COLLINGWOOD’s high of competing with a raft of premiership contenders the past month came crashing down on Friday night after the Magpies meekly bowed out to the previously one-win Western Bulldogs at Whitten Oval.

An inspired performance from premiership skipper Ellie Blackburn up forward, and huge efforts from Isabelle Pritchard and Alice Edmonds around the ground denied the Magpies a third win in 2025 with a dominant 10.5 (65) to 1.2 (8) result.

While the Bulldogs were thrilled with their well-executed performance, on the other side of the coin was Collingwood, where coach Sam Wright said the side would do some soul searching this week.

“I don’t have all the answers right now, but obviously it’s just bitterly disappointing for us,” he said. “I say that from a place of we have been progressing and we progressed against the really good sides.

“We’re still a young developing side, but part of that is building an identity that is really clear when you come and watch us play, that there’s a certain level of effort, there’s a certain level of game system that we play to and we just didn’t show that tonight.

“I know our players will be disappointed, our fans will be disappointed, but we need to get back to our identity and what that looks like and that wasn’t it tonight.”

Wright said the ‘identity came down to three things: the effort and intent, the individual roles and the team system, all of which failed for the Magpies in the Round 7 loss.

“It’s so uncharacteristically just wasn’t us tonight,” he said. “We couldn’t move the ball in offence, we pride ourselves on our defensive system and we got done out the back four or five times. “We were chasing right from the start and had to pull every lever we’ve got and still couldn’t get the game looking our way.

“I’ll have to go back and look at it, but I think it’s pretty clear that we need to show the players what it looks like and educate more and as players they need to look at what their role is, and what their identity within their role is.”

Collingwood will need to get back to basics when the group heads to Tullamarine Airport for the first time this season to tackle West Coast out at Mineral Resources Oval in Perth.

“I think for us it’s resetting what our foundation looks like,” Wright said. “I think when you play the top three, four, five sides you go in as underdogs and I thought we performed really well. “I think we need to treat every club at the moment like they’re a top four team.

“We’re still a developing side but that’s no excuse for where we need to get to. The focus for us, clearly tonight, we were smacked around the contest so minus-32 in contested possession which has been a real strength of ours the last few weeks, so we’ll go to work with our contest, we’ll go to work with our defensive system.

“We’ll get some players back in next week that will help with our progression and the way we move the ball. But it starts in the contest.”