Where did that quarter go? You can’t serve up three quarters of Pie and think you won’t go hungry! There are no leftovers! We’re on the Restump Podcasting case of the missing quarter!  

At the risk of being accused of accepting mediocrity and borderline honorable losses, we probably got a pretty decent performance on Saturday against an incredibly well experienced, aged, drilled, and trained Collingwood outfit. The Pies are the full package. They have no weaknesses, they cover injury outs and they function as a well-oiled cohesive unit… and in an obviously very happy environment. 

Pre-game and at half time it threatened to be a 80 – 100 point hiding. And given there almost three years difference in age on average across the two teams and nearly 60 games per player in experience difference out there, that sort of result probably was expected.

In both a pleasing and disappointing outcome, the result really on paper was one quarter of footy. However, it was one of the most dominant quarters against us we’ve seen for some time and we couldn’t stem the flow. 

To put that second quarter on paper….  we went -39 possessions, -15 Inside 50 which meant Collingwood had a monstrous 19 for the quarter. We went -6 in clearances after being +10 in first quarter and -5 centre clearances after being +5 in first quarter. We went -12 in contested possession, -18 in uncontested possession, -16 marks and -7 marks inside 50. They took a whopping 10 marks inside 50 in that single second quarter! That’s a rare level of dominance!

It begs the question did Collingwood go up and down gears when they needed to? Did they simply manage us? Or were we as competitive as the scorecard suggests in the other three quarters. 

The negatives are obviously the carnage we suffered in the way of injuries. The severity of Sean Darcy’s ankle is yet to be determined as is Brandon Walker’s knee. With the season over as far as finals are concerned, and while we feel for the individuals, Darcy and Walker’s absence won’t be quite as detrimental to the team as it may well have been.  

The positive, Neil Erasmus. With just 12 games under his belt prior to Saturday he was still understandably adapting to the speed of the game. But he took a giant step forward and showed why he’s a big reason the future is bright. 

As mentioned, the season is done and dusted in regards to September, but there is still plenty to get out of it. On top of that if we can’t find something purple to bang on about, are we even Freo fans?

Let’s get into Saturday’s chop up, dissect it, mull over it, theorise it and hopefully come to some concrete conclusions. So, if too much purple is never enough, bring those things on the side of your head and get involved. 

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