As Collingwood sit atop of the AFL ladder following their mid-season bye with 11 wins from 13 matches, it’s time to take a deep dive to discover what’s driving the Pies’ success in 2025 so far.
From broken records to quarter-by-quarter breakdowns, to the individuals stuffing the stat sheet, this is how Collingwood is stacking up this season.
Best fans in the land
Hot or cold, wet or dry, Monday or Thursday, the Magpie Army never fails to spill through the turnstiles. The Pies have the highest crowd attendance in the AFL again in 2025, averaging 62,850 per match – almost 5,000 more than the next best. Collingwood has now been the most attended team on average for the past four seasons.
Miserly Magpies
From a team perspective, Collingwood have conceded the least points in the competition, giving up just 893 so far this season. Gold Coast are the next best, conceding 904. The Pies have only coughed up more than 90 points twice in 2025.
Tackling records tumble
In Round 12’s win over Hawthorn, the Pies broke a 15-year-old Club record when they out-tackled the Hawks 82-38 – a +44 differential. It’s the seventh-best tackle differential recorded in AFL history. Collingwood’s previous best tackle differential was +43 in Round 13, 2010 against Melbourne.
The week before, in Round 11’s win over North Melbourne, the Pies posted a +42 tackle differential, now the third-best in Club history. Fly’s 2025 Pies could be the best tackling team Collingwood has ever seen.
Premiership quarter specialists
The old saying in football is the third quarter is the premiership quarter, and the Pies are the best performing team in third quarters up until the mid-point of 2025, with a record of 10 wins, one draw and two losses and an overall score of 315-150.
Collingwood has also spent the least amount of time behind in matches, spending just 26.26% trailing in 2025.
Career-best season at 32?
Veteran Jamie Elliott is third in the AFL for goals with 34. The Euroa product, in his 14th season, is just five goals shy of his career season-high of 39, which came in 2023.
Prior to this season, Elliott had booted five goals or more seven times in 194 games. 13 games into 2025, he’s added four occasions with a bag of five or more goals, taking his career-total to 11.
Elliott is also second amongst general forwards in the AFL for score involvements with 90, just one behind the Western Bulldogs’ Rhylee West and the Adelaide Crows’ Izak Rankine.
But it hasn’t just been about scoreboard impact for the wily forward. He’s also fourth in the competition for marks inside 50 with 35.
New year, same Daicoses
In news that will surprise absolutely no one, the Daicos brothers have continued bringing their own footy to games in 2025. Nick sits sixth and Josh 20th for total disposals league wide, with 379 and 360 disposals respectively.
The senior Daicos is also fifth for uncontested possessions (247) and seventh for effective disposals (283) in the AFL.
Halfway through his fourth season, Nick is sitting pretty in various statistics in the competition. The 22-year-old is fifth for score involvements (98), eighth for clearances (86), seventh for inside 50s (75) and fifth amongst midfielders for goal assists (13). And of course, he’s ranked 308th for contested marks (one).
After 83 AFL matches, Nick’s 71.1% win-rate is the third-best amongst current players, behind only Brisbane’s Jaspa Fletcher (72.2%) and Geelong’s Mitch Duncan (71.2%).
The Fast and the Furious
Sitting 15th on that list of current players with the best win-rate percentage is Beau McCreery (66.7%). And alongside the mosquito fleet of Collingwood small forwards in Lachie Schultz and Bobby Hill, they’re forming a formidable challenge for the competition with their pace and pressure.
The kid from Cove is third amongst general forwards for applying pressure acts with 264.
In his second season at Collingwood, Schultz hasn’t allowed opposition defenders easy exits from the Pies’ forward 50. The 28-year-old is averaging the third-most tackles per game inside the arc (2.6), and amongst general forwards, the second-most tackles (5.6) and fourth-most pressure acts (19.9).
Then, when you think you’re safe after escaping McCreery’s constant pressure and Schultz’s tackling barrages, you’d loathe to forget about Hill. Like he’s coming down one, Hill’s max speed of 35.8km/hr is the second-highest recorded on-field in 2025.
