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?
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).
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).
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