Round 1: Saints (match thread)

[LaDoleCheckVida]

havent the so called "experts" learnt that winning a pre season mickey mouse cup equates to nothing? Yet each year the same stuff gets written. There are 10 too many footy journos atm with no idea.

The way the saints played tonight i expect to finish 6-8th.

Is it just me or do we get pinged for a lot of 50/50 calls, like the umpires have some preconceived ideas about us?

"we've been told to pay them against you"

[MarshallG]

A very grubby match.

I was hoping to see a more attacking game plan this year.

Nonetheless the new guys showed a lot of promise.

Carna Bloods.

[LaDoleCheckVida]

yeah but maybe our new game plan wasn't effective due to St Kilda putting on the ubber flood or as messers Lane and co calls it "intelligent play from the saints pushing numbers back" and "Sydney have the flood happening"

I love hearing commentators say that. Sydney are evil flooders wheres the rest of the comp are just pushing numbers back.

[Nico]

Just home from the game and even though it was a scrappy game I have come away with a fair bit of optimism. I thought we should have won. We stuffed around adnausium in the 3rd Q around the 60 metre point with pissy little kicks and at least 6 times missed the mark by a bloody mile. In the 2nd Q we went to the top of the square and really put them under the pump.

They were flooding so why didn't we go over the top of the HB flood, just plain crazy and some genuine dumb footy. In the 3rd Q Moore and MOL x 2 broke free well inside 50 yet ran sideways to contests across the ground and fluffed their kicks. If we had taken a risk at that point and kicked a couple of goals we would have put them away. We had all the play then one of crap kicks was picked off and they got a goal.

I thought almost all the players put in really well and our hardness was exceptional.

The good

Moore - his last Q was outstanding and we have now found a genuine centreman. But why wasn't he used at the centre bounces.
Kennelly - how good is this bloke.
Jolly and LRT - good effort.
Jack - I am on, now I am convinced he can play. He second efforts were tops and he has improved his disposal.
Bird - don't know that he got a lot of time and wasn't used much on the ball.
Buchanan was good.
Mattner got better as the game progressed.

The poor

Grundy - real doubts now although he didn't get much help with the crap delivery inside 50.
Ablett - has lost yards in pace that he has never had. Got caught too much or was hurried with disposal
Richards - made a couple of howlers. What about that kickout. very risky down back.
J Bolton - absolutely woeful. He contested all but 2 centre bounces, got his hands on it twice, overran the ball 3 times and was devoid of a clearance. He is a slow thinker and Jolly must wonder what is going on when gets hit out after hitout and Bolton is nowhere to be seen. Also noticed that when there is a pile of players on the ground he will stand right over the top of them instead of a metre or 2 off the ball for the loose ball to come out. His mindless last Q hand ball says it all.
Mcveigh - He genuinely dogged it in the last Q on the wing. When he had to put his body over the ball and was first there he had a real big look and allowed a StK player into the contest. I think it was Bird who went to retrieve the situation and got belted and went off. McV is another Mathews, he has no idea what to do when in a contest and simply holds onto the ball.
He almost always gets beaten in one on one contests. He was free late in the game and kicked wildly across ground to leading player and missed by 20 metres. He is simply a dud.

After the game on 3 AW Roos aid that they had to improve their disposal and praised Moore, Bird and Jack for their use of the ball and that is why they recruited Meredith because of his foot skills. He said they were looking closely at 2 current senior players on this front and will turnover players to get it right.

Can anyone tell me why Ablett played instead of Barlow?

[LaDoleCheckVida]

He said they were looking closely at 2 current senior players on this front and will turnover players to get it right.

Jude Bolton has to be one. Dam i wish some stupid club would have picked him up when he was offered and we could have maybe snaked a good trade. Alas Jude is on the back foot and i can't see any improvement from him no more. He is way past it now and we can't afford to have him out there doing stupid things, we already have benny boy for that. Even playing him on the half forward is a risk.

to be fair to Mcveigh it's an improvement on what he gave us last year.

[mcs]

good review Nico. I have forgotten to mention Buchanan really thought he stood up tonight and had his best game in the middle of the ground areas for a long time- didnt get up forward to get any goals but got plenty of good hard ball. Very happy with what I saw from him.

I thought Ablett did ok however, looked very short of match fitness that is for sure. Why richards played I do not know, had an absolute howler. I do wonder why Cheese didnt get a run, I hope he does because he is another that really could take big steps this season if given a proper run in the team.

[Nico]

I forgot to mention Leo Barry. What is it with bloke: is it that he believes his own publicity?

People say he gives run, garbage. Tonight he did play up the ground a bit but when he got the ball, and many times he was miles on his own, he just stopped and propped and ran back into the play and actually stopped our run out of defence. Surely Roos has to pull him up on this rubbish for a change.

I have no doubt, as I have said before, he has tunnel vision. He rarely goes sideways to a player on his own and never spots up a kick to a player upfield. There was an occasion in the 3rd Q when he had it in the centre and there was aplyer between HF and the wing a 100 yards on his own for an eternity with a run into inside 50, and he chipped it 20 metres in the other direction to a player under the pump.

Every one laughs when he gets the ball but I fail to see the humour in his stuff ups, he creates nothing.

[LaDoleCheckVida]

I forgot to mention Leo Barry. What is it with bloke: is it that he believes his own publicity?

People say he gives run, garbage. Tonight he did play up the ground a bit but when he got the ball, and many times he was miles on his own, he just stopped and propped and ran back into the play and actually stopped our run out of defence. Surely Roos has to pull him up on this rubbish for a change.

I have no doubt, as I have said before, he has tunnel vision. He rarely goes sideways to a player on his own and never spots up a kick to a player upfield. There was an occasion in the 3rd Q when he had it in the centre and there was aplyer between HF and the wing a 100 yards on his own for an eternity with a run into inside 50, and he chipped it 20 metres in the other direction to a player under the pump.

Every one laughs when he gets the ball but I fail to see the humour in his stuff ups, he creates nothing.

oh come on Nico at least he was looking for options and dares to create run. But what can you do when you have the entire St Kilda side in front of you?

I didn't think he was bad at all. I thought Goodes was a LOT worst and Kirky as well.

[Melbournehammer]

Further comments re individual players

Bolton is our stand out defnder. Interestingly Barry played on the third tall for st kilda which i think represents where he is at. However he looks like he has lost a little acceleration and mobility making his run from defence less beneficial than in the past.

Richards is hugely underrated for our team. He actually spoils well, marks reasonably well and has much better decision-making than he looks - he looks awkward but is actually much better than he looks.

Bevan actually played reasonably well after he was moved off Milne. Milne has too many smarts for him. Bevan needs to play on one-dimensional players - a little like Matthews - both players who are capable of playing on straightforward players.

LRT remains enigmatgic. He cazn be quite strong and get the ball but win he has time he is just terrible. The whole team should be instructed that when he gets it he must kick it long to a contest where people can get to it. He simply cannot pass the ball by foot.

Mattner showed a great deal of dash - he was clearly exhausted in the last quarter and at times was beaten by milne but showed enough to demonstrate that if kennelly also stays uninjured we will have some speed and passing ability.

Kennelly - just our ace in the pack - takes risks and oiften worthwhile ones.

Our forwards are sloooow and lack strategy. O'keefe can get it but where we used to have him swing onto the left to hit hall on a lead and then micky o on a lead it is simply the case thast neither hall nor mick o can regularly break free to lead. The result is that he is getting the ball and looking around with nothing to kick to.

Davis will be honoured on the lead a lot more this year but i suspect that he will flatter to deceive.

Grundy is too slow, but he does get another tall defender which assists by reducing the speed of the opposition defence.

Buchanan and moore will both be useful. jack is very quick and hard at it.

bolton j will continue to play and be beaten by his direct opponent. sadly his kicking will never be what a top 5 draft pick should be.

goodes needs to play on the ball and not as a forward or defender.

overall we could have been 40 points down at quarter time and the fact that we weren't owed much to the saints lack of quality finishing but overall i think we were second on the night and seemed to make more of our opportunities.

nedxt week will be critical.

[2005]

Liked your report Nico, though didnt agree on Bird . He was pretty ordinary tonight.
Once he was pinged for the holding the ball in the middle he really found things difficult from there on.
Was pretty impressed with Moorey & Jack tonight.
Thought we out played StKilda for most of the game & their were more positives to come out than negatives .
Glad Schneider missed that goal at the end !
That would of left a real sour taste

[Nico]

oh come on Nico at least he was looking for options and dares to create run. But what can you do when you have the entire St Kilda side in front of you?

I didn't think he was bad at all. I thought Goodes was a LOT worst and Kirky as well.

No he wasn't looking for options. That was my very point. You are not looking for options when you run back into play and handball to stationary targets under the pump.

[Margie]

There was the usual undisciplined giving away of too many free kicks in the first half. However, most of the 50/50 ones went their way. For example the Kirk/Montagna high contact was given to Montagna and the Mattner/Jones collision went to Jones. I think the home crowd helped and wish we could have a first round home game at the SCG some time.

As others have said, Jack was terrific. Also thought Davo was good, along with Leo, Kennelly and Moore. O'Keefe is still our best mark and C. Bolton as usual, did his job admirably. I loved to two run downs - O'Keefe on Clarke (?) and Barry Hall on Schneider. It will be interesting to see if Bazza can take marks in the day game next Sunday. He was very ordinary tonight.

I didn't think Jude was as bad as some made out - he wasn't the worst that's for sure. Hopefully there'll be a big improvement next week from those who were quiet tonight.

One more goal and we would have had the 4 points! St Kilda were certainly nothing special.

[LaDoleCheckVida]

No he wasn't looking for options. That was my very point. You are not looking for options when you run back into play and handball to stationary targets under the pump.

Maybe thats because no targets presented themselves? It's pretty hard to find targets when there are none!

[2005]

I forgot to mention Leo Barry. What is it with bloke: is it that he believes his own publicity?

People say he gives run, garbage. Tonight he did play up the ground a bit but when he got the ball, and many times he was miles on his own, he just stopped and propped and ran back into the play and actually stopped our run out of defence. Surely Roos has to pull him up on this rubbish for a change.

I have no doubt, as I have said before, he has tunnel vision. He rarely goes sideways to a player on his own and never spots up a kick to a player upfield. There was an occasion in the 3rd Q when he had it in the centre and there was aplyer between HF and the wing a 100 yards on his own for an eternity with a run into inside 50, and he chipped it 20 metres in the other direction to a player under the pump.

Every one laughs when he gets the ball but I fail to see the humour in his stuff ups, he creates nothing.

Fair way off the mark here Nico.
You cant just bomb it when you have the entire StKilda fwd line up in ours.

[LaDoleCheckVida]

Fair way off the mark here Nico.
You cant just bomb it when you have the entire StKilda fwd line up in ours.

I agree.

Well maybe playing a game plan akin to 1977 style footy where you just kick it to a pack and hope for the best..but not this day and age when the opposition will just run it out. Maybe Leo can kick a huge torpedo then sprint and take another pack speccie?

I seriously didn't have a problem with Leo tonight at all. Sometimes i think people criticise him for the sake of it.