Cometti: More good than bad for Eagles
When the dust settled on Saturday evening at the MCG, West Coast had been just a Mark LeCras away from victory.
They lost, and I know it's no consolation, in what I reckon was the best match I've seen this season.
The Eagles and Collingwood looked like two teams that had done their sums and decided the stakes were so high one could barely see the other above the pile of chips.
Had Adam Simpson's men managed a win they would have gone above Collingwood thanks to a marvellous percentage.
Conversely the Magpies knew that back-to-back losses to teams outside the eight might well have been a harbinger of their own future.
After a third quarter of Eagles domination failed to translate to the scoreboar,d Collingwood didn't let their opponents' waste go to waste!
Even so, beginning with attitude the visitors' good far outweighed the bad.
Nic Naitanui played his best game in a long time, key defenders Darren Glass and Eric McKenzie gave almost nothing away, Elliott Yeo added early bite up forward, while Matthew Priddis openly mocked anybody who still rabbits on about how "he doesn't hurt you".
The good news is that in defeat a good percentage was kept intact and a team that people were starting to second guess now know they're on the right track.
