Collingwood’s 23-point loss on Saturday to Carlton is the clear low-water mark of the John Wren-meets-P.T. Barnum rainstorm of Eddie McGuire’s regime, as much as the 2010 premiership marked its high one.
After making generally sound decisions since taking over the Collingwood presidency in 1998, Eddie McGuire has begun the inevitable process of wearing out his welcome, at least with the fans. It is difficult to see how he untangles himself from his pas de deux with coach Nathan Buckley and not lose a fair amount of skin on the way.
There is a three-sided debate among football people over Buckley’s fate. He is either sacked before the end of the season, sacked at the end of the season or he remains true to his word and steps down when the Magpies miss the finals for a fourth consecutive year. Notionally there is a fourth option, but under Buckley, Collingwood’s season win-percentage has slid from 68% to 61, 50, 46, 41 and currently sits at 29% for 2017. To say the Magpies will likely miss the finals this year is hardly the sort of analysis that only McGuire’s hedge fund manager could afford.
These are tough times for Collingwood fans. This past summer was soaked with the promise of a club on the rise, and after five years this was Buckley’s team. Now, nearly a third of the way into the season comes the realisation that this year is about to recede into the three that have come before it, where Collingwood finished 11th, 12th and 12th again.
For nearly 30 years Carlton and Collingwood have been two big Melbourne ships passing in the night, and the rivalry has derived its popularity as much from the intangibles of nostalgia and tradition than on-field performance. You have to go back to 1988’s qualifying final to summon any kind of consequential match between these two clubs. But that is not to say that the results don’t matter more than other fixtures. After a similar loss against Carlton in the corresponding game last year, McGuire publicly declared that he’d considered giving the whole thing away.
“I was actually in the rooms – I haven’t been that laid low from the footy for a long, long time. I was completely shattered, as were our supporters, who were giving me their honest and frank opinion,” McGuire said. On his Triple M breakfast radio show on the Monday he added: “You question yourself. You have done this for 18 years, can you go through it again?”
He’s about to find out.
While social media isn’t the most reliable measuring stick for public opinion, the reactions to the loss on Twitter have been unfiltered and raw. To bastardise Tolstoy, every unhappy group of fans is unhappy in its own way, and a listless loss to their arch-nemesis seems less like a regrettable Saturday afternoon than a suggestion their relationships with a generational president and a favourite son is in obvious decay. They didn’t just lose a game, they lost hope and plied their vitriol line by line, like so much cathartic kindling ready to burn Buckley and McGuire at the stake.
And all this after a not only a supposed season defining win against Geelong, but also a 125th birthday celebration where stories of Collingwood’s rich and proud history were told all week ahead of clash with a hated rival barely a year into a Ground Zero rebuild. But despite any number of chances to learn the lesson over the past few years, Collingwood appears unversed in the harsh consequences of hubris – and the consequence on Saturday was the stark contrast between the futures of two clubs.
One school of thought is that clubs such as the Western Bulldogs and St Kilda have gone past Collingwood by virtue of having played and developed young talent. In contrast, the Pies have placed too large a burden on its veterans Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom, while their young talent languishes either on the fringes or in the medical room.
After Saturday Carlton may have also gone past the Pies – at the very least they are on their way. The Blues’ best players included last week’s Rising Star nomination, Caleb Marchbank, and the presumptive favourite to win this round’s nomination, Sam Petrevski-Seton.
To be a successful AFL player, it helps to be preternaturally coordinated, and there is something almost weightless and fluid about Petrevski-Seton’s play. After just seven games, he is already an exciting example of the speed with which an inherent talent can express itself in football.
“There’s some real poise and excitement with his delivery by foot, so he’s one we’re all smiling about,” said Carlton coach Brendon Bolton, trying his hand at understatement in the post-match press conference. In contrast, 3AW’s Tim Lane said of Buckley’s press conference that he felt he was watching “a man hit with the realisation that it’s over”. At this point it is worth noting that since Bolton took charge of a complete “reset” at Carlton he has won 10 games. In the same period with a list he’s had five seasons to build, Buckley has won 11.
As if to juxtapose the excitement of Petrevski-Seton, Collingwood made football appear as glamorous as digging ditches. The Magpies’ confused and often languid offence was executed by players plainly unconvinced or unaware of the usefulness of their instructions. It was what White Man Can’t Jump would look like had Woody Allen been cast ahead of Woody Harrelson – an absurd concept that wouldn’t be foreign to a club that last year offered Chris Mayne a reported deal worth $2m over four years. Alex Fasolo’s butchered kicking mirrored that of the Magpies’ midfield and seemed like a metaphor for their season. Mason Cox kicked the thing three times, while Darcy Moore only threatened when the better portion of the crowd of 70,279 had sullenly emptied the MCG after Daisy Thomas skipped around Tyson Goldsack, kicked the sealer and cranked the volume up on a “Happy Birthday” chorus from the Carlton cheersquad.
The chorus from the Magpie diehards is a darker, more dissenting one that wants resignations, not excuses. Should the club fail to put up a fight at Spotless Stadium this Saturday against the Giants, the black and white Bolsheviks might just storm McGuire’s Winter Palace.
