St. Kilda V Western Bulldogs R14, Thursday 12/6/25 at Marvel Stadium at 7:30pm

[Bornadog]

Are you saying Mason Wood is their best player? Nwm, Sinclair, Wilkie, Steele, Macrae, Marshall, Higgins. Wood might sneak in to the top 10.

They are just an awful team and club.

NWM is a fantastic player and hard to stop when he has the ball. Would love him as would every other club

[GVGjr]

That was an ordinary exchange. I understand that it’s difficult for senior coaches to sit through press conferences but Ross let’s himself down when he tries to belittle the journos.

After a loss Clarkson tends to go overboard with one or two answers so that he winds down the clock and limits how many questions he gets asked.
They're sneaky buggers some of these coach

If only the journo had said 30K crowd attendance should have been achievable for 2 Melbourne based sides and the reason that didn't happen is because you coach boring football.
I wonder how Ross would have handled it?

[SonofScray]

Just on the crowd thing. Whether its true or not, I hate how we get lumped in with it when for the most part, when things are on our terms we have been drawing well and get very god TV ratings.

North and St Kilda are desperate to always drag us back into that cohort of small, battling clubs. I don't think the challenges the clubs face is as similar as it might have been 10-20 years ago. When I think about the Club across my life time, I just don't see us in that category anymore. Definitely for a large chunk we were entrenched in that, maybe even bottom of the pile. But if we aren't out of the cohort yet, we must be close.

Just a Quick Look at the figures and despite some the stats swinging St Kildas way in terms of crowd averages, I imagine if we adjusted for Ballarat, and the situation with Geelong, Darwin games etc we'd be in better shape. Either way our peaks are higher and the troughs not as deep as the traditional small, battling clubs.

Point being, we are upwardly mobile and trending towards catching up to the next layer of clubs and that's a story that could be told if folk wanted to.

[Bornadog]

Just on the crowd thing. Whether its true or not, I hate how we get lumped in with it when for the most part, when things are on our terms we have been drawing well and get very god TV ratings.

North and St Kilda are desperate to always drag us back into that cohort of small, battling clubs. I don't think the challenges the clubs face is as similar as it might have been 10-20 years ago. When I think about the Club across my life time, I just don't see us in that category anymore. Definitely for a large chunk we were entrenched in that, maybe even bottom of the pile. But if we aren't out of the cohort yet, we must be close.

Just a Quick Look at the figures and despite some the stats swinging St Kildas way in terms of crowd averages, I imagine if we adjusted for Ballarat, and the situation with Geelong, Darwin games etc we'd be in better shape. Either way our peaks are higher and the troughs not as deep as the traditional small, battling clubs.

Point being, we are upwardly mobile and trending towards catching up to the next layer of clubs and that's a story that could be told if folk wanted to.

Good assessment SOS and totally agree with you.

[Sedat]

We play North in a few weeks in that timeslot but not our home game. I wonder whether that will get a bigger crowd than tonight. Might depend on how North go before they play us.

I reckon they will get a solid crowd because it is North's celebration of their 100 year anniversary. I would expect a crowd in excess of 35k as a result.

Last night was a thoroughly enjoyable experience being at the game - it didn't hurt that I was invited through clients to the St Kilda President's dinner (they put on a great show), and watching the match in enemy territory while all the Bayside glitterati channelled their inner animal enclosure and went feral for 2.5 hours was sadistically very satisfying.

I know it wasn't a scalp, but we couldn't be much more emphatic with our response after a very poor performance the week before, especially considering St Kilda were well rested post-bye and Sinclair is a gun player celebrating a major milestone. I though our ability to defend the entire ground when we didn't have the ball was by and large top shelf (a couple of dirty out-the-backs notwithstanding, which you can't stop all of them). Our mids were fully dialled in offensively and, crucially, defensively. The bad clangers were also minimised compared to the last 2 games - there was a poor Cleary one in the 2nd and also a few annoying HTB's from players who were too slow getting rid of the ball (no communication from their teammates), but I can't remember too many other overtly horrible turnovers.

Our talls at both ends were excellent. Darcy, Buku and Naughts were all dangerous at stages, and Lobb and JOD were excellent and reliable down back. I thought English dominated Marshall and was assertive at stoppage and around the ground - Marshall is in horrible form as stand-alone ruck - no wonder they are chasing TDK so hard. Special shout-out to Sanders, Davidson and McNeill - they were all very down the last couple of weeks but they provided great energy last night - our notional bottom 6 contributed so much more, which takes the load off our stars and just makes us more dangerous. Bont having 14 possessions and us winning by 12 goals is a great sign, even considering the opposition.

All in all, a great night and a positive sign that we can respond so decisively and quickly. We are a good to very good team in 2025 - hopefully we can become a great one by seasons end.

[DOG GOD]

I don't think we will learn too much over the next few weeks with the sides we are playing but it is vital though if we are to feature in September that we get these wins before we play the Crows in a few weeks and Lions to try and get a scalp.

We might learn a lot if we lose one of the next 3. If we are to be considered top 8 (potentially top 4) material then we need to best Rich, Syd, NM and beat them by 7+ goals. For mine, this next 3 games will structure what’s to come.

[Bornadog]

I don't think we will learn too much over the next few weeks with the sides we are playing.

I don't agree with this and a lot of supporters saying the same.

We had 9 players with less than 50 games, so we will learn a lot about them and whether they have the talent to be consistent and help us against top 4 teams . The 9 players are getting experience and learning the pace of AFL - so lots for the coaches to work on.

[chef]

NWM is a fantastic player and hard to stop when he has the ball. Would love him as would every other club

not worried by his turnovers?

[Eastdog]

We might learn a lot if we lose one of the next 3. If we are to be considered top 8 (potentially top 4) material then we need to best Rich, Syd, NM and beat them by 7+ goals. For mine, this next 3 games will structure what’s to come.

Yep that is a fair point. If I think about it more it will really tell you something if we don’t go well against those teams who are considered easier to beat. Even if we do win those games you can learn from the manner of those wins.

[Eastdog]

I don't agree with this and a lot of supporters saying the same.

We had 9 players with less than 50 games, so we will learn a lot about them and whether they have the talent to be consistent and help us against top 4 teams . The 9 players are getting experience and learning the pace of AFL - so lots for the coaches to work on.

Yeah I think I made that comment coming off the back of that Hawthorn loss which would have been considered a big win and more of a scalp with where they on the ladder. You really do learn something from each game you play.

[Bornadog]

not worried by his turnovers?

yes needs to fix them up