Pies showcase September credentials against Saints | Thebigtip

Pies tear Saints to pieces - by Rohan Connolly from theage.com.au

FIRST appearances can be deceptive. And so it was in the opening to the Collingwood-St Kilda game yesterday. Not a minute had passed before St Kilda heartbeat Nick Riewoldt marked on a lead and handballed to Leigh Montagna, whose long bomb forward was marked and converted by Justin Koschitzke.

It was quick, precise, and as it turned out, totally misleading. St Kilda wouldn't kick another goal for one-and-a-half quarters, and finished the afternoon with just six. Collingwood, in contrast, was a machine. And a particularly fierce one. The Magpies had that steely look in the eye, the sort of ferocity with which they memorably dismantled Geelong a couple of years ago, and the Saints, frankly, were rattled by it.

The tone was set not by Koschitzke's goal, but by the one which followed it, when former Saint Luke Ball nailed Sam Gilbert in a tremendous tackle and goaled with the resultant free kick. Then Leigh Brown, already busy and exuberant, slotted one from the boundary line. Chris Dawes had the next after bustling Zac Dawson aside to mark.

By now it was still just 13 points the difference, but far, far more on the tide of play, the Pies leading the inside 50 count 10 to just three, and beating the Saints comfortably for both tackles and general intensity. Heath Shaw was lucky to get a free kick close to goal for a tackle on Dawson that was too high, but the greater lead was no more than Collingwood deserved. It became greater still after Shaw took a real ''speccie'' in the first minute upon the second-quarter resumption.

Perhaps the most instructive passage of play, however, came just under seven minutes into the second term. While Collingwood continued to bore in, St Kilda was still trying to be a little too clever. And that course would come spectacularly unstuck when the Saints' defensive architect Sam Fisher tried to slip a cute, dinky little short pass to Lenny Hayes. It fell short, Dale Thomas swooped, handballed to Leon Davis, whose long kick found St Kilda caught out of defensive position, and Brown all by himself.

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