Pressure? What pressure? Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley was just content to enjoy the Pies' shock 29-point win over Geelong on Sunday.
With a 1-4 record going into the match, the under-siege Magpies were given little chance of victory but dug deep to score a stunning 15.17 (107) to 11.12 (78) win at the MCG.
His side's poor start to the AFL season had led to increasing speculation over his future, but Buckley maintains he and the club were unaffected by the outside chatter.
"There's no more or less pressure," Buckley said after the win.
"I reckon I've read the same article 50 times ... it's just the same stuff. It's someone else's opinion regurgitated.
"That's great but that doesn't seep in ... it's not something that we can control."
While a pressure valve might not have been released as far as the coach is concerned, his players attacked the game with a creative flair that suggested otherwise.
The Pies led by a game-high 42 points early in the final term before seeing off the inevitable challenge from the fast-finishing Cats.
"We just showed more intent with our ball use," Buckley said.
"We were bolder and we were prepared to take more risks with our legs - what legs we had after a five-day break.
"And we were able to be more efficient more often than not (but) we still left a lot of scores out there."
By his own admission, Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury played his worst game in 10 years in the Anzac Day loss to Essendon, but he bounced back with a match-winning 33-possession performance.
Levi Greenwood applied an old-fashioned hard tag on Joel Selwood that limited the skipper to just 17 touches.
Coming off a five-day break, Collingwood's midfield runners impressed, with Taylor Adams, Adam Treloar and Steele Sidebottom important.
Darcy Moore played his best game of the season with 17 touches, nine marks and two goals.
Zach Tuohy led the way for the Cats with 36 possessions, while Patrick Dangerfield was uncharacteristically quiet with 21 touches and a goal.
"We had a lot of individuals down ... we didn't feel like we had many winners on the day," Geelong coach Chris Scott said.
"It was really disappointing, the way we defended.
"They were able to use the ball by foot very easily and we weren't able to get the same sort of thing the other way so defensively it was a really poor effort."
Collingwood's Travis Varcoe limped out of the game with a hamstring injury in the third quarter and Geelong youngster Brandan Parfitt also injured a hamstring in the final term.
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