Here’s the thing about Collingwood.

The Magpies are building a team, possibly a very good team, but coach Nathan Buckley is not at the finish line yet.

To be great, he needs fragile Ben Reid to come back and thrive, and wunderkind Darcy Moore to arrive and fulfil his potential, and that might be several years away.

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With 12 goals in his last two matches, Cloke is a man in form. Photo: Getty

Some support for Travis Cloke up front would be nice, and perhaps another gun midfielder.

But the process is underway and the impressive point is this: in the controllable aspects, like level of effort, Collingwood is already there.

Collingwood is close to the most honest team in the competition.

What you see is what you get with the Magpies, who don’t get smashed often and tend to beat the teams they ought to.

They are manic in intent, predictable and formidable already; what’s to come is tantalising.

This team is loaded with players who extract the best from themselves, the ultimate judgment of a professional footballer.

Look down the back, where rookies Marley Williams and Jack Frost play every game like it might be their last, where Tom Langdon (pick 65 in the 2013 draft) is so smooth, and Nathan Brown continues to get better week-by-week.

Look how Jesse White, often-maligned, bobs up and how, notwithstanding his flaws, his level of effort rarely drops.

Note the remarkable evenness of Scott Pendlebury, perhaps the most professional player in the business as well as one of the very best.

The team improvement is real.

Collingwood averages 14.9 goals a game, third in the AFL behind Hawthorn and West Coast.

Silky smooth: Pendlebury rarely makes errors with the football. Photo: Getty

Buckley has somehow found three goals a game from last year, when his team was 15th in scoring with 11 goals a game.

But in finding a cutting edge, the coach has not lost his defensive stiffness. The Magpies are fifth on the defensive ranking, conceding 11 goals a game.

These are good numbers.

Fremantle coach Ross Lyon (and one or two sages before him) has argued that to be a premiership contender, you really need to be top four in both categories, so third and fifth is handy. It’s close.

The Magpies are also fourth on the AFL ladder, and it is mildly surprising that the run of four consecutive wins has not lifted the metaphorical lid on the phenomenon that is Collingwood, the institution.

That it has not caused mayhem shows that the supporters know the story.

Collingwood has turned out to have a good draw; it has beaten just one of the current top eight (Greater Western Sydney), and is yet to play any of the other contenders – Fremantle, Sydney, West Coast or Hawthorn.

So everyone is on a watching brief, staying calm, but of course, all that might change with a certain result in Perth.

In every season, for every team, there is a tipping point and Collingwood’s is right here, right now.

Subiaco on a Thursday night is the theatre. The show can’t come soon enough.

Can they topple Fremantle, the ladder leader? Logic says maybe not. But since when was logic guaranteed to apply in footy.

I fancy that Fremantle faces a highly dangerous opponent.