Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley predicts it will take a large chunk of the first part of the AFL season for the Pies to get the right balance in their team.
They overturned a 23-point second quarter deficit to beat Sydney by 20 on Saturday.
It was their 13th win in their past 15 game over the Swans and ninth in their last ten at ANZ Stadium.
Buckley described it as a workmanlike effort, only rating it a five or six out of ten performance.
He was pleased with the leadership of Craig Pendlebury, Dayne Beams and Nick Maxwell,and the efforts of young defenders Ben Sinclair and Jack Frost.
The win eased the pressure on the Pies following their first-round thrashing by Fremantle, as once again they found their fires stoked by Sydney.
“The point was made after the game when we had a quick little review, about the weight lifted off the shoulders with a more positive performance, a more positive result,” Buckley said.
“We made a point prior to the game that as a club, when we are challenged,or when there’s a little bit of focus on us, we seem to run into Sydney, whether it’s here on in Melbourne.
“We enjoy playing against Sydney. We know exactly what brand of footy its going to be,”
Collingwood have five consecutive games at the MCG against other Victorian clubs, starting with Geelong, a side Buckley admires for their team balance.
“We’re looking for that balance in our side between inside players and outside players, speed and grunt, young and old,” Buckley said.
“We’re continuing to look for that and we’ll need the large part of the first half of this season to find it.”
Buckley said Collingwood’s offence clearly needed to improve.
“We’re spilling easy marks, we’re missing easy targets,”Buckley said.
“We’re forcing the ball when we should be going slow and were going slow when we should be going fast.”
He was pleased with the way his new-look defence was coming together.
“We’ve brought a couple of guys that potentially were a couple of rungs down, in our planning, but they’ve stood up and performed really well for us,”Buckley said.
Veteran defender Nathan Brown popped a shoulder on Saturday, with Buckley expecting to discover the full extent of the problem over the next day or two.
