This time last year the question confronting Collingwood president, Eddie McGuire, and his board was: what are we going to do? The Magpies had at their helm one of modern football's best-credentialed coaches in Mick Malthouse, still at the top of his game but without a premiership in nine seasons at the club.

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings, they had their former captain, Brownlow medallist, and six-time club champion, Nathan Buckley. Intently watching every move were a few hundred thousand impatient supporters, acutely aware that the Magpies had won only one flag in fifty years.

McGuire, in particular, was desperately keen that Buckley's coaching ambition be realised at Collingwood, not at any other club. By late-July he had conjured a magical formula giving Malthouse two more years, but guaranteeing Buckley the job of helmsman from 2012. The deal also underwrote a role for Malthouse, as director of coaching, for a further three years. Following Sunday's blindingly brilliant win over boom team the Bulldogs, the Magpie administration might be wondering whether this year's question will be: what have we done?

There can be no doubt Malthouse's coaching has been outstanding in the past three years. In 2007 he went within a whisker of pulling off one of football's great heists as his team fell five points short of Geelong in a preliminary final. While the two years since have produced no advance on that, a team appearing light on for quality ruckmen, defenders, and target forwards has been admirably competitive.

Sunday's win, though, suggested better than mere competitiveness. Not only was it achieved against an opponent being freely tipped as this year's benchmark, it was done with a method indicating a new level of scientific refinement. Just as the Formula One cars were preparing for the Grand Prix at nearby Albert Park, the Magpies were playing football at possibly the highest speed at which it has ever been coherently executed.

In 2007, Malthouse made an 11th-hour decision to throw caution to the wind on the matter of interchange rotations. Suddenly, Collingwood took use of the bench to a new level and it nearly won the Pies a premiership. The numbers have gone through the proverbial roof in the period since, and the pace and intensity of the game have increased accordingly. Last weekend, much of the football in the AFL's opening round was dazzlingly fast, but Collingwood's version of it set a new standard.

In their preliminary final last year, the Magpies were over-powered by Geelong to the extent that it appeared as a contest between men and boys. Last Friday night, though, Essendon showed that even the great Geelong team could be threatened if the speed of the game was raised sufficiently. The young Bombers simply weren't able to sustain the pace for four quarters. Two days later, Collingwood kicked eight goals to the Bulldogs' two in a first quarter speed blitz then showed they can go four quarters by kicking eight of the last eleven goals of the match.

To my eye, Malthouse has sought to take the speed of execution, both offensively and defensively, to a new level. The result on Sunday was spectacular. It was one game, and one played on the competition's smallest ground, but it provided a glimpse of what might lie in store. If the Magpies can maintain the breakneck speed, not just across four quarters but across the entire season, they may do great things. Mick might yet be saving the best of his time at Collingwood till last.