(131st Eagles player)
A dependable defender originally from East Fremantle, Collica played a couple of seasons at Hawthorn before returning home to link up with ex-Hawks coach Ken Judge.
Hawthorn career[]
Collica won a WAFL premiership with the Sharks in 1998 before being drafted by Hawthorn. He played 30 games in two seasons with the Hawks before being traded back west at the end of the 2000 season (along with another Hawk, Richard Taylor) to be reunited with Judge, his former East Freo and Hawthorn coach.
West Coast career[]
Perhaps alone amongst all of the recycled players that were brought to the club in 2001 (Taylor, Prior, Carroll…), Collica was a consistent contributor in his first season in blue and gold. He played every game and finished runner-up to Ben Cousins in the club champion award. The following year he again played every game, including the elimination final loss to Essendon.
After an injury-interrupted start to 2003 Collica added only 5 more games to his total, with his 50th (and, ultimately, final) game for West Coast coming in a late-season win over Melbourne. He had another injury-plagued season in 2004 and was not able to force his way into the side.
Post-AFL career[]
After being delisted at the end of the 2004 season, Collica played on with East Fremantle for two more years before retiring.
Stats[]
| AFL | Gm | G | B | K | M | H | D | T | Cl | WAFL | Gm | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 22 | 1 | 1 | 153 | 91 | 111 | 264 | 72 | 28 | EF | 0 | ||
| 2002 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 124 | 74 | 80 | 204 | 72 | 18 | 0 | |||
| 2003 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 11 | 25 | 47 | 15 | 4 | 10 | 2 | ||
| 2004 | 0 | 15 | 4 | ||||||||||
| Tot | 50 | 2 | 2 | 299 | 176 | 216 | 515 | 159 | 50 | ||||
| Avg | 0.0 | 6.0 | 3.5 | 4.3 | 10.3 | 3.2 | 1.0 |
Links[]
http://afltables.com/afl/stats/players/M/Michael_Collica.html