Nick Daicos goal seals Collingwood victory over Carlton

The replacement, Lachie Sullivan, soon had a goal, with his first kick in the AFL. He took a handball while running at full pace and snapped across his body, and instantly looked like a Collingwood McRae-era player. The crewcut helps; it makes him look like a Collingwood player from any era. McRae said his goal became an inspiration.

Carlton had more possessions, too many said Voss, who thought his team overdid it. Collingwood made more tackles, the margin eventually widening to 31, and their game grew from there while Carlton’s suffocated. “31 tackles: it’s hard to play against, isn’t it?” said McRae.

Surprisingly, they squared the Blues for clearances and contested possession, the Blues’ recent strength. Curnow and McKay became like the Whitlam government, denied supply. By driving the ball forward the way a sheepdog drives a flock, Collingwood kicked five in a row and led by two. Only one was from a pack mark, Mason Cox’s.

Carlton’s challenge was and is to make the most of its riches, a powerful midfield and two titans on the forward line. As the last month has shown, they have not yet managed this reliably. They don’t really have a plan B.

But the Magpies have their own achilles heel, and it showed in the third quarter. It is that without a Curnow or McKay of their own, scoring sometimes is laboured and laborious. Jamie Elliott would kick only one goal this night, Brodie Mihocek none. Their 12 goals came from 11 different players; McRae chose to count this as a strength. “They’re Collingwood goals, and we don’t really care who kicks them,” he said.

But he would have cared when no one did. The Magpies bossed general play, but from six shots at goal in the third quarter kicked four behinds. From five shots, Carlton kicked 3.2, two to the opportunist Matthew Owies, then a Carlton classic, Curnow outmarking Moore and kicking long to McKay, who outmarked Billy Frampton. At three-quarter time, they led, and all things were possible again.

So Collingwood did what the Magpies do, they doubled down. You could say they won the only way they know how; by making themselves such a physical presence wherever the ball goes that opponents eventually, and mostly, wilt. The way the ball sat up for Daicos at that last crucial stoppage, it’s almost as if the ball itself surrenders to Collingwood’s zealotry.

In the last quarter, they won the inside 50 count 21-8, but the Blues kicked two on the fast break and another from a Tom de Koning mark, and so it still came down to the last kick, to a Daicos special. It’s a tough way to play footy, but it works for the Magpies and it engages crowds.