A season of promise faltered, and came with significant challenges. Yet the Magpies returned to the finals and enjoyed a victory, and through some player turmoil witnessed the emergence of the next wave of talented youth.

So while 12 regular seasons wins and finals triumph in Adelaide might seem to be a step back 2007’s preliminary final visit, coach Mick Malthouse can see the positives. In fact, he believes in many ways that 2008 was a better season than its predecessor. He speaks with Damian Barrett.

DB: From the outside looking in, Collingwood's performances fell away in 2008. Is that the way you saw it?

MM: I know there are those who say '07 was a good year because we went within a kick of upsetting Geelong in the preliminary final. Well, I would say that I thought this year was a better year.

In saying that, I know we finished sixth. I don't measure things on win-loss. We had less wins than last year (13 home-and-away wins and two finals wins in '07, 12 and one in '08). Percentage was better (101 in '07, 111 in '08), and that is significant, meaning we defended better. We got beaten by the eventual premier twice. Badly.

That was a negative, as we thought we had coverage there, but didn't. Two sides had an advantage over us, and we need to work out why.

We did well against Geelong, we did okay interstate. We lost Licca (Paul Licuria), (Nathan) Buckley and (James) Clement, and that's a lot of footy, but we had coverage. Presti (Simon Prestigiacomo) we had for only the last few games. (Anthony) Rocca played just six or seven games. We'd earmarked (Sean) Rusling for a big role, and he was gone before the first game. Brad Dick was injured when the year started.

DB: You beat Adelaide in an elimination final, lost badly to St Kilda the following week, ended up sixth. Does sixth-place reflect exactly where you were at?

MM: I don't know whether we had the side to go all the way. Very few sides win premierships with young players. You can have young players in a premiership side, but they need to be supported by players who have 50-100 games behind them. I felt we got as much as we could have this year. People will argue that.

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