Collingwood isn’t winning the premiership in 2024, according to David King.
On three weeks of evidence of an underwhelming Magpies outfit, King believes the reigning premiers will struggle to make the top four and subsequently go back-to-back.
They currently sit 0-3 with Brisbane away looming on Thursday night.
Furthermore, the dual-premiership Kangaroo went as far as to suggest Craig McRae’s game-plan has been found out in three consecutive losses.
After a loss to St Kilda to open Round 3, King is now prepared to call it.
“Let’s be honest. Are they winning it this year? No,” King declared on SEN’s Whateley about Collingwood's prospects.
“We’ve had this chat about Port Adelaide two years ago when they went 0-3. We had the chat about Geelong (last year) when they went 0-3. You fight tooth and nail now to make finals.
“It’s a different discussion to what you have had over two years about this type of team. It’s Collingwood this time. If you’re a Collingwood fan, take the colours out of it.
“The chances of finishing top four are sliding, if they haven’t already dissipated… you can’t lose too many and they’ve already lost three of them. So even if you make it (finals) you’ll be five to eight, and you’ll be considered one of those dangerous teams. But they never win… let’s not worry about the anomaly, let’s worry about what history shows.”
He added: “It would be just a ridiculous performance from them to go on and contend, to finish top four and go from there… they won’t be in my seedings for three months, if at all this year.”
McRae is in his third year at the helm, having taken Collingwood to a Preliminary Final and premiership in his first two seasons.
But now that the competition has caught on, King believes the Pies have no choice but to batten down the hatches and continue with their style.
“I think when you do things so drastically different, they either work big or fail big. Now they worked big for a couple of years and the competition took a long while to catch up to what Craig was doing,” King continued.
“An overinvestment of numbers where the football is, forcing the turnover and going. Wave run and go. If it works for 10 minutes, put a four-goal gap in the game, shut the game down. Situational. They can’t play like this for the whole game… so they would have wins through burst scoring.
“Now teams have worked this out. If you can handle the heat of being outnumbered at the source where the ball is, if you can just get it forward or get it lateral and hit a target, once you go forward it will be 5v3 in your forward line in your favour.
“Now it’s been worked out and it’s failing big. So it’s unfair to look at their back six and say, ‘you’re conceding some easy scores’. Of course they are.
“You’ve been worked out. Does it mean you change? I don’t think you can change now. I think you’re wedded to this plan for a little while and you challenge the group to do it better, perform better.”
However, King did laud McRae for his influence across the league and spoke about the off-season footy department reshuffle at the Pies.
Despite reported interest from other clubs, assistant coaches including Justin Leppitsch and Brendon Bolton ultimately stayed at the Pies and received promotions internally.
“Craig McRae has changed the game. And now everyone has stolen a little bit of his IP. Everyone says, ‘why did they make so many changes? Why did they keep (Justin) Leppitsch there and do (what they did) with (Brendon) Bolton’? They did it to keep the IP in. They can’t let them all leave,” King said.
“We’ve seen what’s happened with Richmond’s (Damien Hardwick) plan. They (assistant coaches at the time) are all everywhere else and they’re flying.
“You just have to take your hat off to what they (Collingwood) has been able to do, now they’re in a world of pain for 2024 and you just buckle up.”
Only three clubs have gone back-to-back in the 21st century, with McRae’s men far from the first side to fall apart in their premiership defence.
Geelong started 2023 0-3 after defeating Sydney in the Grand Final the year prior and went on to miss September action that year.
But King is optimistic for the Pies putting forward a strong performance against Brisbane in Round 4, with both 2023 Grand Finalists still searching for their first win of the season.
Collingwood and Brisbane will meet on Thursday night at the Gabba, where the Lions have lost only one game since 2022.