{"id":705226,"date":"2026-05-30T23:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705226\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T23:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:36:11","slug":"afl-2026-western-bulldogs-defeat-collingwood-by-four-points-craig-mcrae-press-conference-says-magpies-are-middle-of-the-road-video-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705226\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL 2026: Western Bulldogs defeat Collingwood by four points, Craig McRae press conference, says Magpies are middle of the road, video, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collingwood coach Craig McRae admitted his Magpies are stuck in the \u201cmiddle of the road\u201d after Saturday night\u2019s four-point loss to the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Pies threatened to overrun the Dogs in the final term after trailing by three goals at the final break, but inexperienced defender Michael Sellwood\u2019s massive pack mark in the dying seconds denied McRae\u2019s men.<\/p>\n

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Once the kings of the close finish, Collingwood have now lost three games this season by a goal or less – they also defeated Carlton by five points and drew with Hawthorn.<\/p>\n

The latest defeat leaves the Magpies in tenth position on the ladder with five wins and a draw from 12 games ahead of a blockbuster King\u2019s Birthday clash with Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019re middle of the road. That\u2019s a reality.\u201d McRae said in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout six weeks ago, you would have thought we were headed toward the bottom of the ladder. We played the top four teams and we took them all to the line – barring the Cats who taught us a lesson,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur best is good enough and we\u2019ve just got to make sure we\u2019re playing a bit more of our best more consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFL Wrap: Dogs hold on after clutch mark | 07:08<\/p>\n

Collingwood\u2019s stars once again shined with Nick Daicos gathering a game high 37 disposals, while Scott Pendlebury had 33 disposals and Jordan De Goey had a whopping 19 score involvements.<\/p>\n

But in the absence of the skipper Darcy Moore and last year\u2019s leading goal kicker Jamie Elliott, the Magpies\u2019 depth was tested by an also undermanned Bulldogs outfit.<\/p>\n

Collingwood were sluggish in the first half and only showed the style of play that took them to the preliminary final in 2025 after half time.<\/p>\n

\u201cKicked 5.5 in the last quarter and there\u2019s a lot of questions like \u2018why don\u2019t we play like that all the time?\u2019 in the room,\u201d McRae said.<\/p>\n

Craig McRae, Senior Coach of the Magpies speaks to the team during the round 12 AFL match between Western Bulldogs and Collingwood at Marvel Stadium.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

He later added: \u201cI said in front of the boys, \u2018I hope you don\u2019t think we\u2019re trying to restrict you from playing this way, we want to play like that, let\u2019s go\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously within reason, you\u2019re playing some teams that want to have a bit of a shootout game, there\u2019s times where you say \u2018let\u2019s see if we can make a contest\u2019 and see if they want to play that, because we can play different modes and different gears, but again, maybe we might need to release the shackles a bit at times to allow them to play with a bit more freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beveridge responds to clutch mark | 12:58<\/p>\n

The Pies simply put themselves under too pressure, conceding 62 Inside 50s to 47, which was largely generated from a demolition at the restarts with the Bulldogs leading the centre clearance 19 to 10.<\/p>\n

Marcus Bontempelli was the chief culprit with a game high seven centre clearances for the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearances were significant in the first half. Centre bounce gave a lot of territory against, and then we got that right in the last quarter which I think changed the game for us\u2026 (We) couldn\u2019t manage \u2018Bont\u2019 in major parts,\u201d McRae said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd Allan went to Richards in the third and started to do a pretty good job on him, and then \u2018Bont\u2019 was out of control so we flipped that, and next thing Richards gets out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

McRae added: \u201cI thought our fundamentals were really off early. We were handballing at peoples\u2019 feet and a bit scratchy around that. It\u2019s hard to put a finger on that, \u2018Pendles\u2019 has played more games than anyone in the history of the game, (and he also) handballed at someone\u2019s feet, and you \u2018just happens sometimes\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collingwood coach Craig McRae admitted his Magpies are stuck in the \u201cmiddle of the road\u201d after Saturday night\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,13120,28962,343120,10133,10143,10989,269051,343122,36878,27725,289639,663,343123,4873,668,1820,19083,343121,85,698],"class_list":["post-705226","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-centre-bounce","tag-centre-clearances","tag-close-loss","tag-collingwood-magpies","tag-craig-mcrae","tag-darcy-moore","tag-four-point-loss","tag-honest-verdict","tag-jamie-elliott","tag-jordan-de-goey","tag-leading-goal-kicker","tag-luke-beveridge","tag-match-press-conference","tag-post-match-press-conference","tag-press-conference","tag-score-involvements","tag-scott-pendlebury","tag-shootout-game","tag-sports","tag-western-bulldogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705226","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=705226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}