Dual premiership Kangaroo David King has declared any AFL teams that don’t prioritise footy’s latest hot trend will quickly fall “behind the eight ball”, saying he’s unconcerned by groundball king Collingwood’s “brilliant” approach – despite the club leaking 10 unanswered goals against Brisbane.
The Magpies remain one of the top premiership contenders after four rounds, even though they went down to the Lions on Thursday night in their first loss of the season.
Speaking on Fox Footy’s First Crack on Sunday night, King pointed out that Collingwood, Adelaide, Melbourne and St Kilda were the top four teams for groundball-gets after four rounds – and you could “mount a case they‘re the best four teams in the comp playing the best football right now”.
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King said McRae’s Magpies were leading the way in the modern era and that other teams should look to mimic their approach.
“I think you‘ve got to get ready for the game to change and I think this is going to take some adjusting,” King told First Crack.
“You’ve got to weigh up what you‘re worried about in terms of ball movement, what you’re prepared to give up and what you’re prepared to get.
“The Collingwood discussion is going to go wild this week. Are they too far one way or too far the other? You‘ve got to look at what they get from outnumbering at ground ball. Ground ball is now king in our game, so how you arrive at winning a ground ball is the coach’s choice and it’s a structural issue.”
King pointed out that Collingwood on Thursday night outnumbered the Lions “by at least two” players at every contest backward of centre.
“Collingwood choose to outnumber. They choose to leave less dangerous opponents and run the risk of losing a contest where you clearly outnumber the opposition,” he said.
“I think this is brilliant. Now I know it leaked 10 goals in a row in the second quarter, but no one was complaining or whinging halfway through the first quarter when they looked like they were setting alight and going.
Collingwood Magpies press conference | 03:48
“This is brilliant, in my eyes. OK, you‘re not going to win every home and away game. But they’ve won 15 of the last 17, so it’s going pretty well. I won’t hear of the criticism of ‘you’ve got to stem the bleeding at some point, you’ve got to go away from this at some point’. This works, this wins.
“It‘s aggressive. Get used to it. And if you’re not embracing this at club level now, you’re behind the eight ball.
“Could it lose them a prelim? Absolutely. But every game plan has holes and flaws. I think this is quite brilliant and I‘m not I’m not concerned by the 10 in a row.
“It was called ‘all duck or no dinner’ last year, so it’s been there for a while. I think it’s grown legs and in the second year it looks more aggressive than last year.”
