’re going to blow the whistle or not.

“And then you’ve got to work out, ‘am I watching the ball carrier to see whether he’s played on’ or ‘am I watching the guy on the mark to see whether he’s abusing the stand rule’?

“So it’s difficult, but, it’s a focus when the opposition last week marked the ball a lot and it was clear we were going to try to mark the ball (a lot tonight). It’s annoying.”

Geelong took 70 more grabs than the Magpies across the night, mimicking a trend set by Essendon last week in their win over Collingwood.

Scott said there had been no pre-game warning that the rule interpretation had changed.

“Sometimes it’s just circumstance, sometimes it’s just four guys who are like, ‘well, I saw him be a bit harsh on that one so in order for us to be consistent, I’m going to be a bit harsh on it as well’, and it sort of snowballs,” Scott said.

While the umpires and Holmes (27 disposals) might have wished to have certain moments all over again, it was Collingwood who would have wished to turn back the clock.

Across the past two seasons, it was the crucial element they could always count on – never running out of time as they sensationally snatched victories from the jaws of defeat. Now, as coach Craig McRae reluctantly admits, time is quickly slipping away.

“The reality is that there is six games to go,” he said. “Time’s running out.”

Last year, 13 wins were needed to guarantee a slot in the top eight. After 18 rounds, Collingwood are 8-7, with two draws, and have lost their past three in a row.

“We’ve got a number in our head that we thought would get the job done to make the finals” McRae said after the Geelong loss.

“But internally, we gotta go, ‘hey, let’s get Monday really well done and keep getting better at our centre bounce or our ability to fight in these little moments or make great decisions around these things, or take away uncontested marks’. We live in that space, but we are also realists – six games to go, running out of time.”

No minutes were more crucial than the start of the match when Geelong kicked three straight goals off the back of centre square dominance and jumped to an 18-point lead. In the end they won the centre square clearances 16 to 6, and the match by 20 points.

Still, the winning margin could have been all so different if not for Collingwood’s immense pressure across the opening half causing numerous Geelong mistakes.

The Magpies were able to capitalise on Geelong’s sloppy turnovers by moving the ball quickly to the advantage of their small forwards such as opportunist Joe Richards and the returning Jamie Elliott, who had a couple of moments of brilliance – one a goal from the boundary, the other a high mark at the top of the goal square.

Holmes said the Cats addressed their meddling ways at halftime on a cold winter night that was uncharacteristically slippery.

“We were a few mistakes away from being six goals up at half-time, to be honest,” Holmes said.

While Nick Daicos was the game’s best player and worked overtime for his 32 disposals against Tom Atkins, it was two mismatches that helped keep Collingwood in the game.

The first was mid-year draftee Ned Long standing Tom Stewart in the midfield and doing an admiral job of curbing the new-look midfielder’s influence. The second was McRae assigning rebounding defender Isaac Quaynor to Jeremy Cameron (3 goals), despite conceding 16cm in height.

“You know how many goals he (Cameron) kicked last time we played him? He kicked seven goals four,” McRae said.

“So for most parts, we felt like we had one of their most dangerous players in check.”

In the last quarter Stewart clashed heads with Collingwood’s Lachie Schultz and left the ground for attention to a cut to his head. But while Schultz was subbed out of the game, Stewart returned to the mix.