Not for the first time in the past few years, it was Collingwood coach Craig McRae whose raw emotion in the face of almost unfathomable tragedy on Saturday made the cold, hard world of professional football seem just that little more human.
You could have hardly blamed anyone in some way touched by the sudden death of Adam Selwood from not wanting to even address it, such is the sense of devastation that poor family is now confronting after the loss of a second twin brother within three months following Troy Selwood's death in February.
But Scott Selwood, the youngest of the four Selwood boys, is a Collingwood assistant coach. McRae's players, having been shielded from the horrible news until they'd defeated Adelaide, were told upon returning to the rooms. The coach couldn't ignore the obvious questions at the post-game press conference. And the tears, after a day of holding himself together, flowed freely.
"There's no book written on this stuff." 💔
— AFL (@AFL) May 17, 2025
Craig McRae sends his love to the Selwood family following the tragic loss of Adam Selwood. pic.twitter.com/qkr0HqUDDr
It was a poignant moment indeed from a man who has won a lot of admiration even from outside the Collingwood army for his embrace of vulnerability, his celebration of the "fun and family" aspect of even top-flight football.
But perhaps those more personal aspects of McRae's coaching persona are also actually helping a significant point from being trumpeted perhaps as loudly as it should be. That even from a purely technical and starkly results-driven perspective, the guy is a bloody good coach.
Saturday's win over Adelaide was another composed and clinical McRae coaching performance, the Pies yet again winning a close one, maximising resources, opportunities and coaxing the very players most required to lift to do so.
In this case, that was Jeremy Howe, who, with skipper and best key defender Darcy Moore out injured, simply had to rise to the occasion against a forward line boasting as much potent height and goalkicking power as any team in the competition via Darcy Fogarty, Riley Thilthorpe and Taylor Walker.
Howe was superb in his intercept and negating role as the Crows were held to their third-lowest score of the season despite matching their average inside 50 count of 55.
Some personnel and line-up tinkering has taken Collingwood a long way this season despite the pre-season pessimism about the Pies' capacity to front up again with what is shaping up most weeks now as the oldest league team ever put on the park.
Maintenance is a big part of the reason the Pies are continuing to perform, and it's actually even more notable when you're watching Collingwood's rotations and gametime management from near the interchange bench, as I was on Saturday.
Scott Pendlebury's rotations are pretty frequent these days, and that is not only leaving him fresher longer, but making it harder for him to be shut down by close-checking. McRae can engineer that relative luxury in no small way thanks to the rapid emergence of Ned Long as a quality midfielder, and the introduction of the likes of Harry Perryman and Ed Allan to the mix.
Josh Daicos' transition to half-back is giving Collingwood more run, more class and most importantly, more incisive cleaner and quicker disposal coming out of defence. And that means quicker and more efficient delivery forward, where a good and varied spread of shapes and sizes keeps the Pies competitive on the scoreboard.
And consistent competitiveness might well be McRae's coaching motto. Because that's what Collingwood has been under him in more than 80 games now since he assumed the reins for the 2022 season.
Remember the hand-wringing which accompanied Collingwood's season-opening 52-point loss to the Giants? Seems pretty silly now. But perhaps that overreaction was inspired partly by how rare such setbacks have been for the Pies under McRae.
In 84 games, just three times have the Magpies been beaten by substantially more than around the five-goal mark. And there's been only 24 losses in total, the 58 wins and a couple of draws giving McRae an amazing strike rate at senior level of 70.2%.
That's more than any of his peers, even Geelong's Chris Scott (whose 67.7% over 15 years is quite amazing, and the only strike rate in even the 60s).
Yes, this is still only McRae's fourth season as an AFL coach, but Collingwood has been so consistently good under his watch that while there are a dozen of his contemporaries who are more experienced at the caper, it's possibly only Chris Scott (maybe Chris Fagan, too) whom most people would now take as a preferred coaching candidate ahead of him.
It's easy to forget that when McRae was appointed to his post, Collingwood had just finished 17th on the ladder and appeared to be going nowhere fast.
But a large portion of that same group of players finished only a couple of points short of a Grand Final appearance the very next season, actually won a premiership the year after, and with 16 of that class of 2021 still on the books, looks a distinct chance of doing so again this year.
That is a classy coaching performance. And that's exactly what McRae continues to produce, whether it's arranging the magnets on the board, or effectively articulating the whole football world's enormous sorrow over a shocking tragedy.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.