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Triple premiership Lion Jonathan Brown has declared Collingwood’s recent six-year window of contending is over as questions come over coach Craig McRae amid the reigning premiers’ 0-3 start to 2024.The Magpies have won a final in five of the last six seasons including playing in the 2018 decider, with a 17th-placed finish in 2021 the year before McRae took the reins now appearing to be an anomaly.With the oldest list in the competition and third-most experienced, the club is now in a tricky spot as it looks to dig itself out of a 0-3 hole. Watch every game of every round this Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial today >It comes with a host of Collingwood stars — some on the wrong side 30 — well down on form to start this season including Jordan De Goey (-57 per cent in playing ratings from 2023), Jack Crisp (-40 per cent), Steele Sidebottom (-38 per cent), Jeremy Howe (-35 per cent) and Darcy Moore (-34 per cent). And despite winning the 2023 flag, McRae’s side is now just 6-6 over its last 12 games after a mixed run in the second half of last season.Speaking on Fox Footy’s On The Couch, Brown held concerns that the club’s stalwarts that have carried the torch for so long can no longer be consistently relied upon.MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 21: Dejected Magpies players walk from the ground after the round two AFL match between St Kilda Saints and Collingwood Magpies at Melbourne Cricket Ground, on March 21, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)Source: FOX SPORTS“Is the Pies’ era over? I think it is. I’m getting away from ‘premiership hangovers’, because ‘premiership hangover’ seems to think you’re alluding to one season,” Brown began.“I’m saying era because this team has been up for a long time. They’ve won a final five out of the last six years and back in 2018 they almost won a premiership. “They’ve been there for six years this group, it’s been an era of this group. I’m not talking about a dynasty. This era of players, I think it’s coming to the end.“A few of the boys are really starting to drop off. That’s a concern because you don’t have the depth.”It comes just six months after the likes of Pendlebury, now 36 years old, and Sidebottom, 33, played absolute crucial roles in the club’s grand final win over the Lions. However Brown has noticed elements of decline in the above champions’ games to suggest they’re past their best.Longer AFL season at what cost? | 02:00“I’m not writing these players off and saying: ‘Let’s retire now’,” Brown added.“All I’m saying is, these can’t be the guys to drag them out of the mire when they often have been in the past — Sidebottom, Pendlebury, Howe, (Tom) Mitchell and Crisp. We’ve all been there, 33 and 34 years old, the doubts start to creep into your mind.“We’ve seen Sidebottom missing kicks and starting to fumble. ‘Pendles’ going big chunks of time without touching the football — all of a sudden the game starts to looks like it’s quickened up for Scott Pendlebury, when, for 15 years, he’s made the game slow down.“The names are still on the magnets, but these players are past their prime.“They can afford to lose four more games out of their next 20 if they’re going to make the top four, that’s it. That’s unlikely.” Collingwood legend and former coach Nathan Buckley, who led the team to deep finals runs in 2018 and 2019, asserted that McRae needs his next wave of leaders to really emerge.“Steele, Pendles and Howie have carried this side from a leadership and performance perspective for a long time,” Buckley told On The Couch.“It’s got to come from the next wrung down. (Nick and Josh Daicos) do a great job, but they’re going to be the ones taking even more responsibility going forward.“They haven’t had to be Sidebottom, Pendlebury and Howe in the past. They’ve had those guys there that have shown them the way and been the kickstarts to whatever Collingwood has needed to do in the last five, six years — even in the last decade.”Lose like North or win like Hawks? | 04:23Buckley added that McRae was riding the coaching rollercoaster for the first time in a telling period for the third-year coach and club.“For ‘Fly’ (McRae) it’s been up and up and up and up since he came in. Coaching is great on that journey, (but) it’s hard now,” he said. “We’ll find a little bit more out about Fly and the club in 2024 and the way they carry themselves and go about it. “It’s more difficult when you don’t know exactly where to go, don’t have momentum and are working out: ‘Of the 20 things we need to fix, which are the one or two we’re going to focus on?’”Former Demons skipper Garry Lyon meanwhile called out McRae’s comments after his side’s loss to St Kilda, that he’d “be surprised if others do as much (work on fundamentals) as we do.”Lyon suggested the Pies’ bleak start to 2024 is a wake up call that other clubs are “working harder”.“(McRae’s) intimation is ‘we were worker harder than everyone’. He might be getting the surprise right now — he might be getting the surprise that the Giants and Carlton are working harder than you,” Lyon told On the Couch.“It’s great to have confidence in your own coaching and say: ‘We’ve come back fitter and stronger’. Well guess what, the rest of them are as well.“The surprise might be what you’ve got for three weeks. Maybe the surprise has just caught up to them. The whole Collingwood footy might be getting a surprise of where they’re at.”It comes ahead of a huge grand final rematch against Brisbane, also yet to win a game this season at 0-2, at the Gabba on Thursday night. While McRae has emphasised a need for his side to tidy up its fundamentals, there’s “spot fires everywhere” in its game, according to chief Herald Sun reporter Mark Robinson.“If they didn’t win the premiership last year, we’d be all sitting here saying: ‘They’re a terrible team. They’re just not good enough and don’t care enough’,” Robinson said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.Can McRae stay ‘lovey dovey’ with Pies? | 03:12Fellow AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley highlighted several “indefensible” turnovers against St Kilda, which are all from veterans — including Moore, Pendlebury, Sidebottom and Howe — who he said have been “the shakiest”. “These are catastrophic turnovers that you wouldn’t see across the season, let alone packed into two weeks,” Whateley said.Robinson noted he’s “curious” to see if McRae needs to change his “lovey-dovey” coaching style given Collingwood’s struggles.“We know how Craig McRae coaches, it’s love … we only see Mr. Nice Guy,” he said. “Does Craig McRae have to change his coaching as his team changes its performance? Can you stay lovey dovey? Or do you sit them down and say: ‘Hey, what are you doing!? And you, you and you?’“Because the love’s got to be wearing off, it’s got to be. He’s been in love with these players for so long. I’m just curious, does he change? Every coach has to change as they go through their coaching period.“Does Craig McRae have to change the way he goes about it? Get a bit of fair instead of love.”
#coming #Greats #Pies #concerns #reigning #premiers #coach #fire
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