Collingwood vs. Carlton: The greatest games, the greatest rivalry
If not a fantastic game, it had always been a tremendous rivalry.
That is, until Carlton signed Michael Voss and Collingwood hired Craig McRae.
McRae and Voss have contributed to rekindling one of football's greatest and most enduring rivalries over the past three seasons, ever since the Pies and the Blues decided to take a different approach with their coaching choices.
During the tenures of McRae and Voss, Collingwood surely had an unbreakable grasp on Carlton, but the games themselves now have a fierceness and intimacy that had hitherto eluded such matches.
With McRae and Voss in charge, four of the six Collingwood-Carlton matches have been decided by a kick. To find the previous Pies-Blues thriller that came that close before then, you would have to go all the way back to 2005.
Actually, four of the previous 74 games had been decided by a kick before any coach took control. Since 1984, it has had a terrible record, with 14 of those games being decided by a lopsided margin of 50 points or more.
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R11, 2022: Collingwood 11.13 (79) defeated Carlton 11.9 (75)
This one had seemed over when Ollie Henry put Collingwood 23 points up as the match ticked into time-on. But all it did was spark a valiant fightback from Carlton. Charlie Curnow kicked successive goals to bring the margin back to five points with just over a minute remaining, only for Jack Silvagni's late snap to fly just wide of the target.
There was more drama on the siren when Sam Walsh appeared to be tackled high, but play-on was called and the Pies held on. It would spark an 11-match winning run for Collingwood, with eight of those games decided by single-digit margins. Remarkably, more thrilling action was still to come between these sides later in the 2022 season.
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R10, 2023: Collingwood 13.7 (85) defeated Carlton 7.15 (57)
This is perhaps the only Collingwood-Carlton clash in recent memory to go by almost without incident. The Pies were in the middle of an eight-match winning run, while the Blues were down in the dumps and in the midst of a six-match losing streak. The contest therefore went as expected. On a Sunday afternoon, the Pies shot into an early 24-point lead at quarter time thanks to a five-goal-to-one opening term and maintained it throughout. The margin blew out to as much as 44 points in the second quarter, with the Blues unable to whittle it back beyond that. Tom Mitchell claimed the Brownlow votes with 26 disposals and eight clearances, while Brody Mihocek kicked four goals.
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