Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse has blamed a lack of initiative from his senior players and the failure of the Pies' on-field leadership for Saturday night's crushing preliminary final loss to Geelong at the MCG.

The Pies were totally overwhelmed in the second half in going down by 73 points after trailing by just 11 at half-time.

Malthouse said the result left a bitter taste that was not reflective of the many positives achieved by the club in 2009.

"It was terrible, shocking (in front of) a big crowd," Malthouse told his post-match media conference.

"It's a shame to have to talk to a group of players about that last half of football given what I believe was a fairly productive year."

While almost all of his youngsters were clearly outplayed and out of their depth on the night, Malthouse said it his more senior players who were to blame for the failure to stop the Cats' run-on in the third quarter.

The problems started in the midfield where Leon Davis could manage only 13 touches for the match and fellow All Australian Dane Swan, who's understood to have carried a buttock strain into the match, 17, which is barely half of his season average of 32.

"We've fallen away badly in the last few weeks in regard to midfield pressure and midfield clearances and midfield scoring," Malthouse said.

"We have four or five players who have really fallen right away and that's a concern - we have to look at that and address that."

Added to his team's problems in the midfield, Malthouse said, was the failure of the club's more senior players to think on their feet and take the initiative.

Too much in terms of setting the example, he suggested, was being left to skipper Nick Maxwell.

Malthouse declined to name the culprits, but the mix must include the likes of Davis, Swan, Tarkyn Lockyer, Alan Didak and Travis Cloke who put in a shocker in his 100th AFL appearance.

"The thing that I was most disappointed with, we just needed players to take responsibility and last week we did, but there just seemed to be a lack of leadership accountability in many respects," Malthouse said.

"That's not Nick Maxwell, that's a group of players that have played a number of games need to have addressed certain things."

"One of them was bizarre, to allow Steele Sidebottom and Dayne Beams to walk into the middle for a ball-up ... with an Ablett or a Corey or a Bartel or whatever and a fresh ruckman."

"That's not what I call good sense and that was fairly reflective - we just didn't take control."

"(We've got a) young leadership group (and) we've got to grow up, quickly."

Malthouse insisted that Scott Pendlebury was close to playing just 12 days after surgery on a broken leg, but the club's medicos opted to play safe by making him a late withdrawal.

Asked what he considered to be the main positives from the season, Malthouse said making the finals and blooding youngsters.