Darcy Moore, Jordan De Goey lead the way as Pies re-stamp premiership credentials

He knew many in the football world had lost trust in the Magpies, losing five of your last seven games will do that before you throw in facing a team who’d won nine straight and were playing at their home fortress.

It took 15 minutes for that trust to return.

What Collingwood did to Adelaide in the first half of the third quarter didn’t just win trust, it put the Magpies within touching distance of a second premiership in three years.

Five consecutive goals, highlighted by a couple of cracking left-foot snaps from Steele Sidebottom and Jordan De Goey, saw the lead out to 35 points and a manic Adelaide crowd were starting to lose trust.

Suddenly the too old, too slow and too injured narrative which had crept in over the past couple of months about Collingwood was replaced with how invaluable finals experience was and how far poise and class takes you in September.

Fittingly with trust the theme, the one player who seemed to be losing it by the week was the best player on the ground.

Darcy Moore has had a trying season with horrible moments littered throughout and he had another howler in the first quarter when he played on after a mark and then dropped the ball as he tried to avoid his kick being smothered.

The Crows swooped with his opposite number Jordan Dawson kicking a goal from the Moore error. But rather than that set the tone for his night, the skipper trusted the process and went on to inspire his team.

“That’s footy, you make mistakes,” Moore said afterwards. “You have moments you wish you could have back but that’s finals footy. It’s about how quickly you bounce back and you’ve got to shake it off.”

This was some sort of bounce, Moore finished the night with nine intercept marks which is the most by a player in a final while his team had 28 intercept marks for the night which was the third most by any side in a final since the stat started being recorded in 1999.

The Collingwood backline as a whole picked a good night to win back trust.

Isaac Quaynor played his best game for the year, Billy Frampton could be ‘Mr September’ given he again delivered on the big stage against some much-hyped Adelaide forwards, Brayden Maynard was inspiring and boom recruit Dan Houston won back a lot of trust with his best game for a while.

Another Pie who has struggled in the trust stakes is De Goey.

Years ago it was off-the-field where he lost it but this season it has been his body which hasn’t come to the party. It looks like that might be a blessing in disguise given he has hit September fresh and the fittest he’s been all year.

As we saw in 2023, De Goey is made for the bright lights. Back then he was the No. 1 rated player in the preliminary final and Grand Final. On Thursday night he was creeping back up there, rated No. 9 on a night when he had 26 possessions, seven tackles and six clearances.

Importantly he was the fire-starter for seven consecutive goals through the second and third quarters with 19 disposals, six clearances and five score involvements in that period.

“We set up our game to be able to perform at this time of the year,” was De Goey’s take afterwards.

McRae clearly lost trust in Mason Cox this season.

The big American has been on the nose and unsighted but the coach still had something in the back of his mind which saw him pull the trigger for the biggest game of the season.

He’d only played eight games this year but with Dan McStay horribly out-of-form the decision was made and when Cox gave away a ridiculously stupid 50m penalty early in the second quarter which resulted in a Riley Thilthorpe goal, the new-found trust was being tested.

But Cox fought back and did what he was brought in to do, negate Adelaide’s intercept marking backline, contest in the air and bring the ball to ground in the Pies forward half.

The trusty Collingwood veterans all did what they normally do in September, they were clean and precise, slowed the game when they needed to and delivered on a plan to stifle the Crows.

Scott Pendlebury (age 37) had 23 touches, Steele Sidebottom (34) kicked three goals, Jack Crisp (31) had 22 possessions on the wing while Jamie Elliott (33) kicked four goals.

McRae trusted his system which almost had got the job done three weeks earlier against the Crows in Adelaide when despite having 71 inside 50s they somehow lost the game by three points.

This time around they again kept the ball away from the home team with the stats sheet lighting up for the Pies: +66 disposals, +19 kicks, +50 handballs, +2 centre clearances, +4 contested possessions, +62 uncontested possessions and +19 marks.

And the inside 50 count? Adelaide 50 Collingwood 49.

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The Daicos brothers did what they do with 24 touches each, the stand-out being Nick’s kicking. (Do yourself a favour and catch the replay of his goal at the 10-minute mark of the first quarter).

After the game the entire playing group and staff joined arm-in-arm and sung the Pies theme song with gusto. They knew how important the previous three hours had been. They knew they were now in the driver’s seat to win the premiership.

And they again trusted the process.