Collingwood was thrilled to pick up Magpies VFL product Ned Long in last week’s mid-season draft.
Long, 21, was delisted at Hawthorn after five AFL games at the end of last season but showed some clear signs of improvement across his few months in Collingwood’s VFL system.
The 194cm midfielder was described as a ‘plug and play’ option by head recruiter Derek Hine and coach Craig McRae says that Long can play multiple roles at whatever level for the Magpies once he returns from a calf injury in three weeks.
“We really like him, he’s a big, big boy,” McRae told SEN’s The Run Home.
“He’s a big inside mid that played Collingwood VFL and he did an AFL pre-season with us too.
“He can play multiple roles for us. He even played second ruck at one stage because he’s a monster.
“He’s a great great character, we really like him.”
While Long showed some nice signs for Hawthorn across his two seasons at Waverley Park, he was cut at the end of 2023 and many had knocks on his kicking ability.
McRae was asked why Collingwood looked past that apparent shortfall and added that Collingwood’s philosophy meant that Long’s profile suited the way they like to play.
“Because we also see the other things he does,” McRae said.
“He’s a really competitive guy, he’s strong on the ball, he can play multiple roles.
“And we don’t value kicking maybe at the level of some other clubs.
“A prerequisite for us winning isn’t kicking efficiency. We don’t need kicking efficiency to win games.
“So maybe we don’t value that at the level of other teams.”
McRae further explained Collingwood’s indifference to kicking efficiency after superstar Nick Daicos came under fire for going at just 58.5 per cent disposal efficiency Round 10 against Adelaide where he had 41 disposals, 14 clearances and picked up 10 coaches votes.
While Daicos is one of the competition’s best users by foot when given the opportunity, McRae says that the message of that game was to simply clear the ball into space from stoppages – which played into the young Pie’s stats.
“The game in particular (against Adelaide) we wanted it out of stoppage,” McRae said.
“This is not always the case, but in this game, we wanted to get territory, so to get it away from pressure.
“We kicked the ball a bit more and said, ‘We don’t really care where you kick it, just kick it to grass (if you have to)’.
“So if it’s going to the opposition every now and again, maybe that’s not on Nick, it’s instead about forward of the ball and guys not reacting to the quick kick that’s coming
“There’s different layers to it. We kick the ball off the ground a lot.
“Again, what we value versus what others do can be a bit different. We value territory.”
Collingwood and McRae next face Melbourne in a huge King’s Birthday clash at the MCG on Monday.
Photo: @CollingwoodVFL Twitter.