{"id":86326,"date":"2026-05-25T07:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/?p=86326"},"modified":"2026-07-03T10:29:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:29:25","slug":"pendlebury-and-the-pies-thank-you-and-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/2026\/05\/pendlebury-and-the-pies-thank-you-and-goodbye\/","title":{"rendered":"Pendlebury and the Pies: Thank You and Goodbye\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I remember going to Dusty Martin\u2019s 300th<\/sup> game a couple of years ago.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like old times, hordes of Tiger fans flocked to the MCG to watch the person that lay at the heart of so much of our happiness over the previous five or so years play.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was about much more than watching him play again, which we\u2019d all done a hundred times.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was more about saying thank you. Thank you for all the memories you brought us. Thank you for the brightness you brought after a long fallow period.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spoke to Jack Riewoldt over the loudspeaker after yet another demolition loss for the Tigers, with very few of his premiership teammates by his side anymore wearing yellow and black, and we lavished praise and thanks upon him.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was thank you. And it was also goodbye.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He retired two games later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers were uncompetitive that year and he clearly wasn\u2019t the same player anymore. It was bleedingly obvious that, whether it was immediately after the 300th<\/sup> or at the end of the year, or some time in between as it transpired, he was done.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With him went the last true talisman of a glorious era.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not as stark at Collingwood, who are still okay. Nor is it as stark with Pendlebury, who still has excellent games in him like we saw on Anzac Day<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even with that said, the adulation of Pies fans on Saturday afternoon for Pendlebury breaking the all-time games record, combined with the heavy work they made of West Coast, made me think of that afternoon at the MCG where Richmond played Hawthorn.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if I\u2019d known it for a while, now it\u2019s official: we\u2019re done and it\u2019s time to start over. The Pies know it too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The knowing is why they treated the Pendlebury game as a fire sale designed to ensure that their favourite son managed to squeeze every cent out of his milestone game as humanly possible.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not news that Scott Pendlebury has lost a significant amount of cash in the recent past. While there are court proceedings on foot, the story in court is that Pendlebury loaned $300,000 with a 50% vig to his former manager and that manager never paid him back.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like Pendles was the Artie Bucco in this situation and the manager is Jean Felipe waiting for Armagnac to go nuts in Europe. It\u2019s the new vodka!<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon that not being paid back, Pendlebury looked deeper into his own finances and discovered that he\u2019d been taken for $2.1 million over 10 years.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s terrible, and it also sheds new light on why Pendlebury\u2019s Instagram feed has so many ads on it that even Ricky Bobby is thinking \u201cyou can probably stop monetising these things\u201d.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also why it was so important to Collingwood and to Pendlebury to sell this game as heavily as they have, with all the proceeds of the 433rd<\/sup> game merch going to Pendlebury. While a \u201cdecent portion\u201d of the profits will be going to charity, a fact which only emerged after the gigantic outside the cap payment to Pendlebury was made public, you can imagine that Pendles has done okay out of the game.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has also been well publicised that they made sure that Pendlebury would break the record at the MCG in front of adoring Collingwood fans, who have disposable income even at the expense of in the moment competitiveness.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me be clear: I have no problem with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AFL has historically bent more rules than the Catholic Church, especially for its legends and it\u2019s terrible that Pendlebury got taken for a ride if that is indeed what happened.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s been a brilliant player who deserves to be able to live off his football earnings if he can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also classic Collingwood and part of what makes them such a great club. They have always been the very best at publicising themselves.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The better question is would the Pies have leaned this heavily into publicity if they were still contenders? Would they have not played someone who is still one of their 7-8 best players in crucial games if they thought they were contenders? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I doubt it very much.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We saw where they\u2019re at during the game on Saturday afternoon. Across the board, the Pies were over four years older and a hundred games more experienced than West Coast on Saturday afternoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Pies fell over the line, they were driven by older stagers like Darcy Cameron, Jamie Elliott and Jack Crisp. And they lost Elliott and Darcy Moore (who appears to be close to the end of his career) during the game.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, West Coast got close because of the games of Milan Murdock and Willem Duursma and a high pressure and modern game style that gave the veteran Pies real trouble.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was two teams at different ends of the development timeline that just about met in the middle.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the game was to thank Pendlebury for his service to football and to enrich him further, it was also a way for the Pies to say thank you for an era that produced a premiership and some thrilling footy, and to say goodbye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Pendlebury may go on again, who knows for Elliott, De Goey, Howe, Moore, Crisp etc. What are their appetites to be Nathan Broad or Nick Vlastuin, acting as a lightning rod while the kids that aren\u2019t even there yet can learn how to play?   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard and often thankless to be an established player in a rebuilding team. Some or all of them will certainly depart for the promise of success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about Craig McRae? The Pies have gone harder and harder for established players over recent years, but they\u2019ve shown signs of softening that approach with the CEO saying earlier this year that their plan is to \u201cgo to the draft\u201d.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does he have an appetite to guide them through a rebuild? Is he capable of doing it given his system guarantees such a strong floor? Would it be better for him to go to TV before it gets too grim at Collingwood so he can have his pick of jobs as they come up? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t know the answer to any of these things.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All we know is that a great era of Collingwood football is over. And that 433rd<\/sup> game, gold guernsey and all, was the start of the process of saying goodbye.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember going to Dusty Martin\u2019s 300th game a couple of years ago.   Just like old times, hordes of Tiger fans flocked to the MCG to watch the person that lay at the heart of so much of our happiness over the previous five or so years play.   But it was about much more than watching him play again, which we\u2019d all done a hundred times.   It was more about saying thank you. Thank you for all the memories you brought us. Thank you for the brightness you brought after a long fallow period.   He spoke to Jack Riewoldt over the loudspeaker after yet another…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":86327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8298,598],"tags":[8260],"hub_post_cat":[],"class_list":["post-86326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-rules","category-guywholikessport","category-special-interest","tag-guywholikessport"],"acf":{"md_tip_date":"","md_tip_date_end":"","md_market_url":"","tip_date":"25\/05\/2026","event_country":"Australia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86326"},{"taxonomy":"hub_post_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub_post_cat?post=86326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}