COLLINGWOOD plans to keep the MCG stands full while it transitions its playing list.
No Richmond-style, full stripping of the list for the Magpies. A build, yes, but not a rebuild. And a commitment to attempt to win as many games as possible during that build, to keep its legion of fans excited and convinced they can win any given game.
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It is the Collingwood way, and list preparations for 2027 began long before the official end to its 2026 campaign last Friday night, when forward Tim Membrey's on-final-siren kick faded late to leave the Western Bulldogs three-point winners in the inaugural wildcard final.
By 8.30 the morning after, the great Scott Pendlebury had announced his exit, following the previously detailed moving-on of fellow Pies great Steele Sidebottom. By midday Tuesday, six more players had been offloaded, Lachie Sullivan among them.
Collingwood knows it has holes on its list, with a lack of key forwards and midfield depth among those holes, and players possessing those attributes will be closely analysed and targeted in the national draft.
The Pies intend using their first selection, pick No.9, in the draft. They also have pick 27 (with both those picks subject to movement after free agent compensation and trading).
Two of the prospective incomings for 2027 and beyond are 2024 Coleman Medallist Jesse Hogan and two-time Brownlow Medallist Lachie Neale, free agents who wouldn't require the Pies to part with any of their draft capital.
Hogan will be 32 before he plays his next match, and Neale will turn 34 in May. As aged as they are in a football sense, they are spring chickens compared with Pendlebury (39 in January) and Sidebottom (36 in January).
Collingwood won't be trumpeting this loudly, but it has privately acknowledged Nick Daicos hasn't had sufficient high-quality back-up in the midfield.
Neale remains at the peak of his game, his 2026 season among the very best of his career which has already reaped two Brownlow Medals and two other Brownlow placings, and his ability to rack up midfield clearances has been identified by the Pies to be of massive assistance to Daicos.
On Monday, September 21, there is a chance Daicos and Neale will go one-two in the 2026 Brownlow count.
Hogan won the 2024 Coleman Medal, his 77 goals that year also securing him All-Australian and best-and-fairest honours at GWS, his third club. He has been hampered with injury since the latter stages of the 2025 season and obviously would arrive at Collingwood as a risk.
But no greater risk than investing in the yet-to-be-proven talents of Calsher Dear, a 21-year-old who burst into the AFL in Hogan's Coleman Medal year of 2024, but has struggled with injury and form for Hawthorn since.
As part of its post-2026 list strategy, the Magpies are also expected to devise offers for midfielders whom they rate but who have been unable to secure regular senior matches at other clubs.
Collingwood has been regularly criticised for choosing to stock not just its list, but its weekly teams, with players vastly older than most competitors. But it is an outlook I applaud, and had the Magpies not embraced veterans, their extraordinary premiership of 2023 would never have eventuated.
Even last year in falling short of a Grand Final, the Pies were within two goals of eventual premier Brisbane halfway through the final quarter of a preliminary final.
The official transactioning on the Collingwood list for 2027 is yet to be take place. The club is going to be busy in all major phases of recruitment – free agency, trading and the draft.
There are obviously no guarantees of success in the AFL. But Collingwood's regularly aggressive list build plans are no less likely to achieve the ultimate success than Richmond's all-in-on-the-national draft approach taken after the 2024 season.
For Collingwood, contending now will always be worth more than guarantees about later.