Dan Houston was to be the difference. When Collingwood unashamedly went all in for a flag this year and retained more veterans than the RSL, they chased Houston to help deliver a second premiership in three years.
Collingwood are yet to get the best out of their prime off-season recruit Dan Houston. Credit: Nathan Perri
They traded away yet more early draft picks to get him and plunged on the idea of having the most punishing defence in football, pairing Houston’s golden right boot with Josh Daicos’ artistry.
It hasn’t worked. Yet. Like his team, which has endured a faltering month, Houston might yet find a way to gel because he is too good a player not to. But to date neither he nor Collingwood have got the return they expected.
He was not the reason they lost on Saturday night, here were many, but he was one of them. Outside of his first game in black and white, he has also not been the reason they have won games during their ride at the top of the ladder.
Josh Daicos has been Collingwood’s main distributor off half-back. Credit: Getty Images
The backline, which has been unsettled and disorganised in Jeremy Howe’s absence and unbalanced with Billy Frampton missing, has not reaped the benefits expected of the Daicos-Houston pairing.
Daicos has had an excellent season, but his success does come at a cost to the output of other players in Collingwood’s backline who are asked to cover his man and theirs. Against Fremantle in round 19 it wasn’t just Patrick Voss kicking goals, it was Sam Switkowski taking five marks in the forward line while he was ignored by the hyper-attacking Magpie bac
Read More