Howe won’t be there on Saturday night when the Magpies play Adelaide in a huge match that will shape this season’s top four. It’s a reverse of the situation in round 10 when the Pies just defeated the Crows. Moore was missing and Howe earned seven coaches’ votes.
So the focus has gone to Moore as the best man to marshall the defence Collingwood picks to quell the high-scoring Crows, who will have three towers, Riley Thilthorpe, Taylor Walker and Darcy Fogarty inside their forward 50 metres.
Moore obviously can’t do it all, but McRae was certain it would be up to the club’s leaders to set the tone as the Magpies try to rediscover their mojo.
Former Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge said on SEN this week his eyes would be on Moore when the match starts.
“I want to see Darcy Moore when there is a chance to tap the ball or grab it in their defensive 50. As a leader in that first contest, you’ve go to stand up,” Hodge said. “Defenders aren’t supposed to play lairy football.”
Collingwood’s 2010 premiership captain Nick Maxwell said he always simplified things when his form or the team’s form went south; focusing on doing the basics as a defender and as a leader.
Darcy Moore and the Magpies have plenty to contemplate as the finals draw nearer.Credit: Getty Images
“Any time you are not playing your best, you go back to all the little things, all the one-percenter things, literally just making the teammates better, putting on blocks, across third man for a spoil, picking people up off the ground, using your voice, being over the top with your voice, encouraging people, those things came naturally to me,” Maxwell said.
He said the best way for a player to lift themselves out of a slump was to work to their strengths. If Moore feels he’s been distracted and asked to take too much of the slack in Howe’s absence, Maxwell encouraged him to admit he needed support, then knuckle down and focus on his primary job.
“Beat your man one on one,” Maxwell said. “Don’t worry about trying to win the game, just worry about trying to do your job. When things start to balloon for any player, you get to a point where you think you have to do more than you have to do because [you start to think] ‘I’ve got to fix it’, or ‘I have got to do more’ or ‘I have to help’ or ‘It’s got to be me’. [But] you [should] keep coming back to your job or the small things you have to do.”
McRae was on the same page as his club’s former skipper, saying he had noticed Moore and other leaders, such as former captain Scott Pendlebury, trying to do too much at times.
With their hands full, their own attention to detail had lapsed. The aim, he said, with the benefit of a nine-day break to prepare for the Crows, was to tighten that aspect of the Magpies game.
“We don’t want to make it a one-person thing, but you’ve got to do your job in the system to make others better,” McRae said.
“[I] look back on tape and think ‘why are you making those decisions? Get your job done first and then start to support others’… [It] doesn’t matter who plays, we trust that the next guy is going to be in the right position.”
That’s what happens when Collingwood is at their best, but they have been nowhere near that since they headed to the Gold Coast in round 18.
Moore has been a star for the Magpies for many years but he needs to rediscover his form ahead of finals.Credit: Getty Images
They are conceding three more goals a game than they did in the previous six matches, and their turnover game has collapsed. They were ranked number one in that statistic from rounds 12-17. Since round 18, they are ranked 12th. In the past fortnight they have not only failed to win the ball at the source they are failing to get it back.
In the past five games the opposition has scored a goal 27.2 per cent of the time they lobbed the ball inside 50m, whereas when Moore and Howe combined for the six games leading into the Gold Coast debacle a goal was only scored 18 per cent of the time.
Maxwell notes Nathan Murphy’s retirement in 2024 due to concussion has compounded Howe’s absence. It’s reduced a defensive premiership trio to one plus Billy Frampton, a dirty-deeds-done-dirt-cheap lockdown type best suited to a simple role without much variation.
“[You] need different players to play different roles in there, and that third-across [role] is something no one rates until it’s not there,” Maxwell said. “You don’t talk about a one-on-one where the forward might have had the back beaten, but then the third man comes across and gets the spoil in.”
In his typical direct style, Maxwell says Moore’s main job is obvious.
“If he’s on Thilthorpe, just knock him over,” Maxwell said.
On Thursday morning at the AIA Centre, plans to do just that were being refined as a bandanna-wearing Moore and McRae plotted tactics during a break in a match-simulation session.
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Can the skipper take control without Howe in support?
The Magpies need more than Moore firing. Many of their best players have been down.
But the captain can set the tone.
“Connection has been a big word this week … we keep coming back to that word trust as well,” McRae said.
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