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• Fantasy form watch: This week's pig and Presti
• Who fired or flopped for your team in this weekend's state leagues?

COLLINGWOOD has enjoyed some fine wins in the Nathan Buckley era as coach, but few better than Sunday's 17-point victory over North Melbourne at the MCG.

Wins don't come much better than those after trailing by 39 points at half-time. Throw in some rain and some mud and it makes the win all the more special.

So poor were the Pies early that Buckley rated it "the worst half of footy we've played this year. We were that far off it, it's not funny."

Yet the belief was steadfast, the resolve was there and Collingwood swept the deficit away in just one scintillating quarter of footy.

There have been questions asked about the Pies of whether their win-loss record was inflated, but this was their most meritorious win over the year and their top-four standing at the end of round nine, you would have to say is most deserved.

We say it about the good teams, so why not about the Pies – you can only beat the teams put in front of you – and for the most part Collingwood has been doing that.

It is shaping as a vintage year for small forwards and Jamie Elliott threw his name into the mix with five goals. Eddie Betts and Cyril Rioli attract the headlines and star in the highlight reels, but Elliott is just so effective. How long before we talk about him as we do Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan?

Collingwood's win also underlines once again how Buckley has taken this group and made it his own. We know about the high-profile casualties along the way as the coach went about changing the culture at the club. The flair has largely disappeared from the Magpies but the disciplines, structures and single-mindedness is stronger than ever.

Buckley himself is coaching superbly. And Eddie McGuire, who made the brave and unpopular decision at the end of 2011 to shepherd Buckley into the head-coaching role at the football club, is looking more sage by the week.

And the AFL won't be displeased by Collingwood's resurgence either. Having Greater Western Sydney in the top four was great for game development, but having Collingwood there is better for the bottom line. If Hawthorn, as expected, climb past the Giants in the next few weeks, then few at the AFL would be displeased with a top five that features two West Australian clubs, the Sydney Swans and the two biggest clubs in Victoria, the Pies and Hawks.

It was a disastrous loss for North Melbourne, yet another perplexing defeat for which coach Brad Scott appeared to have no answers. The Kangas can be silky at their best, but their worst can be horrid; that gap between their best and worst is too vast for a good team.

Scott didn't mince words, calling it as "disgusting a loss" he can remember in his time at North. Sadly for him, a few Kangaroo diehards can probably trot out a list of quite a few of them.

The loss leaves them a game and nearly 20 per cent out of the eight. There are still 13 rounds remaining, so there are all sorts of twists and turns to come. But the suspicion has long been that North comes up short against the best teams in the competition and Sunday's result, the absence of Andrew Swallow, Nick Dal Santo and Daniel Wells not withstanding, was further proof of that.

When the coach throws up suggestions of mental frailties, then it will make for a tough week for the Kangaroos. It is doubtful any player will be spared.

Who's stopping the Dockers?

In the increasingly likely event that Fremantle wins the premiership this year, the recap of the season will surely highlight Saturday night's win over Adelaide.

It was as intimidating an atmosphere as the Dockers will face all season against a side that was up for the challenge and, quite frankly, fancied its chances of the win, starting with coach Phil Walsh who in the lead-up to the clash was quite bullish about Adelaide's chances.

He was right to paint a rosy picture for the Crows, because there were patches during the game when they were clearly in control of the best team in the competition.

But that's what's great about your 2015 Dockers. They soaked up the pressure, counterpunched beautifully and got a win to savour.

They'll always be hard to toss when they enjoy an 86-27 edge in hit-outs, which included 69 from Aaron Sandilands, a personal best and a figure that left the statisticians and the historians scrambling to find a more dominant performance. They couldn't find one.

They're also close to unbeatable when Nat Fyfe racks up 40 possessions (26 contested), 14 clearances and a goal. One betting agency is already paying out its Fyfe-for-the-Brownlow bets and you have to wonder how many will follow suit. Only injury and/or suspension can stop him now.

Fyfe went head to head with Patrick Dangerfield for more than 60 per cent of Saturday night's clash. If Fyfe won the head-to-head battle, the Adelaide man was only marginally beaten, with his 38 possessions (29 contested) also an outstanding return. The old-timers talk of Paul Vander Haar versus Peter Knights at Windy Hill in 1978, but this one was equally gladiatorial.

This game always loomed as one of the more difficult away assignments for Fremantle for the season and at 9-0 it is worth looking at the remaining 13 games for the Dockers to see when they might lose a game.

Their home remaining home schedule is eminently manageable. Richmond on Friday week, Collingwood in round 13 and West Coast in round 20 might pose some challenges, with the emphasis on 'might'. The clash with the Eagles is a Freo home game, which is worth an extra couple of goals on the scoreboard.

They play the Tigers twice in six weeks and the return match at the MCG could be tight if the Tigers continue their rate of improvement.

The Hawthorn clash at Aurora Stadium could be the one and comes at an interesting time for the Dockers, who might decide that the particularly long road trip might be the week to leave some veterans at home.

Or they could take their best team to Tasmania and beat the Hawks on their favourite patch of dirt and really send a chilling message to the rest of the competition.

Away games to North Melbourne and Port Adelaide in the final three weeks of the seasons also come into play, although again, Fremantle might have its top-two berth sealed by then and be in full player load management in the lead-up to the finals.

In any event, Fremantle's meticulously planned premiership campaign could not be panning out any better. Things are going swimmingly for the AFL's men in purple.

Traditional rivals?

When you combine the words "Western Bulldogs" and "traditional rivals" what usually follows is a blank line.

Back when the AFL had rivalry rounds, the Dogs were sometimes lumped in with St Kilda, probably by virtue that the Saints also have no real hard-core traditional rivalry of their own. With just one premiership each, both the Dogs and Saints have shared history of missed opportunities and near misses, but to call theirs a real rivalry was a figment of the AFL marketing department's imagination.

For clubs to be traditional rivals, there has to have been some sort of feud or some blood spilt along the way, which is why we're holding out great hope that the Western Bulldogs and Greater Western Sydney will develop some sort of fierce rivalry.

The signs are good. Ryan Griffen's defection to the Giants last summer rankled with Bulldogs fans and they let their feelings be known at Etihad on Saturday. We're getting into tricky ground these days when it comes to jeering in the AFL but there could be no debate about why Doggies fans felt so aggrieved towards their former skipper.

Sadly, there is no return clash between the two clubs, so no opportunity for Giants fans to let Tom Boyd understand the depths of their feelings.

But the Bulldogs would have enjoyed their win. Just as doubts were creeping in about on the back of two straight defeats, the Dogs were ferocious early and set up their win with an eight-goal first quarter.

Indeed, the final margin was 45, but look at the scoreline – 16.17 to 11.2. Imagine the carnage had the Dogs kicked straighter and the Giants been less efficient in front of goal.

What would also have pleased coach Luke Beveridge is that the Bulldogs were creating scores from inside 50 once more.

It was a feature of the opening five rounds of the season when the Dogs created 8.2 scores per match from inside their own 50. From rounds six to eight, that figure dropped back to three per game, but against the Giants, they were manic once more with 10 scores, worth 40 points in total, created from their inside 50.

The heat map below shows the Dogs' score launches at Etihad Stadium on Saturday. 

That result is a reflection of hard work and often-manic pressure on the opposition, because scores created from turnovers are a key part of that.

The Bulldog press: The Dogs launched 10 scores from inside their forward 50 against GWS, ranking them first in the AFL for that stat in round nine. Source: Champion Data

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It wasn't a calamitous loss for the Giants, save for the Bulldogs being a team they most likely really want to beat. At 6-3, they are good enough to win their remaining home games, which would get them right into finals contention. But there will always be the question about whether this youngish side has the stamina to play out the season at such a high level. Do they still need another tough pre-season?

The Bulldogs have that solid look about them once more. Saturday night at Adelaide Oval against the Power now seems like a tough assignment, although having beaten the Swans at the SCG, nothing should faze them. But after that, they face the Brisbane Lions, St Kilda, Carlton and Gold Coast, all winnable games that should leave them not just in finals contention, but in the mix for the top six and a home final.

The stat that matters

John Barker's first game as the interim senior coach of the Carlton Football Club was never going to be won or lost on the scoreboard.

Playing away to the Sydney Swans, the consensus second favourite for the premiership, the final margin was almost immaterial. What mattered most for the Blues was their tackle count.

Against the Giants and Geelong, in the final two weeks of the Michael Malthouse era, the respective tackle counts were a lamentable 41 and then 35 and as much as anything, are what did Malthouse in because they indicated a lack of effort and care.

On Friday night, that figure was 65 and early in the game, the Blues were particularly busy and physical. That was about all Barker could ask for in his first game considering the considerable gulf in talent between the sides was widened further when Chris Judd, Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs didn't play.

So for the Blues, the form spike that often follows the installation of a temporary coach was not in evidence on the scoreboard, but was there in effort. And that's something that Barker – who looked after the game like he hadn’t slept in days – could hang his hat on.

QUESTION TIME

 



Ashley Browne: 2019? Love the optimism from the Carlton fans. He is going to be a very, very good footballer and one the Blues obtained under normal 21st century circumstances, i.e. through the draft and not with a chequebook. All the Blues need do is find another eight to 10 like him over the next five years and they'll be on their way. Employing a national recruiting manager would be a nice start.

 



AB: Let's start with the assumption you're asking about the Gold Coast Tom Lynch given this tweet came through during the Hawks-Suns clash. He's a dangerous swingman and Rodney Eade deployed him well in the first half on Saturday as a tall backman when Gold Coast was defending into the teeth of the howling gale and then as a leading forward in the second term when the Suns had the wind. He looked really dangerous early in the second quarter with two quick goals, but the problem then was that the Suns couldn't get their hands on the ball for the next 15 minutes. Charlie Dixon had a really dirty day, so Lynch was their best forward option. But once the Suns midfield couldn't get their hands on the ball, it wouldn't have mattered if John Coleman was playing at full-forward.