Collingwood enters a new era in 2022 under coach Craig McRae and fans can expect to see a different looking side.
Under Nathan Buckley, the Magpies had one of the best team defensive structures in the league, but ultimately struggled going forward.
Speaking on how his gameplan will differ from the previous regime, McRae said to anticipate a more attacking brand.
“You’ll have to see it, but we’ll go forward more,” McRae told SEN Breakfast.
“You’ll just see, we won’t be going backwards, sideways and around.
“I think there’s a shift in the game and the way it’s played across the board. I’m just listening to all sorts of coaches and players about ‘we want to score more and go forward’.
“That’s going to be fascinating to see how that plays out. We’re going to play more contested.
“We’ve done a truckload of work on kicking to one-on-ones and two-on-twos and the old fashion roll it out in front one-on-ones.
“We have to get better at that side of the game. You can’t denigrate the past, but the past was an uncontested brand and we’ve got 20 guys under 21 who haven’t played much contested footy.
“We needed to really practice that over the summer and you’ll see that (in our practice match against Hawthorn).”
After finishing 17th last season, what should we expect performance-wise from Collingwood in 2022?
McRae reveals their plan internally is to judge themselves on development and improvement.
“It’s so difficult and it is the unknown. Take Scott Pendlebury for example who’s played 334 games, but he’s yet to play one in this new gameplan. A guy like him is still learning new things and how we want to play,” he said.
“It is so difficult. All I’ll say to the fans listening is that I’ll be disappointed if you don’t see natural growth every week from individuals or the teams. That’s the focus I’d present to the board.
“The players hear it every day. We want to get better every single day and we hold each other to account.
“There’s little measurements whether it’s PBs in the gym or a time trial, we’re watching reviews of training straight after training and going ‘okay, this is the team we want to be’ or ‘this is not the team we want to be’ in terms of the things we’re trying to get better at.
“I think time will be the judge of all of that. We’re just striving to be better every day.”
McRae’s first official outing as Collingwood coach will come against St Kilda in Round 1.
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