Essendon v Collingwood – The Four Points
If there is a better sight in world sport than a packed MCG on a sunny day, then I am yet to see it. Almost 100,000 people, supporters alike, seated in Australia’s sporting colosseum, ready to watch a match that – finals and events held every four years aside – must be the best attended in the world.
That was the image we were all greeted with today when Essendon met Collingwood for the 31st time on Anzac Day. Essendon came into the game with a youthful vigour that belied their 1-5 record, while Collingwood entered the game still trying to get their groove back, having started the season with a mixed 3-3 win-loss record, amid a growingly concerning inability to hit the scoreboard. It had been 15 games since Collingwood had scored more than 13 goals in a match – let alone 100 points – but if there was ever an opportunity to break that streak, it was today against a young and inexperienced Essendon defence.
Essendon, on the other hand, were coming off a promising fortnight – a dominant win over Melbourne, followed by a more than respectable nine-point loss to Gold Coast away. The loss to Gold Coast saw them kick over 100 points for the second week in succession and achieve the feat while having over half their team kick at least one goal. If there was going to be a way for these young Bombers to topple the Pies and add to their win tally for season 2026, it would have to be done by sharing the scoring and forcing Collingwood to defend multiple avenues to goal.
Unsurprisingly, in a game where the Pies were, on average, almost five years older than their Bombers opponents, Collingwood proved far too strong, running out winners by 77 points. Their elite forward pressure – a staple of their 2023 premiership – as back in full force in the second half, as the Pies piled on 15 goals to six, to steamroll what had been a promising first half from the Bombers.
Nick Daicos gave Pies fans whiplash with the difference in quality between his first and second half, Archie Roberts seemed to have the ball on a string, while Scott Pendlebury reminded us all that he has been and will continue to remain one of the best to ever play the sport.
Here are the four points.
It’s a clearance game, dummy!
There exists many different philosophies on how to play our great game. In fact, every year it seems a coach or two have dreamt up some new way of, essentially, kicking the ball between the two big sticks. Some coaches want to try and build their attacks from the back half, using intercept defenders to zone off opponents and drive their side’s scoring by forcing their opponent to chase back to goal. Others try to flood their defence and win by ensuring that the opponent simply can’t score. Others again, like to control the ball and use precision kicking to try and pick apart a defence, ensuring that risk-taking is limited and skills are valued at a premium. These ideas, and many more, are all lovely, except they often forget one thing – the centre clearance.
In the five matches leading up to today, Collingwood had ranked second-last in centre clearances, accumulating only 10 a game, while the Bombers were averaging 13. This is despite Collingwood often having a centre bounce midfield triplet of Daicos, Pendlebury and Jordan De Goey, all players renowned for their either their explosiveness away from a contest or their acumen in finding the explosive player. Indeed, in the three seasons preceding this one, Collingwood have been at worst average in centre clearances, never dipping below 11 a game. In many people’s eyes, it was the decision to replace their premiership ruckman – and reigning Copeland Medallist – Darcy Cameron as the side’s main ruckman with 2022 pre-season supplemental selection Oscar Steene that has hastened this decline.
Today, however, should quieten these voices down, as Collingwood were utterly dominant out of the midfield, winning centre clearances 20-9, and many of these were down to the superb tap-work from Steene. I lost count of the number of times any Collingwood midfielder (especially Daicos) were able to exit centre clearances with their shoulders forward pointing towards goal. Most sides are lucky if that happens once or twice a game, but for most of the match today it felt like Collingwood would exit the centre and deliver the ball inside 50 as a matter of course, and then the game would actually start.
For a side that values field position and forward pressure as much as the Pies do, centre clearances are vitally important to all they do and having a ruckman like Steene emerge and be more impactful than Cameron at centre bounces is a credit to their recruitment and development team. Cameron is no slouch, and is often regarded as the de-facto fourth or fifth best ruckman in the comp (behind Max Gawn, Brodie Grundy, Tristan Xerri and possibly Tim English), but being able to utilise Steene as a specialist centre-bounce (or I suppose centre ball-up) ruck might be the best way forward.
At times today, and likely going forward, the Pies seemed to be agree with the above, using Steene in many centre bounces, and then having him change over with Cameron, allowing Darcy to use his skills an aerial threat both beyond and in front of the ball, as well as his ability to dominate opponents in wrestles. If this is the way Collingwood are going to organise themselves and play for the rest of the year, it could bode well for their side and make the best use of the talent at their disposal.
Rebuilding is hard to do
If we limit ourselves to only looking at the period from 2000 onwards (i.e. when sides were actually forced to rebuild lists through equalisation measures like the draft and trade period, and weren’t able to simply able to buy ready-made players from interstate competitions or – and I know it’s definitely only happened once – cheat the salary cap), then very few teams can claim to have successfully rebuilt from the bottom of the ladder to a premiership. If we limit it again to only since Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney have come into the competition, the numbers are vastly less. And doing it without access to academy or multiple father-son candidates is much harder still.
All of this is to say that the Bombers rebuild is going as well as it could be. Yes, today’s performance was poor, and in many respects unacceptable, but as I mentioned above, they were on average five years younger than their opponents. And though the game petered out to a really disappointing loss for the red-and-black, there were some shining lights. Much of footy media can be very negative and spend a lot of its time examining how bad things are, and nowhere near enough time highlighting things that are good, or at the very least promising. And I think, here at The Mongrel Punt, we like to celebrate the good. So, Bombers fans, here are … words on the good things about your team today.
Archie Roberts has a wand of a left foot. His kicking, particularly when the game was live in the first half, was fantastic and allowed his teammates breathe a sigh of relief when the ball was in his hands. He can accumulate possessions like almost no-one else in the game (I say almost because the only players better than him were both playing against him today), and he finished with 42 touches, including 28 kicks and seven rebound-50s. Saad El-Hawli was also really impressive, spending most of the game opposed to Jamie Elliott. El-Hawli finished the match with 23 disposals, and while Elliott kicked two for the day, only one of those was in the three quarters El-Hawli matched him up. Archer Day-Wicks, a man who sounds more like a law firm specialising in criminal defence than a footballer, had several moments today that would have had Bombers supporters out of their couches. A magnificent mark and goal in the first term – his second goal for the quarter – admittedly promised more than he delivered, but he was still able to have a couple of moments that had to excite the fans.
All of this is to without even mentioning the two most exciting young Bombers – Nate Caddy and Isaac Kako. Their combination as a one-two punch in the first quarter was exciting and seeing the future before your eyes always brings a smile to face of even the most hardened supporter. Caddy’s ability to work up the ground early in the game and then lose his opponent on the race back to goal, was impressive, as was Kako’s ability to find space and prowl along half-forward early in the game. As the game went on, Caddy’s ability to at least provide a contest as a bad team’s only tall forward option was, frankly, incredible. He finished with 3.3 from 12 touches and seven score involvements, and if it weren’t for Roberts having 42 touches, would have been his side’s best.
Across the last three drafts, the Bombers have taken five players who, they would expect, will be amongst their best seven or eight for the next decade. In 2023, they took Caddy at 10 and Roberts at 54 and followed it up with Kako at pick 13 in 2024. Finally, they took Sullivan Robey at pick nine last year, Jacob Farrow at pick 10, and Dyson Sharp at pick 13. It might take a few years for these credits to fully frank, but if the fans and club show patience, I have little doubt they’ll see success.
Pies forward woes
As I mentioned above, and as it was mentioned multiple times on the call, the last time the Pies were able to score more than 100 points in a game was 15 games ago, against the Blues in July 2025. In the 16 matches including the game against Carlton last year, the Pies averaged more than 94 points a game. In the 15 matches since, they averaged only 71 points.
For a side that has implemented an identity built around tackling pressure, and specifically tackling pressure inside 50, Collingwood have let themselves down so far in 2026. Where some critics have argued that the Pies decision to let players like Brody Mihocek and Mason Cox depart in the latest trade period, or that there has been a change in either ball movement or defensive structures, the truth is they’re just not defending well enough out of their front half.
Instead of playing a pressure game, enhanced by winning the ball out of the middle and sending it forward as often as possible, the Pies have seemed to adopt a game style built around possessing the ball, as evidenced by an increasing average number of marks and a declining average number of tackles. The good news for Pies fans is that this appeared to stop today, right after half-time. In the first half, the Pies were playing slowly, allowing the Bombers to exit their defensive half, and then gaining possession back inside their own defence. From here, their emphasis appeared to be on retaining possession rather than scoring. They looked to be limiting errors and allowing Bombers defenders to get behind the ball and create stoppages.
After half-time, however, McRae’s troops began surging the ball forward, not haphazardly, but with precision. The trick, of course, is that the quicker you move the ball, the less precision really matters. Field position matters. Possessions matter. We can do this dance a million times, but we will never move away from that universal truth – goals matter. Today, with attacking ball movement and a forward line that must have been screaming out for some speed on the ball, the Pies were able to kick 20 goals. It remains to be seen if they can pose the same threat to a better defence.
Makeshift Keys
One of the interesting things about a rebuild is what happens to the key positions. If your team starts a rebuild with an elite full-back or centre half-back, your defence could be spared the indignity of a 100-point loss. If your team starts a rebuild with an elite full-forward or centre half-forward, your offence will likely have some shape and direction to it.
However, if your rebuild starts without any established key position players, you are likely in for a world of hurt. This is an existence that Bombers fans are going to have to acclimatise themselves to over the next few years, at least until Caddy, Zach Reid and Archer May come of age (and, I guess, Ben McKay stops making silly errors, but one can only wish for so much). In place of having an established player in these positions, Bombers coach Brad Scott seems to have decided that both Kyle Langford and Sam Durham will have to do as their makeshift key position players.
At arm’s length, I can understand the point. Both players, while being undersized, possess very good marking ability for their size, and, at least as far as Durham is concerned, are athletic freaks. Playing Langford behind the ball to try and provide the Bombers defence a little stability is an interesting idea, and moving Durham out of the centre square to play half-forward will allow the Bombers to cycle through a young player (like Sharp or Robey) more often.
As the game went on today, though, the impulse to continue with these moves dropped and Durham was present for 16 centre bounces in the second half. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop the onslaught, as Collingwood continued to exit the centre square at will, and effectively locked the ball in their forward half for the almost the entirety of the third and fourth quarters.
In contrast to the Bombers, the Pies are about as settled as any team in their key positions. Despite missing skipper Darcy Moore, the Pies still have plenty of experience behind the ball, including Jeremy Howe, Brayden Maynard and Isaac Quaynor, and were able to provide Dan McStay enough freedom to hit the scoreboard five times in the last half.
With where both teams are at in their development (Bombers average age was 23 years and 235 days, while the Pies were 28 years and 204 days), the margin should hardly be surprising, but one would hope the margin doesn’t remain as large for too long.
Stray Shots
- For a side that ranked 16th for offence coming into this weekend, scoring 20.17 will go a long way to moving them up the ladder.
- I’ve gotta say, I loved the game of Saad El-Hawli today. I know he played in a defence that got 137 points scored on them, but I thought his battle against Jamie Elliott, for as long as it lasted, was fantastic.
- I know I’m going out on a limb here, but I reckon this Scott Pendlebury fella is gonna be a helluva footballer.
- Archer Day-Wicks might have one of the most fun nine disposal, two goal games of all time. A screamer, a couple of goals and six tackles. If he can find some consistency, he’s going to be a very good player.
- The game might have blown out earlier if it were not for the Pies wayward kicking in the second quarter. Across the second and third terms, the Pies managed 7.13. If it was 13.7, the margin would have been in excess of 100 points.
- This guy Pendlebury – heck of a player. Why have I not heard of him before!
- Caddy is a seriously impressive player. The way he runs and flies for the ball at its highest point reminds me of Tom Lynch (that’s the Gold Coast and Richmond Tom Lynch, not the Adelaide, St Kilda and North Melbourne Tom Lynch).
- His relationship with Kako looks exciting and will hopefully bring Bombers fans plenty of great memories for the next decade or so.
- Hey, Bombers, I reckon it might be an idea to man up on this guy Pendlebury. Am I pronouncing that right, ‘Pendlebury’?
- The difference between Nick Daicos’s first and second half form must have given some Pies fans whiplash. If Cal Twomey was to write an article about each of the halves of Nick Daicos’s first 101 games, it’s possible the first half of this one would be last, and the second half of this one could be, I guess, top 50?
- McStay looked like he found some form in the last half. Could be an important piece for the Pies if they are to mount a challenge this year.
- I’ve just heard this guy Pendlebury is like 50, there’s no chance he racks up more possessions than his age, right?
- Finally, as it always should be, a note of distaste for the AFL. They’re supposed to be a billion-dollar a year industry, yet can’t organise a TV broadcast where the crowd sound doesn’t cut out halfway through, can’t figure out how to instil any consistency in an appeals tribunal (nor have that appeals tribunal not make some positive argument for sexual, racial or religious vilification), or have decision review cameras that don’t look like they were filmed on a camera used by the Lumiere brothers. I trust that running an organisation like the AFL might have some difficulties, but boy this organisation kicks some serious own goals!
- Oh, before I forget, it seems this guy Pendlebury has played like, 430 games. Oh well, I’m sure he won’t be left alone in the middle of the ground all game to accumulate 43 touches and kick two goals. That won’t happen, right?!
