Former Collingwood senior recruiter and part-time coach Matt Rendell has revealed his frustrations with the direction the team has taken since the 2018 Grand Final, believing they have become far too defensive.
The Magpies finished eighth on the ladder this year, scoring only 57 points per game, well below the other seven finalists. West Coast is the next lowest team at 64 points per game and Geelong sits at 73.
Rendell, who joined Collingwood in 2012 and will not be returning to the club next season, believes the coaching staff has got the balance wrong between offence and defence and subsequently, the side’s forwards have all gone backwards.
Jordan De Goey, Will Hoskin-Elliott, Jaidyn Stephenson, Josh Thomas and Brody Mihocek all kicked between 29 and 48 goals in 2018 as part of an attacking Pies outfit and Rendell believes all five players, plus a few more, have regressed.
“Geez, this is their problem because they spent 100 per cent of their time on defence,” Rendell told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“I was there seven years, I used to watch training all the time, it used to annoy the hell out of me – it was all defence, defence, defence and they wonder why they couldn’t score.
“I’m still trying to work out 2018 when they went really quick into a forward line made up of a set of players who were all unlike each other and they had about five or six blokes kick 40 goals.
“They play in the Grand Final and nearly win it and they had a lot of issues that year injury wise … and then they go back to defence again.
“Like, at the start of last year I thought ‘that’s good, they’re attacking again’ and then they went back to defence.
“This year has been all defence and it’s no secret that every one of their forward line players has gone backwards.
“There’s not one of them that has improved. People keep talking about Jordan De Goey – De Goey has had two good games this year. He hasn’t improved at all.
“Every one of those players has gone backwards who kicked 40-odd goals (in 2018).
“Hoskin-Elliott, Jamie Elliott – they put him in the midfield and he’s been okay, but as a forward he hasn’t been any good.
“Brody Mihocek has gone back a little bit, Jaidyn Stephenson (has gone) way back and Tom Phillips looks a shell of the player, Callum Brown, even (Brodie) Grundy looks a shell of what he was.
“Grundy made a really good comment in 2018. Someone asked him ‘where’s the improvement come from, what’s happened’ and he said in this quote that I pinned on my board for two years that ‘we only talk about the positives now and we don’t talk about the negatives’.
“He saw that as the only change. Well, clearly they’ve gone back to the negatives again because the team is a shell of 2018.”
Rendell believes Collingwood cannot beat West Coast in Saturday night’s Elimination Final unless they change gears and play an attacking brand.
“Now, not withstanding that they are very capable of doing some damage here because if the coaching team can change into the mode of attack, that’s going to scare a lot of teams,” he said.
“But if they stay in this very strong defensive mode where you don’t go forward enough, and when you go forward it’s too slow and there are too many opposition defenders, they can’t win.
“I’m intrigued what’s going on there. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it … their defence does stand up, but even when they’re going well they keep every other team in the game because they’re only going to score seven or eight goals, so you don’t have to score a lot to beat them.
“Take the game on. They won’t be ready for it, West Coast. They can’t beat West Coast if they go into the full defensive mode. Give them something they haven’t seen for a while. Take the game on, run in waves, leave your man, back yourselves in, get Mason Cox playing deep and Mihocek running up and around.”