Friday, 21st September – ANZ Stadium.
Collingwood head north to take on Sydney for a place in the 2012 AFL Grand Final It’ll be the third week of finals football for the Magpies, having been defeated by Hawthorn (135-97) a fortnight back, the Magpies came from behind to register a tough seven point victory over West Coast last week. Heading to Sydney and ANZ Stadium however will hold no fear for the Magpies.They have a remarkable record of seven consecutive victories at tonight’s venue and eleven straight wins over their opponents. The last time Sydney recorded a win against the Magpies was Round 13, 2005 (77-76).
On this stat only, you’d have to take a close look at the $2.35 on offer about them. Sydney have been arguably the best side all season and they earned the shot at a spot in the Grand Final the hard way by heading to Adelaide and beating the Crows (71-42) in week one of the finals.
That win also granted the luxury of having last week off but unfortunately that will not be enough time for Ben McGlynn who suffered a hamstring injury in the Adelaide match and will be missing. His goal kicking ability and strong defence especially, will be hard to replace.
They are perfectly poised to make their first Grand Final appearance since narrowly losing to West Coast in 2006. The last time these two sides met was in Round 20, here at ANZ, with the Magpies winning 78-70. Collingwood midfielder Dane Beams recorded a game-high 34 disposals in that game and the competition’s leader in effective disposals, continued his rich vein of form by registering 30 disposals in last week’s match.
Well supported by fellow midfielders Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan, it is the Collingwood midfield that the Swans will have to shut down. They’ve come close in the past but have always came up a little short – if the Magpies displayed the tenacity of last week, they may very well extend their winning streak over the Swans to twelve and secure their third straight Grand Final experience
Swans will not have a better chance to break the hoodoo the Magpies have over them. They lead the comp in tackles and will need to do exactly that here to nullify the Magpies midfield but, like the Swans perhaps, it’s hard to shake from one’s memory the recent history and I wonder if that might haunt the Swans should the game, as expected, go to the wire.
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