
Collingwood veteran Scott Pendlebury seals victory over West Coast with another rare goal celebration
Collingwood veteran Scott Pendlebury has unveiled a new celebration after another rare goal in the win over West Coast.
The ageless warrior was among his side's best in the hard-fought victory, racking up 28 touches, nine clearances and six tackles.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Scott Pendlebury drops new celebration after rare goal.
He capped off his performance with a brilliant goal on the run in the final minute to put the rubber stamp on the 29-point victory.
After kicking the goal, Pendlebury wheeled away and pretended to put a helmet on before swiping an imaginary lightsaber.
It followed on from last week when he pretended to play the piano, which he later said was a tribute to his daughter Darcy.
Speaking after the match, Pendlebury said he wanted to make both his children happy.
'Jax wanted a lightsaber, is that what it's called from Star Wars, and Darcy wanted me to put a helmet on, so I combined the two so they're both happy tomorrow morning,' he told Fox Footy.
'I don't usually kick many goals so these celebrations are rare.'
The bottom-of-the-ladder Eagles travelled to Marvel Stadium in Melbourne on Saturday night as the rankest outsider of the season.
With a 1-14 record and missing a stack of experienced talent, West Coast led the red-hot Magpies at quarter-time and half-time.
But Collingwood managed 8.5 to 2.4 in the second half, setting up the 13.10 (88) to 8.11 (59) win in Brody Mihocek's 150th game.
Collingwood's seventh straight win was probably their least convincing of the season, often outworked around the contest.
Only the Eagles' lack of polish and experience stopped the result from being even closer.
Forward Jack Williams sprayed a set shot from 35m out at the start of the final term that would have reduced the margin to four points if he had slotted it.
That poor finish came after Williams had inexplicably decided to launch a kick from West Coast's defensive 50 in the dying seconds of the third term, landing straight in the lap of Collingwood superboot Dan Houston.
As he often does, Houston kicked truly from outside 50m to give the Magpies a major boost on the stroke of three-quarter time.
Nick Daicos, who went without a hard tag after tactics to quieten the Magpies superstar became a major story during the week, was typically influential with 34 touches and a classy running goal.
Veteran defender Jeremy Howe was superb, cutting off a number of West Coast forward entries.
Liam Baker was the Eagles' most prolific ball-winner with 35 possessions, while Brady Hough impressed with 27 touches and a goal.
Both teams had an eye-catching debutant, with highly touted Collingwood forward Charlie West slotting a goal with his first kick, before being subbed off in the final quarter.
Jobe Shanahan looks capable of filling the role of injured co-captain Oscar Allen, who is set to join the Brisbane Lions in the off-season.
A rangy key forward, Shanahan's first goal came from a tricky set shot.

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Herald Sun
18 minutes ago
- Herald Sun
AFL wildcard weekend needed to keep season alive, draft assistance
Andrew Dillon is well aware the only concept the public hates more than draft assistance through priority picks is the annual discussion about a wildcard weekend. But as the AFL's chief executives meet on the Gold Coast on Tuesday and Wednesday for a two-day gabfest, those two contentious ideas will intersect given this season's glaring concerns. Talk to the punter in the street and they will tell you this year has been one-sided and downright boring. The same clubs dominating as in recent years (Brisbane, Geelong, Collingwood) and too many one-sided, predictable encounters. As recently as last year we had 13 teams competing late in the year for eight finals spots. And this season we are likely to have four teams in the eight who were absent last year in Collingwood, Gold Coast, Adelaide and Fremantle. A season that started in a blaze of glory with a series of epic blockbuster clashes had run out of puff by the five bye rounds which interrupted the season's momentum. Just when it should be about to roar back to life, the season has lost its sting. So as those CEOs assemble, Dillon's solutions to two connecting challenges will be interesting to assess. The challenges are obvious. How does the AFL keep interest in a season for longer in an era when Fox Footy and Seven have paid record sums for what looks like a series of dead rubbers in the last eight weeks? Is the AFL prepared to actually get serious about an 8 v 9 wildcard weekend that keeps more teams relevant deeper into the season instead of just discussing it at the annual CEO's conferences? And how can the league actually fix its draft and equalisation system to hasten the boom-bust cycle so rebuilding clubs don't spend a decade trying to work their way back up the top? How do we incentivise teams bouncing hard from rebuilds to flourish like the Dogs in 2016 as they peeled off nine wins in the final 13 home-and-away games before peeling off four straight finals victories? Or Richmond's Tiger Train winning the last nine games of 2014 to make finals with a three-point SCG victory over Sydney? Both those teams banked draft picks through rebuilds but were able to come out the other side without running into a brick wall formed by free agency, academies and NGA talent. The problem is easy to diagnose. Sixteen years ago Mick Malthouse coined the term Blockbuster Fatigue to describe his club's inability to rise to the occasion after weeks of marquee contests. The AFL is about to hit Dead Rubber Syndrome. This week the top nine teams play the bottom nine teams. Mathematically, 10th placed Port Adelaide is still in the race but in reality no chance given they are two wins behind Gold Coast, have a percentage of 84, and have played an extra game on the Suns. Fox Footy's ratings are going gangbusters but a penny for the thought of Seven's executives with flagging ratings and a series of one-sided encounters in the eight rounds ahead. Perhaps this year is no perfect example given Essendon is sinking under its weight of injuries, Melbourne is mediocre, Carlton is cast and Sydney leaving its run too late. But clubs, players and the AFL have good reason to push for a wildcard weekend. The players are sharing in the largess of a 37 per cent pay rise in the current 2023-2027 CBA deal but with TV rights locked in for seven more years it is hard to see where their next big pay rise comes when they start negotiating the next deal in the near future. They need to do everything in their power to turbocharge the value of the TV rights, including state of origin and the wildcard round that would mean more teams are more relevant deeper into the season. It isn't just the single wildcard contest, it is that in an 18-team competition more teams are alive until later in the season. The yearning for tradition is a moot point given the repeated changes to the AFL's finals system since a top four in 1987. 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The league dodged a bullet when Matt Rowell decided against going to heavyweights Collingwood or Geelong last week, but none of the league's battlers were even in the picture. As Clarkson said on Saturday: 'The mechanisms to get yourself up the ladder are as challenging as they have ever been'. 'At Hawthorn the first two drafts there was a priority pick involved. One was Jarryd Roughead and the other was Xavier Ellis and they were both premiership players for the club. Richmond, the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn all reaped the benefits of that situation where they did try to give a leg up to clubs and all of those clubs won premierships in the next decade. But the system worked in terms of equalisation. Now there are other forms of equalistation. 'NGA academies, northern free agency and all of them have made it more difficult for teams down the bottom of the ladder to secure the talent they need.' 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Brisbane and Geelong look to have five-year flag windows ahead, and the Roos are stuck down the bottom as usual. The value in amassing quality draft picks is diluted when your rival can just add a Jeremy Cameron or Dan Houston because they are chasing flags. Clubs down the bottom are forced to desperate measures. West Coast has had to continually 'split' high draft picks to go back in the order to take multiple players in the top 20 given they are so far off. St Kilda is having to throw stupid money at Tom De Koning while Bailey Smith plays down the highway for half of that sum. North Melbourne got some draft assistance from the league and had to hand over quality picks for Griffin Logue and Darcy Tucker because no one else would come. Heaven forbid to think what the Roos are having to pay Logue, Luke Parker, Zac Fisher, Callum Coleman-Jones and Aidan Corr combined while clubs with academy pipelines secure those players on mandated first and second-year wages. 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West Australian
10 hours ago
- West Australian
Motormouth Mitch: Fremantle must refuse to play at SCG because of the diabolical surface
From West Coast's rebuild starting to take shape to the stance Fremantle must take ahead of their clash against Sydney, The West Australian footballer writer Mitchell Woodcock takes a no-holds-barred look at the weekend of footy. Finally on Track History won't say West Coast walked out of Marvel Stadium on Saturday night winners. However, their fighting loss to premiership favourites Collingwood might yet prove to be the game which proved most evident that the Eagles' brutal rebuild was on the right track. For the past three and a half seasons experts and fans have debated and argued about what West Coast should do to get themselves out of the worst on-field period in club history. The evidence is now there for the path they should take and those in charge must be brave to stay the course. Andrew McQualter's modern gamestyle was always going to take time to implement and while it's far from a finished product, the signs are there for the side they want to become known for. But it's not going to work if they don't get the personnel in that can take the club forward. Injuries to senior players in Oscar Allen, Jake Waterman and Elliot Yeo as well as the sudden and unplanned retirement of Jeremy McGovern will force forced the Eagles to play a younger team than they may have wanted to for the rest of the season. And they have gone all in, moving senior players into different roles that complement their talented youngsters. You only need to look at the centre bounces where Matt Flynn was rucking to Harley Reid, Brady Hough and Elijah Hewett while the likes of Tim Kelly and Liam Baker were outside of the centre square. When it works, the Eagles look electric and play with an intensity and ferocity that is capable of challenging the best. They proved so against Collingwood. They have gone from unwatchable in recent years to somewhat frustrating but in a positive way. 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The AFL are lucky no one was seriously injured because it would've been disastrous. It is an occupational hazard and with the massive amount of rain set to hit Sydney mid-week it is unlikely that it is going to get any better between now and Sunday morning when Fremantle take on the Swans. Dockers chief executive Simon Garlick must be firm that the game be moved to another ground. Fremantle are in a healthy position to not only go deep into finals but also be a threat for the premiership. This could all come crashing down if one or even worse several star players land or move awkwardly on the putrid SCG surface and hurt themselves. Imagine if Caleb Serong changes direction and snaps an ACL. Or if Josh Treacy lands on a bit of uneven surface and pulls ligaments in his ankle. Those sorts of moments can change the course of a career and legacy for coach Justin Longmuir. They are the difference between premierships and sackings. Between a place in history or infamy. To play at the SCG is too big a risk right now. Fremantle must throw their weight around at league headquarters and get the game moved to a more suitable venue. The AFL cannot allow a game to go ahead there until the issues are fixed. But if that means Garlick must get on a plane and speak to AFL boss Andrew Dillon at the Melbourne headquarters then that's what he should do. Fremantle could be on the brink of something special. They can't let the SCG surface threaten it.

Sydney Morning Herald
18 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sitting pretty but winning ugly. Should the Pies be worried or should everyone else?
Dan Houston was the Magpies major off-season recruit, but to date – other than being best on ground in his first match in black and white – has been good but not great. Lachie Schultz, too, struggled in his first season at Collingwood last year, adjusting to their style of play. But between injuries this year, he has been very good. Schultz now understands where he best fits and the role he plays. With Houston the player and team are still fine-tuning that. Collingwood likes handball chains in defence to find a free player to kick it inside their forward 50 metres. By bringing Houston in at the same time they moved Josh Daicos behind the ball, they now have two players designed to be their architects and distributors. To date, Daicos has been commonly used more than Houston in that role. Houston's numbers are slightly down on his averages at Port Adelaide over the past few years – 17 touches a game at Collingwood down on 23 a game for Port. He has also had slightly fewer marks, tackles, inside 50s and rebound 50s a game at Collingwood. The numbers are not alarming. They are partly explained by the fact two different teams play two different styles and ask different things of Houston in his role. He has not been poor – no Houston, we do not have a problem – but he has not been as influential as he was at Port. The flip side of this is there is more growth in his game yet at Collingwood. His fellow defensive recruit Harry Perryman has been the better of the two additions to the team so far. Perryman has been excellent. Loading Goodbye to the bye The AFL has to say bye to the bye in its current format. Five shortened rounds in a row – nearly a quarter of the fixture – sucks the life out of the season. Thursday nights have taken free-to-air footy off Saturdays, but the bye rounds have also created a black hole on Sundays, often with just two games. The byes have also meant for a lean football diet in Melbourne. In the past three weeks there have been two, three and two games each weekend in Melbourne. With football played across four days, the reduced number of games from byes leaves the fixture stretched and thin for quality. This is compounded by the fact there are a large number of poor-to-mediocre teams this year. Frankly, the logic of accepting byes are necessary is baffling – players are paid to play, so that's what they should do. But that argument was lost on the collective bargaining negotiating table years ago. So we have to live with each team getting a mid-season bye, and find a better solution to the current long winter crawl. One full week off for all clubs doesn't hold great appeal without something to fill the void – an AFLW State of Origin game could and would work, but for the fact it is out-of-season for that competition. At least it is at the moment – the timing of the AFLW season has long been a moving feast. Playing just one or two games – Friday and Saturday nights – for one week and giving the rest of the comp a week off was tried before but dismissed. It was felt to be too empty for that one week, but now feels like it might have been a better alternative than what we presently have. Then again, this is a decision to be made by the people who brought us injury-ravaged, callow Essendon on Thursday or Friday nights in four of the next eight rounds. Oh, and they still have to fit them in during the last round – which has yet to be scheduled – for an extra game against Gold Coast for the cyclone-postponed opening-round match. Loading This has happened despite the AFL having the flexibility of a rolling fixture. Clearly the league over-estimated Essendon and Carlton, for that matter, in their scheduling of the second half of this season. The AFL has been focused on change at headquarters with their executive. A change to the bye, better fixturing, servicing the TV-viewing fans – those who pay and those who don't – with football might be a good start for the new executive team. Lynch crosses line The term white line fever might have been coined for Tom Lynch. Off the field there is no more charming, genial figure. He is like an old labrador. On the field he is a different person, more rottweiler than lab. It is like he releases his week's worth of suppressed anger and aggression in a two-hour window. Ordinarily, this helped give him a presence, on Sunday it simply made him look like an angry old man. His hit on Jordan Butts – we've all seen the footage – was a swing in frustration. His statistics for the first half read: zero kicks, zero handballs, zero marks, zero tackles, five frees against. If you read stats alone, you would not have known he was out there but for five frees he gave away. If you watched the game, you certainly knew he was there because he was the one waving his arms around, whinging and carrying on at the umpires. He threw Butts to the ground minutes before he struck him in the head. He was angry that Adelaide players were dropping in the hole in front of him, and he wanted them to know it. Oh, they knew it. Injury and age has stopped him being the player he once was. His team is a long way from the team it was when he was in his prime. His hit on Butts looked to be the lashing out of a man raging against the fading light. How many weeks will he get for it? It looked like he meant to punch him in the head, and he succeeded, so it was intentional, not careless, and it was high. What was the impact? Who knows? But the potential to injure was very high. It should, and probably will, go straight to the tribunal. Will his likely suspension matter in the context of Richmond's season? They play Geelong next week. Ordinarily, you would say missing Lynch would hurt them, but not if you're going off his stats against Adelaide. Humphrey quietly makes a mark Mac Andrew got the big bucks. So, too, will Matt Rowell after confirming his new contract this week. But Bailey Humphrey is quietly becoming the player every team is going to want because he is now turning into the player he was projected to be. He is naturally a player with strut. But for his early years in the AFL he tried too hard to live up to the comparisons with Dustin Martin. Now he is playing like he knows he belongs in the AFL. In a midfield where the focus is Rowell and Noah Anderson, Humphrey is the disruptor. He has the burst of speed from the contest the Suns needed.