So, what did we learn?

[satchmopugdog]

1.Brett Kirk is the real Captain. It stood out like the proverbial Dog'spiece of anatomy last night.
2. Saintsational thought we had the better of the umpiring.
3. Lots of other things but I have to take Benny for a walk.

[monopoly19]

Originally posted by hammo
Reiwoldt was best on ground

Absolutely. Looked to me to be a class above the rest, both in his ability to mark the ball cleanly on the first grab and to find space. I can't understand how people are saying LRT had a good game - his job was to shut down one of St Kilda's most dangerous players and he failed miserably.

[ScottH]

Don't try and kick the ball out of the air, in the wet, when near thge boundary. 3 OOBOTF, 1 to MOL, who acually missed. 2 to Dumpster, although the 2nd one was given a free for another incident.

Dive and punch the ball forward in the wet when several players are chasing it. Like crouch in the GF.

Kick ugly into the F50 in the wet, more chance of anything happening, rather than a StK uncontested mark. (MOL last kick doesn't count)

Kick to the top of the Goal Square, FFS, rather than a pocket. A free in the goal square is an easier shot than from a pocket, or even a rushed behind or 3 could've been handy.

Don't play dry weather footy in the wet.

[Piobaireachd]

Originally posted by NMWBloods

meh. glass half empty glass half full. I love this stuff.

[caj23]

Richards confirmed his dud status

[ScottH]

Originally posted by Will Sangster
Richards confirmed his dud status

How was it that he gave a free kick away, when the saint slid into Richards knees. How was he supposed to avoid that? At least he got paid a similar one a little while later.

[Schneiderman]

I learnt that Barry Hall is too strong for his own good. Apparently the umpires have decided that thus he doesn't deserve the protection of the rules. Gherig is obviously considered a real woos.

That we were hoping that our skills would hold up in the rain, but they didn't, and by the time we changed our style we had run out of time.

St Kilda's style all night was as much lucky as effective. They played a 'Pagan's paddock' style with a very flooded Swans forward line, and Thomas was punting on our foot skills being as poor as they were. Add to that Reiwoldt's brilliance, LRT's only 50/50 marking and kicking ability, and the illegal tactics on Hall, and he got away with it. Just.

That our team is not a front-runner. And that's fine by me. I expected them to lose sooner rather than later, and by two points, in the wet, against a team that wont count come September, is not the worst result. We now have two weeks to get our bodies and minds right. If we beat Collingwood, it will matter much more than this loss the other night.

Hopefully we learn from this rain lesson. Considering how successful our recent tactics and form have been, it was exected that we try to continue it despite the weather. Now we know that in the wet we need to flood and lock it down instead. Boring but effective.

[Go Swannies]

We also learned that Paul Roos can't trick the team. He tried to convince them that the Roos get-out-of-gaol game was "the loss we had to have" - and stated as much. But the team weren't fooled and had to contrive a real loss to go back to underdog status as we come up to the business end of the season.

It will be interesting to see if the Weagles do the same and think they are playing better than they are? If they play at AAMI like they did at Subi, Port may get a percentage boost.

[sfan]

Originally posted by anne
I thought LRT was pretty good and handled the conditions much better than many of the others.

I thought LRT was given a lesson on Sat night and would have learned lot from the pasting he took. His mistakes on Saturday night was the number of time he lead Nick to the ball when he should have been taking his man away from the contest.

I noticed on quite a few occaisions he was starting to run away from the ball to open up space for Hall, Nick would start to follow then hesitate and for some reason LRT would stop and then run back into the hole as if her had to pick up Nick This let Nick get back in the contest and he killed us. I thought at the time just keep running wide and make Nick accountable.

[Carolyn]

Originally posted by sfan
I thought LRT was given a lesson on Sat night and would have learned lot from the pasting he took. His mistakes on Saturday night was the number of time he lead Nick to the ball when he should have been taking his man away from the contest.

I noticed on quite a few occaisions he was starting to run away from the ball to open up space for Hall, Nick would start to follow then hesitate and for some reason LRT would stop and then run back into the hole as if her had to pick up Nick This let Nick get back in the contest and he killed us. I thought at the time just keep running wide and make Nick accountable.

LRT still kicked a goal though...

[ScottH]

Originally posted by Carolyn
LRT still kicked a goal though...

And dropped a sitter.

[liz]

Originally posted by sfan
I thought LRT was given a lesson on Sat night and would have learned lot from the pasting he took. His mistakes on Saturday night was the number of time he lead Nick to the ball when he should have been taking his man away from the contest.

I noticed on quite a few occaisions he was starting to run away from the ball to open up space for Hall, Nick would start to follow then hesitate and for some reason LRT would stop and then run back into the hole as if her had to pick up Nick This let Nick get back in the contest and he killed us. I thought at the time just keep running wide and make Nick accountable.

I think that's inexperience on the part of LRT. Playing as a true CHB he's probably just told to stick close to his man. The role he played against Riewoldt was probably one he's not played before, especially against anyone as damaging as Riewoldt.

Makes you wonder, though, whether B2 mightn't have been a better match-up once it became clear how Riewoldt was going to be used.

And while I know Roos prefers to play man-on-man and not put spare men back (at least that's the way he's mostly going at the moment), if they'd just stuck LRT 20m in front of Gehrig and Barry, it may have made Barry's life a lot easier. An extra Saint in our defence wouldn't have made much difference given that their defence was marking everything that came that way anyway.

[ScottH]

Originally posted by liz
....given that their defence was marking everything that came that way anyway.

Mainly uncontested marks as weel, which was the most frustrating part.

[floppinab]

Originally posted by satchmopugdog
1.Brett Kirk is the real Captain. It stood out like the proverbial Dog'spiece of anatomy last night.

He was but he was also one of the chief instigators of the slow approach, when we needed to at least get it on quickly, at worst bang it in quickly to a less clogged forward line, he was always content to slow it up, allow the Saints to get back forcing us to the pockets in search of open space.

Our first goal of the game should have given us a clue as how to play on Sat. night. Quickly forward regardless of the quality to give our forwards a chance when it hit the deck.

The only interesting comment Baz made last night OTC was how he thought we were winning games this year based on superior skills leading to higher scoring. I think it's clear our skills have dropped off the last few weeks with the Saints on Sat. night being far superior in that area.

[giant]

Originally posted by satchmopugdog
2. Saintsational thought we had the better of the umpiring.

They are probably right. That said, whoever it is on here who keeps track of the goals from frees count in their sig can add 2 to SK & zilch to Swans.

For mine, in difficult conditions, I thought the umps did a good job - always tough in the rain coz there are so many minor infringements.