This was a tale of the two Isaacs/Izaks.
Adelaide’s Izak, Izak Rankine, may or may not have run too far. To the eye, it seemed the umpire may have overestimated the 15 metres, but there were only a few feet, or steps, in it. Crows coach Matthew Nicks was dignified in another narrow defeat, refusing to comment other than to say “he’s extremely fast”.
Adelaide’s Izak Rankine was central to the late drama.Credit: AFL Photos
The ball was still in dispute in the ensuing mad scramble when players from both sides belatedly learned of the free against Rankine. The difference was the ball was in Collingwood’s hands, and safe ones at that of Josh Daicos, instead of being at a stoppage deep in the forward line with only seconds left.
The Crows would have needed a freakish play or free kick against a side that nails the final moments of matches better than any other. There is also a medium-term cost to the play for the Crows. In a cruel postscript, Rankine, one of the best afield, injured his hamstring in his ultimately pointless dash and faces several weeks out.
Of more consequence to the game was the desperate act of Collingwood’s Isaac, Isaac Quaynor, who started the play that ended with Jordan De Goey’s matchwinning goal.
Earlier in the quarter, De Goey was hunched over after landing heavily on his back in a marking contest in which his head also made contact with the ground. He came off briefly, receiving treatment to his groin, but was cleared to play on despite the potential for concussion.
Collingwood star Jordan De Goey was influential.Credit: AFL Photos
“It was a heavy fall, wasn’t it?” Collingwood coach Craig McRae said. “Potentially. Any time there’s something like that you have to look out for that. He was important there at the end too, sliding doors moment at the end.”
Quaynor did not have a great day, but when his moment came he nailed it. His smother on Ben Keays’ left-foot snap sent a ball that was bound to head deep into the Crows’ forward line ricocheting about 10 to 15 metres the other way, as luck would have it, into the path of a teammate Harvey Harrison.
It set in motion a chaotic passage of play in which Jack Crisp, almost legless after two hours on the field, nearly fell, and Nick Daicos laced out a pass to De Goey, who revels in clutch moments.
De Goey was the hero in the stands, but under them Quaynor was the man being celebrated.
“We spoke about that inside,” McRae said. “We want to have our moment. Mason had a big moment at the end.
“Little moments, manage those well. Do them enough, and hopefully the scoreboard is a reflection of that. We’ve got a good reputation of managing moments well.”
“It will be shown on Monday, and highlighted before the next game. ‘Remember this? This is who we are’.”
Moments can be a blur for players, but Quaynor had a physical reminder of his match-saving and game-turning play.
“I remember it because my hand was hurting for about 15 minutes after,” Quaynor said. “I don’t smother that often. I chucked my hands up and hoped. Thankfully, he kicked straight into it.”
Magpies Isaac Quaynor and Lachie Schultz after their side’s thrilling win.Credit: AFL Photos
Even for a side as well drilled as the Pies for the final two minutes, it is impossible to train plays such as that which produced the winning goal, with all the chaos and unpredictability of a game played with an oval ball. But they practice the fundamentals.
“The system part of it, that’s trained,” Quaynor said. “Our positioning on the ground, it’s become innate to us, it’s part of what we do. From there we play.
“We train scenarios most training sessions, and that’s one of the reasons why the last three years we’ve been very strong in clutch situations, because we train it.”
As McRae said: “There’s definitely a comfort in this space”.
Not so for Kuwarna, as the Crows are known as in Sir Doug Nicholls round, who have now lost five of their past six games to the Pies by less than a goal, and have won only one of five games decided by six points or less this season.
Nicks had not yet forensically analysed the game’s decisive play but it was already apparent to him his Crows had not set up correctly. The amount of space afforded to the Pies to run and carry the ball through the middle is testament to that.
“We’ve got things we need to be better at unfortunately,” Nicks said. “We’ll check the detail on that. It’s easy for us to sit there on the Monday and be Monday’s experts and say, ‘We could have been here or there and so on’ but we didn’t get it perfect.
Nick Daicos had another superb outing for the Magpies.Credit: Getty Images
“We didn’t get it the way we trained, but we did get a lot of things right in the game today. It will be one we look back on and want to get right next time.
“We’re still working our way through that and learning through these experiences. We’re sick of learning, we’re ready to take that next step, but unfortunately today we didn’t.”
