How McRae produced a “coaching masterclass” against Lyon

Collingwood’s Craig McRae delivered a coaching masterclass on Sunday night.

That is according to Kane Cornes who was full of praise for the premiership coach in the wake of his side’s 12-point win over St Kilda in Opening Round on Sunday night.

The main move made by the Magpies coach was to send Harry Perryman to Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and it worked a treat with the Saints danger man kept to just 19 disposals.

Cornes went through the areas where McRae excelled in the Pies’ season-opening triumph over the Saints.

Perryman to Nasiah

“I thought it was a coaching masterclass from Craig McRae,” Cornes said on SEN’s Fireball.

“I say that for a number of reasons. The Perryman to Nasiah (move) which he’d known for some time but had kept it silent. Sometimes these things come out.

“The beauty of the Perryman to Nasiah was that he (Wanganeen-Milera) has never copped a tag. We’ve spoken about this all summer. I’ve been really keen to see how he goes when somebody is standing next to him.

“Last year he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, we’ve seen it and we’ve said it hundreds of times. The next challenge is how he handles it.

“Then he goes forward, well, Perryman goes with him. Then he goes midfield with him. It’s much easier to do that as a run-with player when you don’t have to hand over. A big tick there.”

Uncontested marks

“The Saints and Ross will need to answer the question around their defensive game style once again.

“They get so many numbers back, they sag off, they protect their defensive 50, so Collingwood just chipped through it with 147 marks. An extraordinary number.”

Letting Daicos roam free

“To not do anything with Nick. He’s still going to get his 30 but you want the 30 to be somewhat hard-fought. They were as easy a 40 as he’s going to get. That went far too long.

“I thought Nasiah playing deep forward went far too long.

“Scott Pendlebury forward was the other masterstroke and the Jordan De Goey one was interesting as well. They said he blew up his GPS in the first quarter, off the charts, so they really had to pull him back.”

Ross out-coached?

“I don’t know whether you want to look at it glass half-full. Outstanding coaching performance from Craig McRae.

“Or if you want to look at it glass half-empty and Ross was out-coached like we haven’t seen for some time.”

Listen to Kane and Kingy’s assessment of Sunday night’s match below: