Darcy Moore was at his eloquent best in the minutes after another heart-stopping Collingwood come-from-behind victory, this time against the Crows in the hostile surrounds of the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
“This team refuses to give up and it’s so much fun to be a part of … so much went wrong for us, but it’s powerful when you refuse to give up. That’s very much the story of this team, and we have just done it again,” Moore said on Fox Footy.
The Magpies have now had 16 of their past 22 matches decided by 15 points or fewer – the most in a 22-game stretch in league history, according to Champion Data. Of the 22, the Pies have won 14 of those 16, reaffirming their reputation as clutch kings.
Comeback kings: Led by skipper Darcy Moore, the Magpies believe they can win from any position, as was the case against the Crows on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images
“We talk about playing the full 120 minutes. You have to play 120 minutes to beat us,” Scott Pendlebury, who returned to training this week, said.
Indeed, the Magpies’ ability to conjure victory from seemingly helpless positions through a combination of simulated training, unquenchable desire and perhaps a touch of good luck has become so mythical that those watching on Sunday even raised the possibility that the Pies are so fine-tuned that Steele Sidebottom deliberately missed his set shot in the dying seconds – his point gave the Pies a one-point lead – as he knew it would be harder for the Crows to carry the ball from end to end rather than giving them the sniff of a centre-bounce clearance.
Sidebottom’s shot capped a dramatic surge, coming after plucky defender John Noble booted only the fifth goal of his career, and first since 2021, to leave the Magpies down by a point with less than three minutes remaining. An astute Ash Johnson, playing in front of his defender, then punched a scrambling kick forward through for a point to knot scores. “That’s smart,” Bulldogs great Brad Johnson said in commentary.
A minute later, Will Hoskin-Elliott found an open Sidebottom at right half-forward. Sidebottom’s shot drifted to the right for a behind with 21 seconds on the clock. The desperate Crows headed to the left back flank but are forced wider, ultimately leading to that man Moore safely intercepting and marking at half-back. The siren sounded, the Pies jumped for joy.
“The heart and soul of the team is awesome,” Brody Mihocek, who booted three goals, said.
However, there is a slight kicker, for their only two defeats by 15 points or less were in last year’s finals series, to Geelong and the heartbreaker in Sydney.
As coach Craig McRae has said, the Magpies train for the tightest of tight moments. Now they relish them. They are prepared to be bold, Moore exemplifying this in the loss to the Swans when he was prepared to run off Lance Franklin and push forward in the dying minutes with the Pies trailing by two points.
This was fine-tuned during the slog of pre-season training, when those watching on would hear the Pies be told: “We’re down by five points, get to work”. The ball began at full-back, and within three or four pre-designed kicks, was goal bound.
Players were split into two teams – one winning, one losing – and worked on how to handle the final minutes of a close game. How to handle these moments is as much a mental test as it is physical, with data also used.
“Our group manage the moments as good as I have ever seen it. We practice that, and we review it,” McRae said after last year’s one-point win over Carlton when Jamie Elliott capped a stunning comeback from 24 points down.
While Sunday’s win could not be simulated as much as the pre-designed play from full-back that led to Elliott’s post-siren goal from the boundary in an earlier thriller against Essendon last year, composure and acumen were still required.
“It’s one thing to even know what’s coming, another to stop it under pressure,” one opposition scout said of the now clutch Magpies when watching training in January.
If Sunday’s win felt like a rerun, well, it was. The Magpies had won nine of their past 12 games after trailing at three-quarter time, the latest only five days after a 28-point comeback against Essendon on Anzac Day. This time there was no Daniel McStay or Pendlebury, no frontline ruckman (and they lost Nathan Kreuger in the first term), while there was also illness, with Moore hit by the flu. There were also contentious umpiring decisions.
“We’ve been in this position more than anyone else in the competition the last 18 months, so we’ve practiced it more than anyone else. This group has got a way and a want to win. It’s incredible,” McRae said.
Nathan Buckley, the Magpies great and former coach, has noted the Pies find a way to win “regardless of personnel, regardless of circumstance, regardless of whether you’ve played great footy or you haven’t”. By that definition, it’s no surprise the Magpies are on top of the ladder, with greater ambitions in mind.
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