Sale’s Scott Pendlebury etched his name into the history books again in Collingwood’s come-from-behind victory over the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.
It wasn’t a straight-forward win for the Magpies, who were dominated early by the Bulldogs’ run and carry around the ground.
The Dogs led by nine points at quarter time, before having their lead cut to just five points at the main break.
Pendlebury moved to number one for all-time disposals in AFL history in the third term, collecting his 14th disposal of the match.
“Possessed the Sherrin more times than anyone in the history of our game. What a feat. What a player,” James Brayshaw called on Channel 7’s coverage of the game.
Collingwood came out of the gates quickly in the second half, piling on 6.2 (38) to the Bulldogs’ 1.2 (8), storming into the lead for the first time of the night, holding a 25-point lead into the final quarter.
After kicking the first two goals of the final term, the Bulldogs added four more to their total to close the margin to 12 points, but there wasn’t enough time to complete another comeback.
The Pies showed their class in the two-goal win, 13.11 (89) to 11.11 (77).
Pendlebury finished the game with 21 disposals at 81 per cent efficiency, seven marks, four tackles, three clearances and three score involvements.
Pendlebury will begin to create a class of his own, now with 9665 disposals to his name throughout his 373-game AFL career, surpassing Robert Harvey’s 9656 disposals.
“It was pretty loud when I got the ball so I knew I must have been around the mark. To be honest it was nice to get it done and out of the way,” Pendlebury said post-match.
Not only that, he moves up to 10th for all-time games played, surpassing Sydney Swans legend Adam Goodes.
The six-time All Australian, five-time club best-and-fairest recipient, Norm Smith medallist, and premiership player can now add this to his long list of AFL achievements.
Could Pendlebury go down as one of the best players to never win a Brownlow Medal?
That one is up for debate now.
Next on his list of achievements to tick off now would surely be 400 games.
The veteran has signed on with Collingwood for another season and if he remains fit, which seems likely knowing his track record, he should become the sixth player to reach 400 games.
Could he break Brent ‘Boomer’ Harvey’s all-time games record of 432 games?
From now up until the end of the season, he should be able to surpass Craig Bradley (375 games), David Mundy (376) and Simon Madden (378) on the all-time list.
Across the league, we are still awaiting the return of Sale’s Charlie Comben who is still around five weeks away from his broken ankle injury, meanwhile Yarram’s Josh Dunkley took the week off to rest from a calf complaint.
