I hate the St Kilda Matchup - Tell me how we win this game???

[anfo27]

We didn't lose because of the rucks

Which player had the biggest impact on the ground? If its not Ryder then we are watching a different game. I'm not saying its your fault we lost Tim but geez if your direct opponent doesn't have such an enormous impact then we win in a canter.

[KT31]

Can we please just change the thread title to; “I @#$&ing hate St-Kilda and @#$&ing always will.

[Happy Days]

Congrats to St Kilda for their first finals win without a convicted rapist in their side since 1997.

[KT31]

Congrats to St Kilda for their first finals win without a convicted rapist in their side since 1997.

Well at least not any we know about.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Which player had the biggest impact on the ground? If its not Ryder then we are watching a different game. I'm not saying its your fault we lost Tim but geez if your direct opponent doesn't have such an enormous impact then we win in a canter.

I'm not sure modern footy is so binary.
Ryder was no doubt huge tonight....not sure he won them the game.
pretty sure I agree with Bevo that our inability to stop them from moving the ball from our forward line through their goal posts with rude regularity was a large problem.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

I'm not sure modern footy is so binary.
Ryder was no doubt huge tonight....not sure he won them the game.
pretty sure I agree with Bevo that our inability to stop them from moving the ball from our forward line through their goal posts with rude regularity was a large problem.

Yep and multiple times it was a 12 point turnaround. We had them locked in yet they somehow escaped and then with ease transitioned into a vacant forward line. As disappointing as that is, it’s compounded by the fact that the saints love to play like that. It’s their style. And we let them do it for most of the night.

[anfo27]

I'm not sure modern footy is so binary.
Ryder was no doubt huge tonight....not sure he won them the game.
pretty sure I agree with Bevo that our inability to stop them from moving the ball from our forward line through their goal posts with rude regularity was a large problem.

Not saying that was our only issue. Clearly we have multiple issues to deal with over the summer but for me English plays with some presence, just a little then we win comfortably.

[azabob]

I really hate this match-up.

It just seems that the Saints are strong where we are weak...and their fast method of ball movement causes huge trouble for our zoning defence. Further to all that, they are at the very least 'solid' (Ruck + inside mids) where we are strong (inside mids) and, well...

Is anyone else just thinking 'Why couldn't it have been West Coast? Or Collingwood? Or even Richmond?"

Looking forward with dread. Hoping I am wrong (of course) but just not feeling it.

Did we lose the way you expected us to?

I expected to win and thought if we lost it would be because of Ryder / Marshall and their midfield and small forwards.

Not because their tall defenders and forwards would dominate all over the ground.

[Hotdog60]

We made Howard look good for the Saints

[Sedat]

We made Howard look good for the Saints

He is good and has been all season. Really we shouldn't have expected much more from Naughts and Bruce than what we got yesterday on Howard and Carlisle - they similarly struggled badly against May and Lever earlier in the season but we found a way through slick ball movement and being able to minimise clean clearances (helped that Gawn didn't play and Preuss did). We weren't able to stop this yesterday with Ryder and Marshall giving them so many good looks from the centre bounces, and in actual fact St Kilda did to us what we do to most teams with their coast to coast scoring chains from D50.

There is nothing worse than losing from what you know. We got the blueprint in R2 on how the Saints will approach this final. MJP neatly summarised it again in this thread. They certainly didn't throw in any curveballs at selection or in their match-ups. The fact that we knew what was coming and utterly failed to curb any of their weapons until it was almost too late was the most disappointing aspect of yesterday. Steele aside, our midfield is so far ahead of theirs it is not even a comparison. Yet they were able to get so much clean ball into their F50 as a direct result of the Ryder/Marshall combination. By contrast they were very proactive in curbing our strengths. Daniel was sat on to great effect (great credit to Daniel for orchestrating our comeback in a different position). Their rucks in tandem wore down English and then both got dangerous around the ground after they fatigued Tim and nullified his around the ground strength. Their key defenders locked on as did their mid sized defenders on the likes of Wallis. And they obliterated us in the air both ways - we were so poor in zoning off to rebound mark and we were even poorer in bringing the ball to ground inside F50 and also on the Saints down the line kicks. Bevo had a really poor match day IMO and I suspect deep down he knows it.

[mjp]

Did we lose the way you expected us to?

Can I say "kind of".

They kicked so many easy goals in transition - they won with minus 16 inside 50's for goodness sake - and just went forward in a rush and scored.

What I didn't expect was the way that Coffield in particular was able to so effectively intercept behind the ball. And the disappointing thing was that the MC identified this and moved to man-him-up, but did so without providing sufficient instruction...when you are playing versus an interceptor, you DO NOT LEAD. You stick your elbow in his back, and force him to compete in every contest...unfortunately the player assigned kept leading...which we kept ignoring...so the intercept player kept getting in the way.

I didn't enjoy the game at all. We had chances - and good pressure - but MISSED tackles deep inside our f50 area probably cost us the game...one versus Sinclair I remember as being particularly galling...this enabled them to maintain a 'point and click (kick)' d50 exit strategy which enabled them to hold the ball....they were losing the territory game but at the same time were pretty effective defending WHILST IN POSSESSION. It wasn't until they were really being overwhelmed in the last q that they had to go to a traditional 'kick it long and wide' exit strategy which enabled us to win the ball back with numbers and create some scores.

[Hotdog60]

So we should have tried something different but what. Its been a crappy season as far as players that are not selected because I doubt the scratch matches would be as full on.
In hind sight and I've mentioned this elsewhere Sweet could have lined up at full forward and helped Tim out and Arron could have gone to full back. But do you take that risk in an Elimination final in that if it comes off your a coaching genius and if it doesn't your an idiot for not going with your best players.
I watched Sweet in the pre season game he got and to be honest he wasn't that awful and games should have been put into him in the season.

[FrediKanoute]

There is nothing worse than losing from what you know. We got the blueprint in R2 on how the Saints will approach this final. MJP neatly summarised it again in this thread. They certainly didn't throw in any curveballs at selection or in their match-ups. The fact that we knew what was coming and utterly failed to curb any of their weapons until it was almost too late was the most disappointing aspect of yesterday. Steele aside, our midfield is so far ahead of theirs it is not even a comparison. Yet they were able to get so much clean ball into their F50 as a direct result of the Ryder/Marshall combination. By contrast they were very proactive in curbing our strengths. Daniel was sat on to great effect (great credit to Daniel for orchestrating our comeback in a different position). Their rucks in tandem wore down English and then both got dangerous around the ground after they fatigued Tim and nullified his around the ground strength. Their key defenders locked on as did their mid sized defenders on the likes of Wallis. And they obliterated us in the air both ways - we were so poor in zoning off to rebound mark and we were even poorer in bringing the ball to ground inside F50 and also on the Saints down the line kicks. Bevo had a really poor match day IMO and I suspect deep down he knows it.

and yet, we found ourselves in a position to win the game with 2 minutes to go.......for all the bad the Saints were incapable of putting us away. Why?

[Sedat]

and yet, we found ourselves in a position to win the game with 2 minutes to go.......for all the bad the Saints were incapable of putting us away. Why?

Just my personal opinion, because we are better than them and we were in better form than them over the past 6 weeks. I was concerned with all the aspects raised by MJP in this thread and also how they schooled us in R2 but I thought we would have brought much more intensity as we have promised to do since the debacle in last year's EF, and I also thought we would be far too strong for them in the midfield with Libba and Hunter in for us and Gresham out for them from R2. Unfortunately, they got the game more on their terms than we did on ours. Credit to their players and especially their coaching group.

I hope we use it as a proper learning experience and make the necessary adjustments to our game plan and squad, because we have too many elite players in or entering their prime to be constantly fallling short of the contenders like we did this year.

[bornadog]

I hope we use it as a proper learning experience and make the necessary adjustments to our game plan and squad, because we have too many elite players in or entering their prime to be constantly fallling short of the contenders like we did this year.

The issue really is our bottom six who were woeful throughout the year and it showed up in a final. On top of Bruce, Lippinski and Richards were very disappointing, Roarke was ok in patches. Throughout the year we have tried Gowers, Hayes, Lloyd, Dale as well and they are also ordinary.

We really need more contributors and stop relying on the A graders all the time.