August 22, 2015: Richmond defeats Collingwood by 91 points at MCG in Round 21
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley was helpless on Saturday, forced to again watch his hapless Magpies kick themselves out of another game, this time against Richmond at the MCG.
It is hard to blame a 91-point loss on goal-kicking woes alone, and it was the hardly the only reason why Collingwood suffered such a humiliating loss. But it had plenty of the football early and a stack of misses in the first term and then a miserable 0.7 second quarter all but consigned them to yet another defeat.
While that is frustrating for Buckley and the Magpie Army, the way in which his side hoisted the white flag late in the game was of far greater concern.
Richmond did what we would expect of a team that is about to play finals football and possibly still finish in the top four.
It was billed as a danger game, but the business-like Tigers dominated from the opening bounce and were never headed with Ty Vickery kicking a career-high six goals.
It had four goals on the board in no time, with three of those going to to Sam Lloyd, before Collingwood could register a score. That took a whole 14 minutes.
It would continue to prove costly, as it has the past month or two. The lead continued to balloon during the second term as Collingwood again failed to convert.
Good Old Collingwood forever, they know how to play the game.
Richmond thanked them for it, kicking three goals to lead by 38 points at the main change.
Remarkably, the Magpies trailed by six goals despite going inside 50 14 more times than Richmond did. It was a staggering statistic that summed up the Magpies’ forward line dysfunction in the opening half.
Vickery kicked his third goal one minute into the third, the match was all but over.
Not contented to merely go through the motions, Richmond went into overdrive in the final term. The Tigers booted nine goals to Collingwood’s one to fall just short of the 100-point margin.
COLLINGWOOD 3.3 3.10 6.13 7.14 (56)
RICHMOND 7.3 10.6 14.9 23.9 (147)
Official crowd: 63,178 at the G.