Collingwood star Scott Pendlebury embodies the saying about what separates successful people from the rest.

The expression goes that everyone has things they don't like doing - but the successful ones do them anyway.

Pendlebury won his second-straight Anzac Medal as best afield on Monday as Collingwood beat Essendon in their AFL blockbuster by 30 points.

He also won the Norm Smith Medal for best afield in last year's winning grand final.

The midfielder has proved beyond doubt he is a big game hunter.

After Pendlebury made the comment that he found it much easier to be motivated for those big matches, rather than the run-of-the-mill games, coach Mick Malthouse made his own observation about the player's mindset.

"If I need to show any young recruit how to go about preparing for a game of football or preparing for his year and or preparing for his career, I've got no further to go than Scott Pendlebury," Malthouse said.

"He is an absolute professional in everything he does to prepare for a long season or his career or that weekend.

"It's not just a matter of 'I will get ready to play Essendon on Anzac Day'.

"(It's) 'I'm ready to play against anyone at any level for a long time', so no accidents happen with Scott Pendlebury."

Pendlebury dominated in the first quarter, when the Magpies set up the win with four goals to nil, and finished with a game-high 34 possessions.

"It's really easy to get up for a big game, it's probably when you're playing on a Sunday and not many people turn up - I'm fortunate I play for Collingwood, so I get 60,000 there every week," he said.

"But I pride myself on when we travel, to really stand up then, and big games are always so easy, everyone's excited, the adrenaline's high.

"It's probably the other way for me, that when it is not expected that we are going to beat a side, that's when I pride myself on playing really good football."

Pendlebury is out of contract at the end of this year and so is an obvious recruiting target for the GWS expansion team, but he hopes to remain a Magpie.

"We're in talks at the moment and I'm sure something will happen in the next few weeks or within the month, it's playing out now," he said.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP