Collingwood’s greatest challenge in this game wasn’t the absence of a genuine ruckman against Rowan Marshall, the late loss of Jordan De Goey, or of another tall in Daniel McStay by quarter time.
The Magpies’ major threat wasn’t the running capacity of Jack Sinclair or Brad Hill, the remarkably improved Mason Wood, or the ball-winning of Brad Crouch, despite the talents of those players.
Rather, the biggest obstacle for the Pies lay in the St Kilda coaching box, where the game’s undisputed heavyweight champion of defensive coaching, Ross Lyon, loomed larger than anyone on the field of battle.
Ross Lyon. Credit: Dylan Burns, Getty
And that included Josh Battle, who has become a key piece on the Lyon chessboard, and Cam Wilkie, an outstanding tall defender who repeatedly foiled the Magpies with interceptions for much of the match, especially in a dour and error-filled first half.
Indeed, you could say that for three quarters, what the Adelaide Oval hosted was an alternative blockbuster, known as the Slowdown.
At the end, a dour game turned into an unexpected thriller, as the Saints wiped off a lead of more than four goals in three rapid minutes, flicking the switch suddenly with goals to Crouch, Ryan Byrnes and Jack Higgins, forcing the Magpies to reprise the lead-protection methods that served them so well in 2022.
They won a largely ugly game, only by sheer weight of forward entries; eventually, the wall of Lyon busted early in the final quarter, when Bobby Hill kicked and created a pair of goals and Ash Johnson marked and converted to stretch the margin to four goals.
Much has been made of Collingwood’s fast and attacking method of play under coach Craig McRae, but there was always a question of how that purportedly irresistible force would cope with the immovable object of Lyon, aided and abetted by Wilkie and Battle.
Not that Lyon’s Saints 2.0 have lacked enterprise this year. They’ve scored freely enough and moved the ball quickly when there’s an opening.
But until this game, they hadn’t played a side that had Collingwood’s capacity to score, or significantly greater experience and talent. Thus, it was no surprise that the game was played in a cramped manner, with clusters of Saints behind the ball pouncing on rushed or unintelligent Collingwood long bombs to Wilkie, Battle and co.
Lyon is a formidable coach and the match was played on his terms, even though the Pies were dominant in the territorial contest – they had close to 20 more entries than the Saints to three-quarter time, yet led by only a goal.
The Saints couldn’t take marks up forward, had struggled to move the footy fluently and didn’t gain much impetus from their ruck ascendancy, where Marshall was matched to Billy Frampton and had a major edge.
And St Kilda also confronted a Collingwood wall, in the form of Pie skipper Darcy Moore, who was very difficult to get past and was blessed to be playing a Saints side without their primary key forwards Max King and Tim Membrey.
And if De Goey’s absence boosted their chances of an upset – offsetting the loss of Jack Steele – the Saints still had to contend with the remarkable talents of Nick Daicos, who had 42 disposals and a stunning 846 metres of territory gained. That Daicos won nearly all his disposals outside the contest did not gainsay his influence.
The Saints fought hard and their out-gunned young forwards, particularly Anthony Caminiti, competed gamely against a strong Collingwood backline, in which Brayden Maynard also was influential.
At the death, we wondered if this was headed for another famous draw between the 2010 grand finalists. But the white-knuckle Pies forced scrimmages, converged on the ball and stopped the Saints’ surge in those last seconds.
The Slowdown ended with the offensive Pies defending grimly. Lyon’s method had closed the gap, but was still insufficient. Collingwood survived.
