In the immediate aftermath of last year’s grand final, Scott Pendlebury, who can hear a game’s heartbeat and whose final term had helped secure the premiership, was calmly computing the past few hours. For most sportspeople, over analysing and overthinking is an impediment. But he was running through the micro and macro moments, the little tactical wins, the patterns of the day. He remembered everything. He had to remind himself that it was OK to celebrate.
Pendlebury, who plays his 400th game on Saturday night, has legitimate claims to be the greatest-ever Collingwood player. Few have been better suited to the long grind of a footy season. Few have been better placed temperamentally to handle the ups and downs of a game, a season, a coaching tenure, an industry quick to judge and write off. He’s stood above all that. In good times and bad, in glory years and in lean times, his temperament and his output have never deviated.
Few footballers have been so present, so adept at tracking the ball, at bobbing and flowing within the tides of a game. Every tagger assigned to him has ended up saying a variation of the same thing – physically he wouldn’t work them over the way many champion midfielders would. But mentally, they were annihilated. Playing on him was a three-hour migraine.
There has never been anything physically imposing about him. There has never been a signature highlight – a mark or goal of the year contender. There haven’t been too many games that he’s completely ripped to shreds. Instead, what stands out is the economy of him and his game. Nothing is wasted and everything is measured – time, space, disposals, thoughts and words. Few have had a better grasp of geometry of the entire football field, but also of the five-metre space where contests are won and champions are made. He knows every exit, every vulnerable spot, every threat, every safe haven. He knows when to retreat, when to probe, when to delegate, when to rest, and when to unleash.
The next person who mentions basketball background ought to be fouled out, but I’ve always thought he had the temperament of a champion cricket batsman – the concentration, the soft eyes, the ability to find gaps, the sly sledges under his breath. His entire footy career has been the equivalent of accumulating ones and twos. We always think of cricketers in terms of their style. As kids we imitate their bowling actions and batting ticks. We don’t really do that with footballers. But Pendlebury has his own distinct style, one that’s almost impossible to emulate but which is tattooed on the brain of anyone who’s watched him – the left to right sway as he computes and assesses, the two steps back to buy time and space, the Babe Ruth point to where he intends to kick.
His game, if not his physique and personality, has always reminded me of Sam Mitchell and Greg Williams, both of whom made an inherently chaotic and crowded game look slow, solvable and almost easy. Someone once said that passing the ball to the imperious Juventus midfielder Andrea Pirlo was like holding it in a safe. With those three, and with Pendlebury in particular, there was always a sense of safety, of surety, of a ball under lock and key.
After an exhilarating few seasons, this has been a year, and indeed a week, to forget for Collingwood. Time waits for no one and Pendlebury occasionally exhibits signs of decline – he goes to ground more easily, and he’s caught from behind more often. But he’s played some outstanding football. He’s one of the few to get hold of Patrick Cripps and he had an extraordinary opening quarter against Adelaide. He’s still fully present, still directing play, still seeing the football field as a maze to be negotiated, and still giving every impression that he could keep doing this for ever.
This is an extract from Guardian Australia’s free weekly AFL email, From the Pocket. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions
