Lappin was a member of St Kilda’s 1997 loss to Adelaide and kicked two goals as Carlton went down to North Melbourne two years later.
He took over the reins of the Magpie attack in October 2010 and did a marvellous job in improving the side’s ability to make an impact on the scoreboard. Collingwood managed 415 goals in 25 matches, up on 395 in 26 games in 2010.
As the season wore on, however, the goals became harder to come by as opposition teams began to choke up the Magpies’ ability to enter the forward line fluently.
Lappin admitted that sides began to pick the lock on Collingwood’s game plan in the second half of the season, and that, combined with injuries to key players, meant that the scoreboard suffered.
“When you break it down, in the last seven games our offence dried up a little bit,” explained Lappin.
“There are a couple of reasons for that. We had guys who’d had inconsistent preparations.
“Chris Dawes missed a lot of footy, Alan Didak missed a big chunk of the year with a calf injury. Obviously Dawes being out meant that Cloke’s workload was loaded up even more. A few guys in our side were running on petrol fumes but that’s footy, every side deals with that. We’ve addressed that.
“Sides were playing against us a little differently too towards the end of the year, getting numbers back into our front half and then just trying to counter attack. They’re all things we’ve had a look at.
“On the whole, the forward line in the first 16 or 17 weeks was really good but we didn’t finish the season off as well as we would have liked which has probably given us as a group a little bit of a sting to go forward this year.”
Lappin agrees with Luke Ball, who told collingwoodfc.com.au last week that the team has returned with the right dose of hunger following the Grand Final defeat. He points out that the age of the side’s core group is a lot different to that of the teams in which he played for on the last Saturday in September, which augers well for a sustained tilt at success.
“Our group’s at a really good age where they’ve still got a heap of improvement in them. If they’re not hungry after what happened last year then heaven help us.
“I wasn’t here in the premiership year, but I think it’s fair to say that they’re a little bit hungrier.”
“Although last year you don’t like to think at the time that there was a little bit of complacency around but I think having tasted defeat you can see there’s a bit more drive in them. You’re only talking about 3-4 per cent difference, but at the end of the day, that’s all the difference is between a lot of the sides at the top of the ladder.
“I think they’ve trained really well. They attacked Arizona with great enthusiasm and since we’ve come back they’ve eaten up the work we’ve given them so they’re in pretty good shape.”
One of Lappin’s first tasks for 2012 will be finding a key position player capable of replacing Leigh Brown in the famed tall-forward-cum-ruckman role. He said that no one had yet been anointed as Brown’s successor.
“We’ve got guys who had a taste of that role last year in Lachlan Keeffe and even Cameron Wood who has played a little bit forward as a second ruckman. That’s an area that’s up for grabs,” Lappin said this week.
“’Browny’ (Leigh Brown) was an important player in our side for our structure but I suppose in looking at Browny’s form from 2010 compared to 2011, he was a little bit down last year along with Alan Didak, and then Brent Macaffer was another really important player in the premiership year who didn’t play much footy last year.
“We’re hoping we can get a bit of a spike out of Didak and Macaffer and get a replacement from Browny from one of those young kids like a Keeffe or a Wood.”
The 2004 All-Australian spoke glowingly of several new recruits including small forward Jamie Elliott, who Lappin says has “a couple of tricks up his sleeve”, and will vie for senior selection in the early rounds.
Lappin labeled his experience of coaching the senior team against Sydney in last year’s NAB Cup series “amazing”, and said that it made him feel like he belonged at the Westpac Centre.
“Coming from outside the club, I felt like I was an outsider looking in until that night. It was that night that made me actually feel like I was a part of the place, so just to run all the training sessions, run all the pre and post match media conferences and run the game day set up was brilliant.
“It was a great experience and something I think accelerated my learning.”
For this year’s NAB Cup, which is now only 22 days away, Lappin said the preparation will now be centred around ensuring that the entire playing list is available to make the flight to West Sydney and capable of playing their role once on the field.
“We’ve been working pretty hard with the footballs the whole time. Even in Arizona we used the footballs, so we’ll keep working and tinkering with our game plan and making sure that by the NAB Cup that we’ve got everything in place ready to go.
“It doesn’t matter which of our 40-odd players we take to Sydney for that first NAB Cup match. They will all know their roles and what they’ve got to do in each position on the ground.
