Pendlebury rises above Buckley, Daicos to become greatest Pie

Scott Pendlebury is now the greatest Collingwood player of modern times.

Peter Daicos, Nathan Buckley and Pendlebury have for some time stood apart from other Collingwood greats of the AFL era. Pendlebury is now the best of the three.

Daicos was an inventive genius, the dynamic player who dragged people to watch games, who turned himself from a centreman to a small full-forward. Buckley was unrelentingly brilliant. But after adding a second flag, and the manner in which it was achieved, Pendlebury now sits above them.

He is the most decorated, with a Norm Smith like Buckley, but no Brownlow. But he has two premierships, one more than Daicos, and two more than his former teammate and coach.

But it is not only by dint of winning flags that his status rises. It is the fact that the second one significantly came about because of him.

There were many good players on the MCG on Saturday, and Bobby Hill was plainly the best, but the oldest player was among the most influential when the game was to be won.

In the final quarter it was the former captain who was the leader to put his stamp on the game. Pendlebury’s last term had the mark of a player who wanted to show his team how to win – 11 touches, four contested, a clearance, two inside 50s and a score assist.

By a quirk of his longevity, Pendlebury is Collingwood’s longest serving captain but not a premiership captain, his two flags 13 years apart bracketed his term as captain.

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In the third quarter when the game changed gears and suddenly Collingwood could not buy a goal, it was Pendlebury who kicked it. Hill found him with a cheeky pass when all thought the player who was running hotter than any other would surely take a shot.

Pendlebury kicked from 30 metres out with no angle. For a beautifully skilled player it should have been easy, but set shots have always been Pendlebury’s slight weakness (and a clear edge for Peter Daicos in the ranking of the best). Even if the stats would suggest his conversion is little worse than when on the run, he knows he is vulnerable in these situations. He recently said on his podcast that set-shot goal kicking was his kryptonite.

His dad Bruce says he leans back on his kick too much. “And he’s probably right,” Pendlebury said earlier in the finals, smiling ruefully.

On Saturday he didn’t lean back, he kicked truly.

Coach Craig McRae revealed that in the finals the player who is as close in age to him as to the team’s youngest player, Nick Daicos, hit three personal bests in the gym.

He will next year, injury aside, play his 400th game. As his friend and former premiership teammate Ben Johnson said earlier this year: “He’s never been quick, so if his legs have slowed down you wouldn’t know, he moves in slow motion anyway. His pace has never been important. I’d still be quicker than him!” Johnson retired 10 years ago.

There was a symmetry about Saturday’s game for while Pendlebury might have elevated himself above Peter Daicos, the goalkicker’s son Nick might surpass both of them.

While it is easy to forget Pendlebury is 35, it is likewise essential to remind yourself Nick Daicos doesn’t have his 21st until next year. Put another way in any other profession he would be in second year uni, not the peak of his field.

Without a fractured knee late in the season he might already have a Brownlow Medal – something only Nathan Buckley of the trio of legends mentioned above has achieved.

His poise, vision and execution have been plain from his first game, but now they have been tested in the hottest of games and he was unfazed. If anything the better game brought out a higher standard from him.

No advantage

An advantage in football is taken, not given. To take advantage a player has to know he is taking it. Zac Bailey did not.

The call to pay advantage to the Lions forward after Lachie Neale was legged was plainly wrong. The ball should have been called back.

It is academic to know how costly it was. Neale was outside range for a shot at goal, but he would have put the ball inside 50 with only a minute to go and the Pies up by 4.

The umpires had a mixed day. It was good to see them telling players to get up rather than being sucked into soft frees for a player flopping but the ruck free kicks, especially those for blocking space and wrapping arms around each other, remain a lottery that has to be fixed somehow. It cannot go on when both rucks look at each other, oblivious to who was infringed.

The stand rule threatened to be consequential in a grand final ... and it was. While it is generally a welcome change to the game, it is an extravagant penalty for inconsequential movement when a player is moving backwards to get out of the five-metre zone as Oleg Markov was. The 50-metre penalty led to a Brisbane goal.

Rewriting the norm

Football orthodoxy holds that to win a flag a team needs at least one strong key forward and preferably two, like the Cats last year. Has there ever been a flag won without a genuine key forward target as Collingwood did on Saturday?

Richmond won its first flag with Jack Riewoldt and a bunch of small to medium forwards. The Bulldogs won when Tom Boyd had the game of his life playing key forward as well as ruck due to a paucity of options.

But the Pies won with the only genuine tall forward, playing as a defender in the forward line. Brody Mihocek, an undersized big-hearted key forward was also playing more of a ‘just bring it to ground’ defensive role, though he did kick one delightful goal.

Billy Frampton, the key-position recruit from emergencies of last off-season, was a late inclusion because of just such an emergency when former Lion Dan McStay was ruled out with a knee injury. Frampton played as a defensive forward on Harris Andrews.

If Frampton played as a defender and had just two touches but kept his opponent quiet, you’d say Bill had a good day. It’s a weird thing to consider a full-forward having a good day with two disposals, but Frampton was pretty good. Andrews was better in the last quarter.

The only key-position player to play well was Joe Daniher for the Lions, who was superb. But it was a game of small forwards. Bobby Hill obviously with four goals and the medal but Brsibane’s Bailey and Lincoln McCarthy traded outrageous goals, and Charlie Cameron almost won the game.

Howe good was that?

A special final mention for Jeremy Howe just in case the quality of his game has been missed.

Collingwood always play with a relatively undersized defence but they then lost their second key back, the 192-centimetre Nathan Murphy, to concussion.

Jeremy Howe, just 190cm but with a high jumper’s legs, was then asked to play on Eric Hipwood, who stretches the tape measure to 203cms.

Howe beat him. He was smarter, he was braver and he was better. He had 24 disposals, seven intercept possessions, four score involvements and 591 metres gained, which was more than any other Collingwood player.

And he played out the final minutes with a shirt full of bruised ribs after Cameron cannoned through him in the final quarter.

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