Collingwood v Brisbane Preview | The eye of the coach with Adam Simpson (02.04.26)

Tonight, tonight, Brisbane and Colingwood. So there's a lot tied into this game and the

changes landed and Fakes is trying to work out how to cobble together a decimated defense.

What happens when you're missing a critical mass of players in one sector of the field?

Yeah, if anyone can do it, he can. In terms of selling the message to the players that

it is business as usual and if it's just play your role and we insert, there's two things you

can do, Joe. One is you just replace the role and it's like, now that next the old next soldier in

and if Oscar Allen has to go back or whatever they need to do to stay on their system, that's one

way, especially if it's short-term issues, but if it's long-term, if you've got knee injuries and

long-term injuries, then you might have to look at your system. And how are we going to defend?

Do we defend more one-on-one and we get an extra behind the play, we fall back a bit more,

did we have a zoning system? So I don't think he's at that stage. I think it's let's just see how

these guys go playing our way and no one can replace Harris Andrews, but maybe we can just

get it together in a way until the cavalry comes back. So I think he's going to go that way,

but there's definitely another reflection piece that this is long-term and we have to actually play

a little bit differently to complement what we've got on our list. So we went through that way

back in 15. We lost Brown and Mackenzie for key position defenders, so we started zoning more

because we didn't have the height, so we really wanted to support each other. I don't think he's

working through that, but there's definitely, we said this at the start of the year, when you have

all these injuries and you get two back and then you lose one, then you get two back and you lose

another one, and you just never get going. I run the risk of that, I think it's almost the tipping

point, but I still think they can win this way. What's the Collingwood side of things tonight?

Well, it's just another bit of evidence they're looking for that they're the real deal, you know,

this is a way game against Brisbane and they've done it before. So I think they go,

they're full of confidence and, you know, they're proving people wrong by the work still,

but there's a lot of people still riding off Collingwood. We all think they're, I don't know,

seven to ten teams, I think they're a bit higher than that personally.

Yeah, well I think the general feel is top six would be a stretch, but you watch and prove

everyone wrong, just the way they play with their belief and their system and talk about flying

press conferences that you can imagine how he talks to the players about us against them,

and they've written us off again, all that type of rhetoric. He would be delivering that

as much as the confidence is already there as well. So they won their last two,

Holy Thursday fixtures at the GABA, and the performance of Nick Day cost a sort of seed

into the mine from last year. Well, they do it through speed when they're at their best. They've

got this gear that's really hard to match up with, this turn over to turn over game, and we haven't

seen it last late last year. It's sort of, they lost that, so I've seen a little bit more of that.

You want to take us on Giants or we'll take you on, you know, that type of vibe. We can,

we can take you on in any mode, but we want to pick the mode. That's what I, that's how I describe

Collingwood, and the mode they pick late last year seemed to be a little bit more

down and slower and less scoring, and it looks like they've tweaked it a little bit. Let's get back

to the, the fast entertaining mode that we all like to see, and you might see a bit of that this week.

What are you thinking? I'm thinking Brisbane, but I've been, I've been wrong on Collingwood,

and I was okay to go on. So I think Brisbane just, what we saw in that last 15 minutes,

wasn't the backline. It was that midfield. So there we go. What do you think?

I'd marginally Brisbane, but I won't be the least across if Collingwood win.

Yep. It is a great game. So Craig Bellamy addressing the country.

Terry Wallace, I'll speed up if you take more fuel than needed.

Good stuff. Dennis Pagan to be good.