But, just when you thought these gods were donning Joffa's gold jacket, they offset those gains with the ACL injury to Levi Greenwood and the hamstring strain to Jordan De Goey, who will miss the preliminary final and faces a battle to be back for the grand final, if Collingwood make it. Loading The loss of Greenwood will be magnified in the event that the Pies meet Richmond in the coming weeks, given Greenwood's record of getting under the skin of his friend Dustin Martin and reducing Dusty's output. The footy gods, in their capacity as advisers to the AFL's fixturing department, handed Collingwood a difficult draw this year – yes, the usual nice quotient of MCG games, but they copped Richmond, West Coast, the Bulldogs and Essendon twice, and played the Lions and Giants on the road. Collingwood had 11 games v top eight teams, compared to Richmond's nine, Brisbane's eight and Geelong's eight. But, in the run home to the finals, the same gods saw to it that the Pies, who had been faltering and injured, played Gold Coast, then not-so marvellous Melbourne, the dysfunctional Crows and finally an Essendon team that rested three good players.

This run of friendly games has built confidence, seen players regain fitness and form and allowed the Pies to trial selections (Rupert Wills) and moves (Jordan Roughead forward). Loading But the biggest free kick from the footy gods to Collingwood came in the final round, when Hawthorn - which had scant chance of playing finals, given they were relying on the Crows winning a game – gave the Pies their greatest gift since Leigh Matthews by slaying West Coast and handing them fourth spot. On Anzac Day, the Pies had the rub of the men in green – certainly the hooting Essendon fans thought so. But the same rub went arguably against the Pies when a touched Michael Walters' goal was given the all-clear, in one of a few video review shemozzles this year. Collingwood's season had been progressing well up until the days after that Freo game, when Jaidyn Stephenson's multiple bets on Collingwood – including backing himself to kick goals – saw the rising star suspended for 10 matches.

The Pies lost form for several weeks thereafter, though there was more to their mid-season malaise than Stephenson's fall. Jaidyn Stephenson returned to the game in top form. Credit:AAP The Stephenson suspended polarised opinion along party lines, as such incidents do. But if Collingwood cursed the footy fates when Stephenson copped 10 games (the mere fact that this incident surfaced at all was unlucky), the footy gods/AFL integrity department added some friendly fine print to the suspension, allowing Stephenson to play in the VFL on the last weekend of his suspension, because the AFL team had played Friday. Now, Stephenson is fresh and fit and, in tandem with a revived Jamie Elliott, has given the Pies a more potent attack, albeit De Goey's injury might blank out the Stephenson windfall. "He was awesome,'' wingman Tom Phillips said of Stephenson's return. "Gave us a spark when we needed it at times.'' The footy gods had played havoc with hamstrings at Collingwood over the past 14 months, depriving them of Darcy Moore in the finals last year and forcing the Pies to turn to a 31-year-old, middleweight-sized defender who'd had a knee reconstruction five months earlier (Tyson Goldsack) to stand Josh Kennedy.

Darcy Moore's strong comeback from injury was another great sign for the Magpies. Credit:AAP Of the individual positives and portents to emerge from the Geelong game, none was more important than Moore's outstanding second half and lack of further injury. Having Moore and Roughead in the key posts more than offsets the loss of Moore's house-mate Tom Langdon to a knee, given the prospective match-ups. The footy gods have typically not been kind to Collingwood (or St Kilda), especially in grand finals, with the notable exceptions of 1990 (when the Pies drew a qualifying final v West Coast) and 2010, when Stephen Milne couldn't gather the bouncing ball that Lenny Hayes had snapped in the drawn grand final. The 2018 result confirmed the Collingwood knack for finding novel ways to lose grand finals (narrowly). Phillips said, relative to the team of 2018, this Collingwood side has "more composure'' and calm during a game. "We really know what we're doing.''