New book details agony of Anzac Day loss

A NEW tell-all book has detailed the internal turmoil caused by Collingwood's shattering Anzac Day loss to Essendon this year, which sparked a thorough review of the football department.

Football writer Peter Ryan's publication 'Side by Side - A Season with Collingwood' has unearthed many previously untold happenings of the Magpies' 2009 campaign, including the fall-out from that last gasp loss to the Bombers in round five.

Ryan was granted unprecedented access to the club, witnessing meetings and discussions that were strictly confidential.

In chapter 22, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire calls a meeting after identifying a drift between the football department and the board in the week that followed the heart-breaking defeat by the Bombers.

It also explained the depth coach Mick Malthouse went to understand just how the Magpies let a 14-point lead slip in just four minutes to lose by less than a goal.

"We talk big. We produce nothing," Malthouse said in the Monday review after the game.

Ryan said Malthouse watched vision of the Magpies' zone taken from the behind the goals and found it in disarray. He also questioned the endeavour of the side's midfield and overall discipline of his players.

The coach didn't stop there either, later going on to state, "I blame the midfield", before lamenting the media's focus on the big statistics amassed by his key midfielders.

"If you are sitting here thinking, 'What's he talking about?', then you are who I'm talking about," he said.

The Magpies won eight of their next 10 games.

The book also details how the Nathan Buckley-Malthouse succession plan was reached, brings insight into personal turmoil some players faced this year, and describes the fall-out of the Pies' final crushing loss to Geelong.

Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell, who wrote the book's foreword, hoped the book would instigate a better understanding of what goes on in a football club.

"Hopefully everyone sees that we don't mean to make mistakes and anytime we make mistakes on and off the field, it hurts us and our families more than anyone else," he said.

"It means more to us. We don't need to be told about it; we know we made a mistake and we know we'll work harder to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"Sometimes there's almost an inhuman element because we're seen on TV and billboards and people forget to understand what we go through as well."