For the season, forward-half Energiser bunny Beau McCreery has a team-high 17 tackles.

Coach Craig McRae mentioned his team’s energy levels when discussing selection after the sobering loss to the Saints, leaving the Magpies winless after three rounds for the first time since 1999. He also touched on selection.

“Selection will be done at its right place … but I think in terms of where we want to go and get to, there’s always an opportunity to bring Harvey Harrison and guys into our team, and energy and youthfulness, hunger,” McRae said.

“Hunger’s a good thing isn’t it? [We might bring in] some guys who are less exposed if you like.”

Harrison, 20, was a stand-out with his forward-half pressure and a goal in a VFL win over Sandringham on Friday, and is pushing to return for his first senior game since round 16 last year. Hard-running defender John Noble also impressed with 29 disposals and is likely to return to the senior side, perhaps for Oleg Markov, who was substituted off at three-quarter time and replaced by Finn Macrae on Thursday.

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Noble was the substitute in the opening round, replacing Tom Mitchell in the third term against the Giants. Macrae was the substitute in round one, replacing Ash Johnson in the third term. Johnson was dropped for the Saints’ clash.

The Magpies, who had a tough training session on Sunday, will also debate who should begin as the substitute, and whether a premiership veteran, including Steele Sidebottom and even Scott Pendlebury, should have this role against the winless Lions, in a bid to inject more pace into the game early.

“One of the interesting things, the pressure rating … is really low because they are playing without a great deal of energy. Why is that?,” said Matthews, the four-time premiership coach, including famously with the Magpies in 1990, told 3AW.

“You bring up hypotheticals. They have a lot of [players aged] plus-30s on their list, and on their team, like seven or eight (nine). We know that time stops for no man, that the ageing process, eventually players drop off on energy of performance because you are a little bit slower, a little bit less energy, the pressure grabs hold of you, you start making mistakes. That seems to me what has happened with Collingwood in these few weeks.

“Whether they will work through that, I guess time will tell. All this premiership hangover stuff has gone now. Whatever they went into the season with is long gone now. This is about what has happened in the last two or three weeks.

“Their confidence would have to be shaky, and the confidence not only in yourself, but your teammates. Because if your teammates start making mistakes, you don’t trust them. And therefore when you have your team structures, if you are not confident that your teammates are going to do exactly what they have been asked to do at any point of time, you lose trust in them, and your focus can go off your particular role. That’s the little scenario I see Collingwood are in.”

Matthews pointed to the Magpies’ tight winning margins in a number of games last season, including finals wins by seven, one and four points. Through 2022 and ’23, they won 20 games by two goals or fewer.

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“They weren’t like Geelong of ’22 who were dominant in September. There were four of five teams that all looked very similar I thought at the end of ’23, and Collingwood have dropped off a little. You only need to drop off a little and other teams are up in the finals,” Matthews said.

“At the end of last year, they won the premiership by a few points, won all their finals by a few points. They won 18 out of 23 games, it’s a good effort, but, as we know, they won a lot of them by close margins. I have this great view – great teams win by big margins. And that wasn’t Collingwood last year.”

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