AFL Rankings: Round 7 2021

Collingwood’s drop in player stocks is part bad luck, part bad form, part self-inflicted.

Rarely has a team been so criticized for its off-season moves as Collingwood was before this season. Reportedly due to salary cap pressures the Magpies traded 2018 Grand Final players Adam Treloar, Tom Phillips, and Jaidyn Stephenson for what many thought was well less than their value. Now with only one win from six matches, including a loss at the MCG to Gold Coast on the weekend, the Pies’ list management is looking even more disastrous.

That assessment is partly fair. Treloar and Phillips were among Collingwood’s top players during their 2018 Grand Final season, though Phillips has been a bit below that form since. Injuries too though have played their part, both in the intervening years and this season. Tom Langdon and Matthew Scharenberg were two important players in the Pies’ defence during their run to the 2018 finals, but both have since been lost to the league due to injuries in their mid-twenties. Taylor Adams and Jeremy Howe are both currently out for an extended period. Of course, one player's absence is another player's opportunity, but the replacements have not been of the same value.

Aside from that though, some of those top players from the 2018 season are just not playing as well (see table below). Brodie Grundy, Scott Pendlebury, Jack Crisp, and Howe when not injured are more or less the players they were in that peak Collingwood side. Adams wasn’t playing as well before he was injured though, Steele Sidebottom is a bit below his peak, and Jordan de Goey has possibly had his least productive year since his first.

At a team level, the huge shift has been in the lack of ball use the Magpies have had this year compared with past years. The Magpies rank second-last in disposal differential, and last in uncontested possession differential. In 2018 they were first in both of those categories. Treloar and Phillips were two of their top three that year for uncontested possessions per game (and Langdon and Scharenberg were in their top ten).

Surely a win for the Pies can come against North Melbourne this week. Even still though, on the evidence so far this year they are closer to ‘rebuilding’ their player list than contending.