Their three key forwards Dan McStay, Jack Buller and Tim Membrey have two goals between them from the opening two games.

McStay was a useful player in 2023 and 2024. Now he is not. Membrey was never a tall target, nor a high possession winner, but on saturday night he didn’t even touch the ball for almost three quarters.

The Pies recruited Buller as a competitor and role player who could replace veteran Brodie Mihocek and bring the ball to ground. He is only 12 games into his career, so he deserves the benefit of the doubt. But he has only taken two marks in his two games for Collingwood and is yet to kick a goal. As a second ruckman, he is an upgrade on McStay, but that is more a comment on McStay’s rucking than his.

In the reserves they have Charlie West, who has played one senior game, and emerging ruckman Oscar Steene, who is yet to make his debut.

The inexperience of the alternatives will be a factor in McStay’s retention, but if his form continues that reason will diminish by the week.

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It must also be remembered that this is a forward line without Bobby Hill, who is highly unlikely to return and whose disappearance from the team midway through last year has coincided with the team’s drop-off.

On Saturday night, they played Jordan De Goey, who was excellent the week before, more forward than in the midfield, but he had no impact. Jamie Elliott, a bona fide star, who should have been in last year’s All-Australian team, was poor for the first three quarters, but good in the last quarter when Collingwood ceased their futile plan of bombing Hail Mary high kicks to his tall teammates and instead searched for talented forwards, not just tall ones.

The Magpies need to find a solution. Perhaps they will throw Jeremy Howe forward when he comes back from injury in place of one of their other talls and structure a forward line of medium-sized marking targets.

Collingwood is now beginning to feel the effect of their age, being out of the sharpest end of the draft and having a couple of misses with the late first round picks they’ve had.

More than other clubs, they need to invest time and effort in young players who have come to them from late picks or state leagues, to produce a key forward, key back or a midfielder. In the cases of Ed Allan and Harry De Mattia, they have first-round selections who are yet to perform to the potential they showed at underage level.

Yet Collingwood – the wealthiest AFL club along with West Coast – has entered this season without appointing a new head of development after Josh Fraser moved to Carlton at the end of last season. Instead, they have carved up the role and loaded it onto the workload of their line coaches. Previously they went through a whole season without replacing their general manager of football.

That is not the reason their tall forwards are misfiring, but it is an unusual approach for a club that needs to bring on speculative talent.

The prospect of them pursuing Gold Coast’s Ben King as a free agent becomes more compelling by the week.

Longmuir is right

Justin Longmuir didn’t raise the problem of the distortion and avoidable inequities that opening round creates, but he was clearly glad someone noticed there was an elephant sitting in the corner.

Teams that are playing their second game for the season, by virtue of opening round, have an inherent advantage over teams playing their first game for the year, Longmuir said. Everyone knows it in the industry they just don’t speak about it, he added.

Of course, the easy response is to say this was a deflection from the fact his side gave up a match-winning lead. Maybe it was, but it was also partly an explanation for why they did that.

Clubs in the main privately say Longmuir is right; it’s harder to play your first game against a side that is second up.

The rationale for opening round – to give more prime-time exposure to the expanding markets – was sound and smart. What was not sound, or smart, was that in doing so the AFL invented a new layer of inequity to a fixture that was already inherently unfair.

Any change to the fixture should be primarily focused on fixing inequities, not creating new ones.

It is possible to have the benefits of opening round fairly. Give the four northern states teams the first window of the season to promote the game, but then have every other team play after that. The window of exclusivity would still exist, giving the expansion-market teams the precious prime TV real estate of season openers, but there is no reason the rest of the competition cannot play in the days afterwards.

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The AFL has already broken the seal – opening round is no longer exclusively for games in NSW and Queensland because St Kilda were gifted an exclusive home game at the MCG last weekend.

Is it just coincidence that the loudest critic of northern academies and AFL assistance to the expansion teams, Andrew Bassat, is president of the Saints, the team given the only home game in Melbourne that weekend?

If the AFL is going to play one match at the MCG on the Sunday night of opening round, why would it not play a game on the Labour Day public holiday Monday? That is an opportunity lost.

The season should open with games in the northern states on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday afternoon, which is a preferred local timeslot in Sydney. The remaining games can be played after that on the Saturday night, Sunday and the public holiday.

It would not dilute the marketing advantage of showcasing games in the expansion markets and would not shutout fans of the other teams, who are presently being given the clear message that the AFL takes them for granted.

Speed Demons

The first look at Steven King’s Demons was exciting, regardless of the result. The midfield was always going to be radically different without Petracca, Oliver and the injured Viney, but a summer promising a faster game style had to be met with action. On Sunday it was.

The Demons looked faster, more determined to play through the corridor and to take the game on. Jacob van Rooyen clearly relished the change, kicking six goals. A player who has teased at his potential, he looked so much more assertive and threatening with the ball coming in fast. He was perhaps helped by the bullocking work of the experienced Brody Mihocek alongside him.

The Saints, meanwhile, for all the hype and hope of pre-season, are now winless from two games.

Bont’s reminder

Last week when the game was to be won, Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge kept Marcus Bontempelli out of the middle, empowered by the starring efforts of Ed Richards.

This week, the game was killed in a half by Bontempelli in the middle. To half-time, he had 18 touches, three goals and the Dogs led by 38 points. He was not tagged.

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Coaches weekly will find a reason they don’t tag a good player. This week Adam Kingsley said GWS’s numbers normally point to them having more success not tagging than tagging. If those numbers still hold after Saturday night, then the Giants are looking at the wrong stats.

It’s a curious thing. No coach would leave a dangerous forward without a designated defender, but many will willingly leave some of the best players in the competition without a tagger while he destroys their team.

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