Analysis: Tom Mitchell has arrived at Collingwood with expectations well below his football resume

If the player happens to have a Brownlow Medal in his trophy cabinet that hype is amplified further, particularly when the Pies missed a grand final by a solitary point.

But in relative terms Tom Mitchell’s trade from Hawthorn to Collingwood has produced crickets.

Former Collingwood coach and now Fox Footy expert Nathan Buckley has experience being Collingwood’s great black and white hope recruited from another club, prospering to tell the tale.

He believes the Mitchell move is a winner but understands the unusually muted response from Collingwood fans.

“He’s going to be great for the club in the way that he prepares and his attitude,” Buckley told CODE Sports at the Fox Footy launch last week.

“He seems like a really solid individual, so the young blokes are going to learn so much from him.”

But there’s a rider.

The knock on Mitchell has always been whether the astronomical numbers he’s renowned for racking up actually affect the outcome of games. This was most famously voiced by Buckley in 2017 when his Collingwood team overcame a six goal deficit and a 50-possession Mitchell game to beat the Hawks.

“He just finds a way and keeps getting to the pill, (but) if I said he wasn’t hurting us a lot, would that make sense?” Buckley honestly responded to reporters after the game. It caused a flurry of debate and some barbed responses from then-Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson.

The next year Mitchell backed up with 54 possessions against Collingwood, the most ever recorded in an AFL game, in a Hawks win.

Six years on Buckley certainly has respect for Mitchell, but his expectations of him in the black and white are tempered.

“The on-field contribution is going to be a question,” Buckley says.

“His attributes might support depth around (Scott) Pendlebury and Taylor Adams, but I think it‘s arguable if he’s in the best 22 when everyone’s up and running, for the best balance for the team.

“But, that’s no criticism of the actual decision because I think at the price he’s coming across at, that’s a pretty good investment.”

That low cost (in a three-way trade Collingwood effectively gave up draft picks 41 and 50 and will have his 2023 wage supplemented by the Hawks), is probably what has kept a lid on things.

This was not Collingwood lording itself over the league like they did last time they recruited a big-name Mitchell.

Almost 30 years to the day of what is likely to be Tom’s debut, Collingwood officially selected his father, Swans ball magnet Barry, as an uncontracted player in the 1993 pre-season draft.

Dubbed ‘the Million Dollar Man’ after placing a five-year, million dollar price tag on his head to scare other clubs off, it sparked a good old-fashioned Collingwood fan frenzy.

They’d added the most prized off-season recruit in the AFL to an already strong finals-calibre team; the faithful were talking premierships.

But by the end of that season Mitchell was in the reserves and Collingwood finished out of the finals.

He was soon shipped to Carlton with the million dollar contract in tatters, and the unenviable title of arguably Collingwood’s biggest recruiting bust.

For Mitchell junior the expectations are dialled down, but a solid pre-season performance against Hawthorn would have been comforting for all concerned.

Buckley is confident that a more sophisticated understanding of player movement means that Collingwood fans will be satisfied by the Mitchell deal mark two.

“He’s a low-cost, quality person and an established player,” Buckley says.

“Even if he plays only two-thirds of the games this year, that’s better than break-even.”