IT TOOK Mick Malthouse approximately two seconds. "How would you sum up Paul Medhurst's game?" the Collingwood coach was asked during his post-game media conference. "Some good," he replied, "and some bad."

It has been that way for much of Medhurst's career, but sometimes the order is important. The Magpies weren't much good in the first half of yesterday's game, and Medhurst was having one of those days when things were not happening quite as he wanted them to.

He pushed one shot into the post, and after playing on in the goalsquare, managed to miss another kick at goal from only a few metres out. He played on again from further out, and still couldn't score. Then he passed a ball to Marty Clarke, watched Bernie Vince chop it off, saw Adelaide kick a goal and heard himself called to the bench.

"It was a pretty crucial for goal them. I think they went five goals up and I was pretty disappointed with myself," Medhurst said.

How did he spend his time on the bench? "Mick just let me know about it."

Once upon a time, that might have been Medhurst's day, and he knew that. "There's been plenty of those games where I'd have an ordinary first half, and you can really get down on yourself," he said. "You can fade out from there. I think half-time came at a pretty crucial time for me." After the break, Medhurst kept doing the things that hadn't been coming off in the first half.

He kept flying for marks; this time, he crawled up on to the shoulders of Chris Bryan and held on, then he kept his feet as Nathan Bassett fell over in front of him, and held on again.

He continued to play on when and wherever he could. He kept taking chances and, Travis Cloke aside, he was the most influential forward in the second half, finishing with five goals, three posters, two behinds and a couple of goal assists. Some good, some bad and everything in between.

His unpredictability was almost predictable, and his ability to appear from nowhere, take high or tumbling marks, trap tricky balls and initiate moves was precisely what Adelaide lost when Brett Burton's anterior cruciate ligament ruptured mid-stride as he raced Harry O'Brien for a loose ball in the third quarter.

It was in the break, though, that Medhurst made sure his game would improve by reflecting on the things he knew he could do, and at the same time emptying his mind and not worrying about what had already unfolded.

"I got the chance to come in and re-focus and get a good talking to, then clear my head and go back out," he said.

"For me, having had some solid form to build on and to look back on, it gives you a little bit more confidence to go out and do your thing and know that eventually, if the boys give you enough opportunities, which they did, you can make a few of them count.

"It just comes with a pretty solid pre-season and having the fitness to really cover all bases in terms of preparation. That's been a really significant thing for me this year…

"You can't do the right thing all the time and Mick's been good for me. He's given me the confidence to get in and out of those type of situations and just back myself."

That Medhurst was the sort of player who did bob in and out of games was not necessarily something that Malthouse accepted as part and parcel of the former Fremantle forward.

He has seen him play better, for whole games, before and did not see why that could not have happened again against the Crows.

But that Medhurst was able to re-focus, and that things didn't stay as they were, did make him happy. "He's an intelligent young man with a lot of pride. He tries to please," Malthouse said.

Medhurst still had some work to do in his aim, though.

Standing in bare feet in the rooms, being interviewed after the game, he accidentally squeezed his milk drink, squirting some over Eddie McGuire's black coat as he wandered by.

The president was a little fussed, but not about his next dry cleaning bill. "I've got to talk to you . . ." McGuire warned Medhurst, "about a few of those shots . . ."