TRAVIS Cloke endured one of the quietest nights of his career against Adelaide in round nine.

Manned by Crows full-back Ben Rutten, the Collingwood key forward had four possessions, one mark and kicked one behind in the Magpies' impressive 26-point win.

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Not since round 20 in his debut season, 2005, against Carlton, had Cloke been held to four touches. He'd had just one lower possession tally in his career - one touch, against Essendon in round 16, 2005.

And Cloke had not been kept to one mark since round six, 2006, again against Carlton.

But he quickly put that performance behind him in the Magpies' 97-point win over Gold Coast at the MCG on Sunday.

Recap the game with the match report.

From the opening bounce against the Suns, Cloke played with the imposing presence that has been such a vital part of Collingwood's powerhouse teams of recent seasons.

Starting on Suns defender Matthew Warnock, Cloke had kicked two goals - and missed another - by the 12-minute mark of the first term.

By quarter-time he had taken four marks - three of them contested - and had six possessions.

The Suns' moved Rory Thompson onto Cloke and, more tellingly, ensured one or two of his teammates got across to help him against Cloke in any marking contests.

Find out how the VFL team fared on Saturday.

In doing so, the Suns managed to stop Cloke from putting on the clinic that he had threatened, although Cloke's own wastefulness in front of goal also helped on that score.

By the final siren, Cloke had kicked 3.4 and put three other shots out of bounds on the full. With the same goalkicking accuracy he found last year, he would have kicked a bag.

But he was still a massive contributor to Collingwood's win. Not only did he finish with 19 possessions and nine marks - including a team-high four contested - but he almost force-fed Pies small forwards Ben Sinclair and Jamie Elliott (three goals each) with the crumbs he created at marking contests.

After the game, Magpie midfielder Dale Thomas said Cloke had maintained a positive mindset after his performance against the Crows.

"He's a very positive person and he's a very proud person too," Thomas said.

"I'm sure he would have gone away from last week knowing that it was a fair way from his best. But even last week he was still able to provide a contest, even in the last quarter there getting a few of the balls to ground where we were able to crumb it and kick goals.

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"For him to come out this week … he didn't kick as well as I'm sure he would have liked but he still provided a great target for us all night."

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley also welcomed Cloke's return to form but suggested he had not been playing that badly this season.

"I thought his movement and attack on the aerial ball was very encouraging," Buckley said.

"(If we can) get that kicking boot set up then he can take advantage of his work.

"Look he's still the leading contested-mark player in the competition and he's copped an absolute caning over the last month. But he's pretty strong and he'll maintain his focuses on the tasks that we give him and he was encouraging today."