Adelaide: Gather Round is designed as a showcase of the game – like a music festival without glow sticks.
Friday night was a window on a type of game that at length converts no one, but then excites everyone.
Sometimes games are only good because they are tight. The Collingwood v Fremantle game was tight. For the Dockers that was enough, as having trailed for most of a foul, wet night they were on the right side at the right time and consigned the Magpies to a third loss of their season.
For a game that was crude and inelegant, miserable and miserly, it was engaging in a brutal sense. It was punctuated by moments of freedom from Fremantle that felt all the more exciting for their rarity. It climaxed in an unlikely final few minutes.
In one sense, it was just two short bursts of freedom in which the game was won – both of them from Fremantle. In those periods, barely glimpses, they shrugged off the timorousness of the remainder of the game and boldly attacked. The first when they kicked three goals in seven minutes in the second quarter, and the second when they kicked two in a minute in the last and snatched victory from a fretful Collingwood.
Josh Treacy’s mark with 90 seconds to go – backpedalling with Jamie Elliott flying out behind him and just inches from taking a mark for a shot at goal that could level the scores – was as consequential as anything on the night. Sam Switkowski dragging the ball in 15 metres out from goal might have an argument.
But as critical as anything Fremantle did to win the game were the things Collingwood did to lose it. The team that owned territory and led narrowly on the scoreboard in a low-scoring game for most of the night found more ways to miss goals they should kick than kick them – hitting the post, even spraying it out on the full. The kicked 5.9 for the night.
One of those gimme shots was from Nick Daicos. Yes, it is unfair to single him out, given he was one of the best players on the ground despite hobbling around early with a calf that is still not right. That even he did it made it notable. That Lachie Schultz missed three shots and was mown down in another tackle 10 metres out became a theme of the night.
There were also the moments such as Billy Frampton’s. He was otherwise very good, but he had the type of moment he is prone to when he floated a kick into the corridor and turned the ball over for what proved the match-winning goal.
Collingwood led for two thirds of the game, had 16 more inside 50s than Fremantle, and took 10 marks inside 50 to the Dockers’ five. They should have put the game to bed in the third quarter. The period under Craig McRae of the team coming from behind and winning close games has become but a memory.
Once more this year they were beaten around the ball in the centre, losing centre clearances (5-8) and clearances overall. Partly that was due to the dominance of Luke Jackson playing a solo hand in the ruck after Sean Darcy exited with concussion in the first half.
McRae afterwards acknowledged his team’s trend of being beaten in the centre of the ground, but to that end saw a glimmer of light in the performance of debutant Angus Anderson, who had an especially good third quarter and kicked a goal. He’s a debutant but at 22 is not young, having been battle hardened in the SANFL. He has the hair and moustache of an older man, and an attack on the man with the ball of another generation.
At length Fremantle played a game that could be argued to be patient (they won, so they have the right to call it what they want), but was a frustrating method to watch with the forward line empty of players as their forwards all congregated in Collingwood’s half of the ground.
It was hard to have adventure coming out of defence with no one forward of the ball. Yet too regularly they bombed long to Isaac Quaynor, Brayden Maynard or Jeremy Howe to mark. At length Howe was left alone with no one within 70 metres of him. At some point, not only Justin Longmuir might have asked if that was the wisest move to continue to feed Howe, but McRae might have been given pause to consider the versatile 35-year-old and wonder at what point this year he moves him to fix a forward line that continues to splutter. It must be very soon.
Luke Ryan was superb for the Dockers, Alex Pearce was better. His numbers weren’t great, but his impact was.
Elliott had the chance to mark late on the lead, 40 out directly in front, and could not hang on. The spilt mark went forward for Jye Amiss to mark in almost the mirror image spot and convert his chance to put the Dockers only a goal away form the lead. Frustratingly for Maynard, he had beaten him in contests on the night, but at siren’s end the forward had kicked two of just seven goals his side kicked.
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.Connect via X or email.