MELBOURNE, Australia -- On paper, Collingwood may very well have the greatest midfield ever assembled. If it's not the best, then it's certainly in the top two or three of all time.
A squad that already boasted the likes of All-Australian ruckman Brodie Grundy, 2018 Brownlow Medal runner-up Steele Sidebottom, 2010 premiership captain Scott Pendlebury and former Giants star Adam Treloar, among many more, took the step from elite to just plain ridiculous when the club announced Dayne Beams would be returning and ending a four-year stint at Brisbane.
How could they possibly be beaten, right?
But for all the quality, all the star power and all the hype, the Pies failed to dazzle in their season-opener on Friday night against Geelong, succumbing to a seven-point loss and proving they still have a fair way to go before we start comparing them to the star-studded midfields of yesteryear.
Even though it was Round 1, and rustiness is a given, it certainly wasn't the type of performance you would have expected from Collingwood, a team that was returning to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the first time since their heartbreaking Grand Final loss to West Coast last September.
The Pies began the match with an abundance of errors and that's how it remained. If there was ever an advertisement for a longer pre-season it was this game as most players appeared to be well off their best, fumbling their way through the four quarters.
"We're not going to get everything perfect, but we've got to get enough right to win and we didn't get enough right to win tonight," said Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley. "I think our possession rate was okay, we just needed to be a bit more effective with it.
"We made too many blues and a consistent theme across our pre-season has been too many turnovers across our back half. That was consistent again tonight. We shoot ourselves in the foot if we can't work the ball out of our back half as effectively as we'd like to, then we allow the opposition to build pressure and that inevitably puts you on the back foot. That's something we need to work on."
While Treloar amassed a game-high 34 possessions and was one of the standouts for the Pies, many of his teammates struggled. Sidebottom was well held for much of the night before racking up some junk-time stats, while Beams was also kept relatively quiet in his return game, finishing with just 23 possessions.
"We didn't have that many standout performers [and] we just didn't really gel well enough as a side," Buckley added.
Not only is Collingwood some way off possessing the greatest midfield of all time, they may not even be No. 1 right now. As a collective unit, the Cats had the edge in many of the key statistical areas by the time the final siren had sounded in Melbourne.
Chris Scott's men won the clearances (40-35), inside 50 count (58-48) and had more contested possessions (145-137). They even comprehensively out-tackled the Pies, laying an extra 15 over the course of the night.
Tim Kelly continued his stunning start to life as an AFL player with a team-high 31 possessions and four tackles, while 2016 Brownlow Medallist Patrick Dangerfield chipped in with 27 disposals and an important goal third-quarter goal.
Gary Ablett embraced his new role on the half-forward line, picking up 23 possessions and kicking a goal. Skipper Joel Selwood and Mitch Duncan also contributed majors from the midfield.
For Buckley, it certainly wasn't the start he had in mind, and things aren't exactly getting any easier in the coming weeks with games against Richmond and West Coast in the next fortnight. The premiership favourites could now realistically start the season with an 0-3 record.
"We get another opportunity in six nights' time and we'll look forward to that," Buckley said. "We play Richmond next week and they press pretty hard and like to put a lot of heat in their front half. We need to be better if we want the game on our terms."
Everyone loves to get a little carried away in Round 1 and hyperbole is certainly commonplace at this time of year, but as things stand there's a bit of daylight between the current Collingwood midfield and those that have come before them. The Pies still have some work to do.