IMPROVING its ability to defend kick-ins was supposed to be a priority for Collingwood during the pre-season.

At a November members' forum, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley put the issue on the table when he told the crowd the club sat 18th for that measure in 2015.

"That will be a massive focus for us," Buckley said.

He said that despite the numbers of kick-ins not being huge, getting it right was important. 

"It is about field position and it is about the opportunity to turn the ball over and go and score, or maintain that forward pressure, when you have got it in your front half," Buckley said.

With 35 seconds remaining in the first quarter against West Coast, the Magpies had a kick-in to defend. 

Seventeen seconds later, Eagles forward Josh Kennedy ran into an open goal to break the Magpies.

WATCH: West Coast cuts Collingwood's zone to ribbons

It was the equal-third fastest coast-to-coast goal of the season, with one of the two equal-fastest being a 14-second blitzkrieg by St Kilda against Collingwood in round three. 

Both passages encapsulated Collingwood's problems in 2016.

The Pies' defensive zone is leaky as they struggle to win back the ball, or at least interrupt the opposition, in open play. 

In 2016, Collingwood is ranked 17th in allowing the opposition to move from defensive 50 and score. 

During Sunday's offending passage the Magpies conceded two marks inside their back half.

They have conceded an average of 16.8 marks inside 50 this season, to be equal-worst for the statistic this season. 

Inside Collingwood's defensive 50 are Ben Reid and Nathan Brown, two strong aeralists who are being given little chance to compete because of the lack of pressure applied all over the ground. 

Collingwood loses just 21 per cent of its one-on-one contests inside 50 (ranked third) but has only competed in 43 of these contests this season.

Too often the ball flies through the zone quicker than a slalom skier flicks down the mountain between poles. 

Collingwood also concedes a mark from 26 per cent of kicks that goes inside its defensive 50, ranked 17th in the competition.

Quickest goals from kick-ins in 2016

During Sunday's coast-to-coast goal, a massive space was left just inside the attacking side of Collingwood's centre square for Eagles forward Jack Darling to run into and take Jeremy McGovern's kick, the second in the chain. 

Ben Reid trailed Darling in but three players could have filled the space into which Darling ran to mark, before kicking to Mark Le Cras as he sprinted inside 50. 

Those three players – Brayden Maynard, Jordan De Goey and Adam Oxley – have played 59 games between them.

They are inexperienced, coachable players but still not great decision makers when the ball is out of their hands.

Leaders did not surround them as they gathered in one corner of the ground and no one decided that, with such a short amount of time remaining for the term, the approach had to be completely defensive. 

Maynard decided to stay wide on his wing alongside an opponent that was more than 80 metres from the ball; Oxley did not push back hard until the ball was over his head; while De Goey did not move quickly enough to squeeze the zone and cause a chain reaction among teammates guarding space, condensing the defence and making Collingwood hard to play against.  

These were normal decisions that footballers live or die by every minute of every game.

The question now confronting Buckley, with experience and familiarity gone from the team, is whether to persist with a system that the youngest players appear to be struggling to implement.

The question for supporters is how patient they are prepared to be as the Magpies work toward becoming instinctive alongside each other. 

The Magpies had seven players with fewer than 30 games experience in the team on Sunday. 

They have used 35 players and the familiarity required to implement the press successfully is not present. 

After the Eagles scored their second goal from a kick-in midway through the third quarter, cameras captured Buckley wondering aloud how the ball had left the Magpies forward line so easily. 

Inexperience seemed the obvious answer because the Magpies are having a crack.

Their work inside the contest is reasonable, particularly since round one and they can generate scores from their attacking half, not surprising given much of Collingwood's coaching group is comprised of head-over-the-ball types.

In the third quarter when the numbers around the contest lifted the Magpies clawed their way back into the game in an admirable manner. 

But in the end they were overrun, conceding 19 marks inside 50 and 34 scoring shots to end the round as the third-worst team for points conceded.

At times on Sunday, it was more like the Collingwood colander than the Weagles' web.

Stats supplied by Champion Data