Gerard Whateley has singled out the experienced Magpies that have been centre to their side's struggles over the opening weeks of season 2024, but an AFL great believes the veterans will get back to form imminently.
Collingwood is in freefall early in the season, going 0-3 after a loss to St Kilda on Thursday night and a serious chance of being winless through the first month against Brisbane next week.
Craig McRae’s premiership defence is looking more unlikely by the week.
“There’s a lot of fundamental errors we’re making, from experienced players, that you wouldn’t expect,” the senior coach said after the loss to St Kilda.
“I think you can see the fundamental skills that are just sloppy, rusty, clunky, just giveaway goals.
“The little things that you just take great pride in. Let’s get busy on these things that we’re really good at, because for parts of tonight … whether you want to look through an optimistic lens, it was a lot more like us tonight than it has been for the last two weeks.”
Whateley acknowledged that while McRae is reluctant to call out his charges in public, several veterans are holding the Pies “hostage”.
“Their best players are going horribly, which is really surprising,” Whateley told AFL Nation.
“McRae won’t name them and everyone is sort of pussyfooting around it… but (Scott) Pendlebury is going terrible, (Darcy) Moore is going awful, (Jack) Crisp has been diabolical I think, (Steele) Sidebottom…
“If you are hostage to your best players and the flow on from there, their best players are nowhere near it.”
Whateley, who also referenced Tom Mitchell and Jeremy Howe, added: “That’s where the errors are coming from, that’s where the lack of surety exists. Suddenly a few of them look old.”
Of those four players, the youngest is Moore at 28.
Pendlbury and Sidebottom are 36 and 33 respectively, while Jeremy Howe is also 33. Jamie Elliott (31), Brody Mihocek (31), Will Hoskin-Elliott (30) and Tom Mitchell (30) are the other Magpies well into the twilight of their careers.
But four-time premiership Hawk Luke Hodge is backing those players to rediscover their best.
“The guys that I would be least worried about are your Steele Sidebottoms and Scott Pendleburys, because you know when they get their feel and mojo going, they’re going to fit straight back into where they have been before,” Hodge told SEN’s Crunch Time.
“Yes, it has been those guys that are looking a bit (underwhelming)… I would be looking at it in five or six weeks, if they’re still looking like that then that’s when you’d be asking if they’re done. But I wouldn’t be too worried about them at this stage.”
Pendlebury has played 386 AFL games and is on track to become the sixth AFL player to reach the elusive 400 mark.
The Pies play Brisbane, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Essendon in their next four games.