Pies make light work of Lions
Collingwood has put a turbulent week behind it and destroyed the Brisbane Lions by 49 points at the Gabba on Friday night.
From the moment Jamie Elliott kicked a goal in the first minute the Magpies pressure was frenetic and they were never troubled, winning 14.16 (100) to 7.9 (51).
The win moves them to a 6-4 win-loss record and momentarily into the top eight ahead of matches against Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs in the next fortnight.
The victory capped a week that had the Magpies in the news for all the wrong reasons after president Eddie McGuire's 'King Kong' gaffe about Adam Goodes dominating the match build-up.
Coach Nathan Buckley said he was pleased with his team's ability to focus on the job at hand.
"Considering the tumult that took place and all of the stuff outside football, it was really well done by our playing group and our leaders in particular to maintain focus on what needed to be done," Buckley said.
"We thought we did a fairly good job as an inner sanctum to be able to redirect our energies back to what we're in control of."
Things looked to take another sour twist before the match started, with full forward Travis Cloke a late omission with illness.
But it made little difference.
Vote for the three best Collingwood players from the match in the Magpie Army Player of the Year Award.
One of the major players in the Magpies' difficult week, Harry O'Brien – who openly criticised McGuire's actions – was one of the catalysts for the win.
O'Brien showed his customary run-and-carry from the back half to finish with 24 disposals to be one of the best players on the field.
The usual suspects of Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan set the tone, with dynamic first halves.
Pendlebury easily won his battle with Lions tagger Andrew Raines, racking up 11 first-quarter disposals and 18 by the half, while Swan matched with 18 of his own.
They finished with 28 and 36 respectively.
Collingwood led by 26 points at quarter-time, 45 at half-time and 50 at three-quarter time as they dominated disposals (432-294), clearances (40-31) and contested possessions (143-124).
It was one-way traffic, even though they became a little sloppy after the main break.
Brent Macaffer's blanketing run-with role on Pearce Hanley (11 disposals) was indicative of the domination.
As good as the Magpies were, the Lions were bad.
They were without the likes of Jonathan Brown (suspended), Daniel Merrett (suspended), Tom Rockliff (quad) and Matthew Leuenberger (thumb), but that was no excuse.
Their round eight upset over Essendon now seems a distant memory and they enter the bye with a 3-7 record.
Simon Black stood head and shoulders above his teammates, in a match that equalled the club record for games (318) with triple premiership teammate Marcus Ashcroft.
The 34-year-old showed the younger Lions up, putting in four solid quarters in just his fourth match back from knee surgery, finishing with 32 touches.
Lions coach Michael Voss said the performance was unacceptable.
"At the start of games there's a responsibility to be able to win the ball. It's basic, it's been around a long time. It won't go away," Voss said.
"You can't have the weight of possession so in favour of the opposition and expect to get any sort of flow or system or strategy implemented to put the opposition on the back foot. We were backs to the wall from the very start of the game."
But it was the Magpies' youngsters that were most impressive.
Paul Seedsman (28), Josh Thomas (25), Ben Kennedy (20) and debutant Kyle Martin (19 and two goals) were influential in the win.
Collingwood 1.1 2.4 5.6 7.9 (51)
Brisbane 5.3 9.7 12.14 14.16 (100)
Goals - Collingwood: Reid 3, Ellliott 2, Martin 2, Kennedy 2, Swan 2, Jolly, Thomas, Blair
Brisbane: McGrath 3, Bewick, Staker, Redden, Paparone
Best - Collingwood: Swan, Jolly, Sidebottom, Pendlebury, Macaffer, Martin
Brisbane: Black, Zorko, McGrath, Redden
Injuries - Collingwood: Maxwell (hamstring)
Brisbane: Nil
Substitutes - Collingwood: Alan Didak on for Nick Maxwell during the third quarter
Brisbane: Sam Docherty on for Brent Moloney at half time
Reports: Nil
Umpires: Nicholls, Findlay and Mollison
Crowd: 26,626