CRAIG McRae gathered his players at the AIA Centre on Tuesday morning after Collingwood’s 52-point loss to Greater Western Sydney to evaluate individual energy levels. Most said they felt at least 85 per cent. Some said 100 per cent. Only one said they felt fully charged with a spare battery in their back pocket.
That player was Dan Houston.
In his first game for his new side – and his first game against his old side – the dual All-Australian turned up exactly as advertised on Saturday night, after moving from Port Adelaide as part of a blockbuster five-player, three-club trade last October.
Houston missed Opening Round due to the final game of his five-game suspension, but unlike Collingwood, the star half-back didn’t take a week to get going.
The 27-year-old amassed 10 first-quarter disposals before finishing with 27 for the game at 89 per cent efficiency, 10 intercept possessions, six score involvements and five inside 50s in the 91-point demolition of the Power at the MCG.
"When you have someone come to your club you have this great optimism about what they're going to bring. But when they are actually in your system, you go 'woahh, he is going to make a difference'," McRae said on Saturday night.
"Not only does he win the ball in the air, he wins it on the ground and then uses it ridiculously well. He is a rare talent, we are very happy to have him."
Collingwood copped it from everywhere this week, including a brutally honest appraisal from Giants captain Toby Greene, who questioned the Magpies' conditioning on Fox Footy. McRae said he didn't listen to the outside noise, focusing on learning the lessons of round zero.
"We had our own internal dialogue on what we wanted to improve on and let others judge us from afar. We didn't need to use it [Toby Greene remarks]; we have great pride in our performance and we took a step forward tonight," McRae said.
"We wanted to perform in a manner that our fans would be really proud of us. Clearly last week wasn't that and we had to get to work. The Giants are a good team and hard to play away. We learned some good lessons about what we want to look like with the ball in hand and how we want to defend the ground."
For the first time in Scott Pendlebury's 405-game career, the 37-year-old started as the sub. Pendlebury has only been subbed out of six of those games, but just one week into 2025, McRae opted to manage the veteran's workloads as part of a clear plan with three six-day breaks to start the season.
"We had a good chat about a month ago. I'd been thinking about this for a long time, longer than that. We had a good chat about that," he said.
"To be honest, I was pretty keen to start him as sub last week. We talked through that. Six days after a travel. We had this game marked for over a month. This time of year is summer footy, its hot and it's transitional."
