{"id":124565,"date":"2025-09-07T02:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124565\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T02:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:45:16","slug":"collingwood-magpies-bobby-hill-selection-decision-isaac-smith-and-nathan-brown-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124565\/","title":{"rendered":"Collingwood Magpies Bobby Hill selection decision; Isaac Smith and Nathan Brown disagree"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest headache between now and preliminary final week for Collingwood<\/a> coach Craig McRae will be whether to select small forward Bobby Hill.<\/p>\n

The 2023 Norm Smith Medallist has played only a few minutes of footy since round 15 due to personal reasons and appeared out of finals calculations.<\/p>\n

But Hill got through a VFL scratch match on Saturday in Geelong, kicking four goals and playing midfield minutes to prove his fitness. <\/p>\n

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Now with an extra week to get him up to speed, Hill could be the X-factor that takes Collingwood to another premiership.<\/p>\n

\"Bobby<\/p>\n

Bobby Hill.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Naturally it does come with its own risks, given the intensity of finals footy and given he hasn’t played at AFL level since June.<\/p>\n

A fellow Norm Smith Medallist in Isaac Smith believes the Pies should roll the dice on the 25-year-old.<\/p>\n

“I’m not privy to any of the information that’s outside of the field, but I look at Bobby Hill as a package of what he can deliver in September and if he’s fit and he’s firing, I’m making a coach’s call and I’m picking him because I know he can make us a better side and I know he can deliver on the biggest stage,” Smith told Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.<\/p>\n

“You were talking off-air about integrity of selection and you get to finals and integrity is about picking your best side and giving your club and your members the best chance to win a grand final and to me if you’ve got Bobby Hill in there, that gives you a better chance.”<\/p>\n

Former Western Bulldogs star Nathan Brown disagreed, saying it is too risky taking an underdone player into a prelim.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t select him on preliminary final day,” Brown replied.<\/p>\n

“Not because of a trust issue, but he just hasn’t played enough footy.<\/p>\n

\"Bobby<\/p>\n

Bobby Hill of the Magpies celebrates winning the Norm Smith Medal in 2023.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“They’ve got a couple of young players playing and there is a spot there for Bobby Hill, but I can’t play him in a prelim given what we’ve seen over the last eight weeks.<\/p>\n

“Yes, he is a Norm Smith Medallist, but if I was coach I would not be playing Bobby Hill in a prelim.”<\/p>\n

Collingwood do at least have the option to pick Hill as the substitute and potentially inject him late in the game.<\/p>\n

But that also comes with its own risks given an early injury could upend that plan.<\/p>\n

On paper, Hill would be an upgrade over youngsters Wil Parker and Roan Steele, who played in the qualifying final win over Adelaide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest headache between now and preliminary final week for Collingwood coach Craig McRae will be whether to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-124565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}