Nick Riewoldt admits he was incredibly surprised by Collingwood’s stoppage setup in their Preliminary Final loss to GWS.
Brodie Grundy finished with 73 hit-outs for the day and was completely dominant in the ruck, but Riewoldt feels they didn’t properly utilise his dominance.
“What it looked like Collingwood were trying to do is send a forward up to support the stoppage and then as soon as they did win it, they went forward to an outnumber,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“It blew my mind that they didn’t equalise the numbers because Nick Haynes and Sam Taylor, they just mopped up at absolute will.
“Go back and just spike it forward. Wet weather footy, it’s all about field position and it’s all about ground ball.”
Because of this, Riewoldt didn’t think Grundy’s impact was as big as it could have been.
“He had a prolific game numbers wise, but I didn’t think he had a huge influence on the result,” he said.
“He had 70 hit-outs, they lost clearances by 20.
“He had an influence late. I was absolutely staggered that they didn’t try to surge the ball forward.”
Riewoldt was impressed with Shane Mumford’s role on Grundy, especially late in the game when it mattered most.
“The discipline in a situation of such desperation, to not give away a free kick, I was just waiting for a whistle,” he said.
“Shane Mumford had the audacity to sell candy to Scott Pendlebury in the goal square.
“It was amazing. I couldn’t believe he’d done that and it was really important because it cleared the area.
“Mumford was really smart too with his ruck stuff because that was the other avenue, him giving away a free kick at some stage.
“He separated from Grundy. He put a 10m gap between himself and Grundy so he didn’t give himself the best opportunity to win the hit, but he wasn’t giving away a free kick.”