{"id":871546,"date":"2026-08-28T14:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871546\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:32:13","slug":"afl-news-2026-wildcard-final-collingwood-magpies-vs-western-bulldogs-tim-membrey-miss-steele-sidebottom-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871546\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Wildcard final; Collingwood Magpies vs Western Bulldogs; Tim Membrey miss; Steele Sidebottom retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A missed goal from Pies star Tim Membrey has ended Collingwood\u2019s season in a heartbreaking manner with the Bulldogs winning the MCG <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/afl\/wildcard-finals-live-scores-western-bulldogs-collingwood-magpies-results-video-highlights-latest-news-20260828-p60sj6.html\" class=\"sc-ZStEl fijHCo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wildcard final<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/afl\/live-scores\/western-bulldogs-v-collingwood-afl-finals\/129910102\" class=\"sc-ZStEl fijHCo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">14.12 (96) &#8211; 14.9 (93)<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>On the siren, Membrey had a chance from 40 metres out at a slight angle but couldn\u2019t land the winner. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c02efe296450972b4495328324db78201519a2fc.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Bulldogs players celebrate after Tim Membrey missed a goal.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The miss means the Pies will head into Mad Monday before the Dogs play another elimination final. <\/p>\n<p>Collingwood\u2019s loss now ends the career of club legend Steele Sidebottom.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was turning up hoping tonight would not be (the end) but shit happens, we move on,\u201d he told Seven post-match.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very content with my time at Collingwood, I\u2019ve been so lucky. The next part of my life now starts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The intensity of the final was set early when Nick Daicos and Joel Freijah clashed early. Freijah had taken the Pies star out of bounds before standing over him, with Daicos taking exception to that. <\/p>\n<p>By the end of the first quarter, the difference between the sides wasn\u2019t clear with the Dogs leading by only one point. <\/p>\n<p>At half-time, that lead had extended to 10 points despite Daniel McStay kicking three for the Pies. <\/p>\n<p>The start of the third quarter marked a fourth for McStay but heading into the final term, the lead of the Dogs was still at eight points. <\/p>\n<p>During the fourth quarter, the lead changed four times inside five minutes as both sides went goal for goal. <\/p>\n<p>In the end Aaron Naughton\u2019s fourth goal and the late strike from Artie Jones with just two minutes left proved the difference.<\/p>\n<p>Marcus Bontempelli topped the disposals count with 32 alongside Collingwood\u2019s Sam Swadling.<\/p>\n<p>Jones was massive for the Dogs, kicking four goals and finishing with 17 touches. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is every boy\u2019s dream here, you want to play finals &#8230; Collingwood can bring a crowd and on the MCG, this is as good as it gets, isn\u2019t it?,\u201d an ecstatic Jones told Fox Footy.  <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c0f072cc5158add146947442376525b961446968.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Artie Jones celebrates kicking a goal.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew Collingwood weren\u2019t going to back down, they\u2019re a strong pressure team and we just had to match that and do better and we just held on &#8230; it was a good game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBont\u2019s just magical, isn\u2019t he? He runs straight through everyone and kept giving us deep entries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A missed goal from Pies star Tim Membrey has ended Collingwood\u2019s season in a heartbreaking manner with the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-871546","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\/871546","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=871546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}