Essendon, whatever their shortcomings, have found reserves of belief and pluck on Anzac Day in Brad Scott’s time, drawing a stunning game last year and getting overrun late in a ballistic 2023 match.
This game was viewed less optimistically than last year’s, not so much because of what the Bombers might produce, but due to Collingwood’s potent previous five games, among them an imposing defensive strangulation of the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba.
Nick Daicos leads the victorious Pies from the ground.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
If you considered the names on paper – many premiership players, multiple Daicoses and seasoned pros on the Collingwood side compared to a much less experienced or capable Essendon – there was more cause to think the Magpies were capable of another demolition. There was one caveat – Anzac Day games have their own strange twists, and the underdog has a knack for rising and mounting an insurrection.
This game kept threatening to be one-sided, and on some measures it proved so. But the Bombers refused to yield until the final quarter, when the bombardment finally overwhelmed Scott’s men.
They were beaten in territory, conceding nearly 50 entries to the Pies to three-quarter-time. They weren’t as clean, were beaten in clearances and had far fewer marks inside their own scoring territory, despite the threat posed by “Two-metre” Peter Wright, who had the less imposing match-up of Billy Frampton in the absence of Darcy Moore.
In a game played with an often skidding ball that afforded players less time to grasp it, surety of hands and foot skills became paramount.
Anzac Day medallist Steele Sidebottom.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
It is no surprise that Nick Daicos and his brother Josh were exceptional, their famed father Peter having drilled his sons in the art of handling a wet ball in specially arranged skill sessions down at the oval when they were growing up.
But another, much older player, shone in the grey skies and sporadic rain that launched thousands of ponchos.
Steele Sidebottom has personified Collingwood’s current assault on the premiership. At 34, when most footballers would be done or running around in the bush with his brothers, Sidebottom is playing close to his career peak.
If the All-Australian team was picked after this round, Sidebottom would have serious claims to be selected – and not in his customary position on the wing; his career revival, which came after he was assigned tagging roles, has come in his return as a bona fide midfielder.
Sidebottom with wife Alisha and their children in the rooms.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
Sidebottom’s history would have a W affixed to his name, signalling his outlandish proficiency with a wet ball, and on that score, he had several teammates with similarly safe hands in the drizzle – old teammates Scott Pendlebury, Jack Crisp and Jamie Elliott (five goals) – among them. On this day, Crisp underscored the contributions of the Pies’ veterans by equalling Jim Stynes’ consecutive games record.
Sidebottom is winning more balls in the clinches than ever – his 15 clearances represented an equal career-high, and his 22 contested balls was eight more than the next best player of either side (Nick Daicos).
Collingwood, thus, are fulfilling two lines from their club song: they’re good and old, and – watching well-drilled cohesion with and especially without the ball – they know how to play the game.
Their premiership challenge seems likely to hinge on whether their large cohort of players in the career twilight zones can sustain their bodies and intensity for the marathon of 25 or 26 weeks.
At seven rounds, they’ve decisively outstripped the market expectations, which worried (as scribes such as this one did) about the risk of investing so heavily in players aged 30 and over.
But 34 is the new 30. Pendlebury and Jeremy Howe (34) are more than holding their own, too, and Elliott, at 32, isn’t losing spring or much speed.
Collingwood, like Geelong of 2022, are re-defining what’s possible in terms of age profile, as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic did in men’s tennis and Tom Brady and LeBron James have in American professional team sports.
For Essendon, Zach Merrett’s excellence is a given, as is Sam Durham’s effort. Talented Nic Martin only shone really when the Bombers had momentum in the second quarter, ramming through four goals in six minutes to close within a kick (they took the lead, fleetingly, early in the third term).
From a big-picture vantage, the most encouraging portent for the Bombers was Zach Reid’s display in defence. He wasn’t among the best afield, but his nine intercepts suggested that, finally after a horrendous run of injury, the 202-centimetre key defender, is discovering the abilities that prompted Essendon to invest a top 10 pick in him in the draft of 2020.
This 30th anniversary Anzac Day contained far fewer highlights than the fabled game of 1995, in which Sav Rocca booted nine and 10,000 or more were locked out in a spontaneous mass turnout.
