Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley is upbeat Travis Cloke will maintain his strong AFL form after rediscovering his touch and kicking six goals on Saturday in the Magpies’ 120-point win over Greater Western Sydney.
Cloke, playing his first match since the club decided to delay protracted contract negotiations until the end of the season, spearheaded a 26.18 (174) to 7.12 (54) victory and looked a different player from the one beset by patchy performances this season.
Feeding off the fine work of Dane Swan and Scott Pendlebury, the 25-year-old clutched a game-high five contested marks, tallied 21 disposals, and slotted an accurate haul of 6.0 – his best return this year.
With speculation swirling about the soon-to-be free agent’s future and almost as many questions being asked of his form, it was at least some statement about the latter.
Buckley certainly hoped so: “If you have been struggling, any good form is positive for the individual,” he said.
“Clearly, when Clokey’s taking marks and kicking goals, we’re a better side and it was good to see tonight.”
However, Buckley was well aware St Kilda were likely to provide both Cloke and the team with sterner resistance next weekend.
“There was a fair bit of supply (to Cloke), we had 66 inside-50s,” he said.
“But I thought he was coming and meeting the ball at the highest point pretty well tonight.
“It’s encouraging to see, and he was kicking straight which helps as a forward.”
Gun midfielders Swan and Pendlebury roamed free in paddocks of space at the Showground, with Cloke one of the main beneficiaries of their hard-running football clinic.
GWS coach Kevin Sheedy, who said on Thursday his club would pursue the 2010 premiership star who is also being chased by Fremantle and Melbourne, was impressed.
“We couldn’t miss him (Cloke). He couldn’t get a kick early and then he kicked six straight,” Sheedy said.
“We’ll just go back to the money men and re-look at it.”
The Giants started with promise and the first two goals of the game through Devon Smith, but it was always a question of when, not if, the Magpies would seize control.
And so they did, sweeping the ball from one end of the field to the other with ease – usually with Swan involved.
Last year’s Brownlow medallist, fresh from tallying 49 disposals in the loss to Hawthorn, finished with 38 disposals, five goals and five clearances in a best-on-ground display.
Considering GWS had dropped their past four games by an average margin of 117.5 points prior to Saturday’s fixture, a 69-point margin at three-quarter time looked relatively respectable.
Swan was having none of it.
He kicked three final-quarter goals in the space of five minutes to boost the Magpies’ percentage.
“We were able to win all four quarters which we’ve only actually done once earlier this year,” Buckley said.
GWS’s near impossible task was made more difficult before the game even started, with veteran Chad Cornes a late scratching due to a virus.
