The tough path forward for the Pies as flag window closes... and the obstacle set to make rebuilding even harder

Did anybody expect Collingwood’s 2024 to unravel as spectacularly as it has?

While some (particularly among Collingwood diehards) will say that injuries derailed 2024, and they’ll be back next season, I’m not so sure.

The profile of Collingwood’s list shows an aged top end: Scott Pendlebury (36), Jeremy Howe (34), Steele Sidebottom (33), Mason Cox (33), Jamie Elliott (31), Brody Mihocek (31), Tom Mitchell (31), Will Hoskin-Elliot (30), and Jack Crisp (30).

Dan McStay and Darcy Cameron are 29 and come the beginning of the 2025 season, Darcy Moore and Jordan de Goey will join them.

The bigger problem is at the other end of the list, where Nick Daicos is the only genuine A-list talent.

Bobby Hill and Isaac Quaynor have teased they might become something more.

Recent draftees, such as Reef McInnes and Finlay Macrae, have struggled to consolidate a position in the senior side, while Will Parker, Ed Allen, and Harry Demattia are battling to break in.

It’s not a list that’s been built for prolonged contention, although to be fair – 2021 aside – this group has been up since 2018. But that’s equally alarming.

Clubs usually sit in a genuine flag contention window for about six years. That means Collingwood’s at the end of this tenure.

If history’s proven one thing, it’s that every contender ultimately crashes once they’ve extracted every last ounce of talent from the list.

Even powerhouse premiers – like Hawthorn, Richmond, and Geelong – who’ve tried to renovate their into remaining contenders have inevitably imploded.

So where can Collingwood go?

The Magpies look dejected after losing the round one. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

The Past

This has always felt like a hodgepodge list pieced together from other clubs and lateral selections.

Part of the reason this happened was Nathan Buckley’s attempt to rejuvenate the list back in 2013, trading out 2010 premiership heroes, and going to the draft during a period that the new licenses (Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney Giants) were monopolising the best young talent.

Collingwood’s drafting produced lots of misses, such as Matthew Scharenberg, Nathan Freeman (both top ten picks), Ben Kennedy, and Tim Broomhead, among others.

The one hit, Brodie Grundy was traded out.

Compounding the problem, Collingwood back-ended contracts and bloated the salary cap until it exploded catastrophically in 2020.

Among the casualties (over a three-year period) were James Aish, the fire-sale trio of Adam Treloar, Jaidyn Stephenson (another wasted top-ten pick), Tom Phillips, and then Brodie Grundy. The returns on these players were farcically low.

Nathan Buckley recently disclosed they wanted to trade out Brodie Grundy earlier, which would’ve addressed several problems: the burgeoning salary cap, but also getting in some early draft picks.

If Collingwood had traded Grundy from a position of strength, they might’ve demanded commensurate value, rather than offering a bargain discount.

Then-president Eddie McGuire overruled the decision.

Future First Rounders

Collingwood has demonstrated a certain extravagance when it comes to trading future first-round draft picks.

It started with Adam Treloar coming across to the Pies in 2015 from GWS. Collingwood paid Pick 7 and a future first-rounder.

They probably thought the latter would be a Pick 15 or so, but Collingwood crashed the following season and handed GWS another Pick 7.

Two Pick 7s for ANY player is quite a bounty – no disrespect intended to Adam Treloar.

They traded two first-rounders (2018 and 2019) to get Dayne Beams, without seemingly doing any of the due diligence on whether Beams still had a passion for football.

Given his form line at Brisbane, which included him surrendering the captaincy for personal reasons in 2018, it would seem there were warning signs that were ignored.

In 2021, Collingwood traded out their future first-rounder for a couple of second-rounders.

In that draft, they netted Oliver Henry (Pick 17), Finlay Macrae (19), Reef McInnes (23), Liam McMahon (31), Beau McCreery (44), Jack Ginnivan (Pick 13 in the rookie draft), and Isaac Chugg (Pick 28 in the rookie draft).

Jack Ginnivan celebrates kicking a goal.

Jack Ginnivan. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

From that crop, only Macrae, McInnes, and McCreery remain, with McCreery a senior regular, and question marks remaining on the other two.

It’s an interesting strategy to invest this heavily in the draft (especially after the fire sale), but there’s a reason high selections are valued – they’re likelier to net the clubs a gun player.

Collingwood banked on a lot of lower selections. That future first-rounder they swapped, as everybody would know, turned out to be Pick 2.

While the argument is they traded it because they knew they were getting Nick Daicos the following season and could use points to do so, imagine they had two picks in the top 10.

If they were forced to spend what turned out to be the Pick 2, isn’t Nick Daicos worth it, rather than banking on lower picks to come not only good but extraordinarily good?

More recently, they’ve traded Pick 34 and a future first-rounder for Lachie Schultz. While they no doubt expected that first-rounder to be Pick 15 or so, it’s looking like it’ll be a top-ten pick.

Some might argue Collingwood gambled, but given their history, was it a bet they should’ve made?

The Ginnivan trade is also now looking questionable – this is not to question whether he should’ve been retained, but the value of what Collingwood received.

There’s been a certain gung-ho attitude to Collingwood’s trading, which seems to be based on getting the deals done regardless of cost, rather than haggling for worth.

Talls

There is a sentiment among many of the Collingwood faithful that the club, and list manager Derek Hine, criminally neglect key-position players in the draft(s).

In the last decade, Collingwood has taken Darcy Moore as a father/son selection (Pick 9) in the 2014 draft, Will Kelly as another father/son selection (Pick 29) in the 2018 draft, then Sam McLarty (Pick 30) in the 2016 draft. Then there have been several Hail Mary selections much later in the draft, or in the rookie draft.

The 2015 draft, when they traded their first Pick 7 for Adam Treloar, would’ve been the one to dip into, as it contained Jacob Weitering, Josh Schache, Sam Weideman, Harry McKay, Charlie Curnow, Eric Hipwood, Harrison Himmelberg, Tom Doedee, and Ben McKay – a swath of stalls.

Every player in this list from Weidemann down was available from that Pick 7.

In the 2014 National Draft, where they selected Jordan de Goey with Pick 5, also available were Caleb Marchbank (Pick 6), Peter Wright (Pick 8), Jake Lever (Pick 14), and Kyle Langford (Pick 18).

In the 2017 National Draft, where they took Jaidyn Stephenson with Pick 6, also available were Aaron Naughton (Pick 9), Darcy Fogarty (Pick 12), Noah Balta (Pick 25), Sam Taylor (Pick 28), Tom De Koning (Pick 30), and Harrison Petty (Pick 37).

Now this isn’t intended to retrospectively cherry-pick the perfect selection for Collingwood, which is why I’ve also listed players you might consider misses, or who mightn’t have realised their potential. It’s just to demonstrate that height has been available.

Collingwood may instead draft on a “best available” policy, but examining their list, they are overloaded with flanker types, and a dearth of key position talent, instead trying to find inexpensive solutions in the draft, such as Brody Mihocek (Pick 22 in the 2018 rookie draft), and Ash Johnson (mid-season draft).

Otherwise, they have traded inexpensively for needs, as they did with Lynden Dunn, Jordan Roughead, Nathan Kreuger, and Billy Frampton, and secured Dan McStay as a free agent.

Adam Treloar in his former stripes. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)

The Draft Dilemma

Although Collingwood had four years out of the finals (2013 – 2017) under Nathan Buckley, they never truly bottomed out and maximised their draft potential.

People are tired of hearing about the succession plan, but it’s interesting to consider how much this prejudiced Collingwood’s decision-making.

In Mick Malthouse’s last two years, he took Collingwood to a flag and a grand final appearance. The assumption was that successor Nathan Buckley would deliver prolonged contention, but after two underwhelming finals campaigns in 2012-13, he decided to rejuvenate the list.

It’d be interesting to ask then-president Eddie McGuire, as well as other powerbrokers around him, what the expectation was at this time.

Were they concerned that fans would grow disgruntled if Collingwood went into a full rebuild with a series of bottom-four finishes so soon after a flag and a coaching change? Were they worried about fan splashback?

From the outside looking in, it does feel as if that impacted their direction, and they tried to renovate on the run.

Come 2017, when fans were growing outright seditious, Graeme Allan went on a mature-age recruiting spree, trading for Lynden Dunn, Chris Mayne, Daniel Wells, and Will Hoskin-Elliott.

These choices eventually afforded them short-term gratification but hurt long-term sustainability.

Nathan Buckley, coach of the Magpies, looks dejected

Nathan Buckley (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

The AFL Formula

The truth of the AFL competition is simple: sit on the bottom, accumulate the best picks, and as they gradually improve, so does the team.

People will point to Geelong always still being thereabouts, but prior to acquiring Patrick Dangerfield and Jeremy Cameron, they only ever looked as if they were making up the numbers in the finals.

Here’s the simplest truth: quality matters.

Collingwood’s in a similar position to Geelong – they haven’t sat at the bottom accumulating top-ten picks.

Their 2010 premiership side WAS the product of the lowly 2004-05 finishes, where they acquired Dale Thomas and Scott Pendlebury (Picks 2 and 5 in 2005), Ben Reid and Nathan Brown (Picks 8 and 10 the following year), and then Steele Sidebottom and Dayne Beams (Pick 11 and 29 in 2008), among others.

But now that they’re constantly renovating the list, the question is whether that can remain viable long-term.

Especially given the clubs around them who’ve plundered the cream from multiple drafts are improving, and there’ll soon be a Tasmanian side coming in who’ll be capitalising on the best young talent.

The Future

In all honesty, when Craig McRae took over, I was worried the club would build a typical Collingwood list – a scattering of guns at the top, then a whole lot of role players and journeymen. I watched this happen in the 1970s and 1980s.

Supporters older than me watched it happen before then. Collingwood was good at assembling sides good enough to get there, but not good enough to win it.

I worried that was exactly where Collingwood was heading in 2022-23.

I have no idea what they expected internally – to be a genuine contender, or to build for a shot in 2025 or 2026?

The arrival of Nick Daicos, and just how influential he’s been from his first game, (I think) inflated Collingwood’s standing and gave them a shot prematurely. But that also goes to prove what injecting genuine quality does.

Nick Daicos. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

The flag was so un-Collingwood – losing a key forward a week earlier, losing a key defender in the first quarter, and then a contentious (non) decision late in the game that went their way.

Collingwood folklore is filled with tragedies where that narrative hasn’t favoured them.

But where do they stand now? The profile of the list creates issues itself; a 2-4-year rebuild effectively phases out not only the older brigade but potentially also the players in their late twenties.

Is a full rebuild viable under the current circumstances with Tasmania looming?

Trading for good role players is not going to cut it – this season has proven how dependent Collingwood has become on Nick Daicos, and just how much top-quality help he needs.

Another mid-range midfielder’s not going to cut it, and the raft of mature-age supplemental midfielders they drafted may be great support but are unlikely headliners.

The salary cap is meant to finally, FINALLY, be under control so that they could try to poach opposition guns.

Contracts don’t mean what they once did, and more often than not, clubs will facilitate a trade to a player’s preferred destination, even to the detriment of the club itself.

It would be curious to find where exactly Collingwood sees itself… as well as the way forward.

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