Round 1 V St. Kilda - Game Thread

[Molly dooker]

What ever happened to the good old-fashioned tackle. Many an opportunity missed tonight - too many standing around "looking".

Drop White. Sorry folks, it needs to be said. The whole team were "white-centric" - when other were available to kick goals.

A few very, very doggy umpiring decisions ... not happy there.

Totally agree Annie. I don't think I could be more disappointed in Jessie than I was last night, he had no desire to get to the ball first if it was a 50 / 50 run at, he dropped marks that should have been taken, he didn't tackle, he looked like a passenger all night. At least Bradshaw (obviously underdone at the mo) tried to win the ball. After Playfair kicking 4 in the ressies and putting on a good game of tactical footy and opportunism, White shouldn't feel too comfortable with his spot. Maybe White needs a reality check and be put in the 2's next week as he just did not come out to play (IMHO).

Also - Swap Moore for Bevo. Swap Kennedy for Rohan. Swap McGlynn for Hanna's.

Make them fight for their spots and even though I hated some of the free's against us, blatantly soft and some that we missed out on that we should have got (3 Victorian umpires really what does anyone expect?), we had our chances and didn't take them.

Hard game next week, we can do it though.

Loved Paul R going off his block!!!!

[2005]

Thought the Saints had us covered really most of the night.
They will take that win as they are a little further behind in training than us and we have been in good form.

Normally never one to bang on about umpiring decisions, though Nick Riewoldt must be the luckiest foward in the game.
the AFL stated they would clamp down on faking for free kicks at the start of the year. This guy is gold.
3 very , very, very soft free kicks all resulting in goals to this big sook (who is a gun mind you )

Positives :
Thought the ruck combo was good .
Malceski : I thought he was finished, Ill eat my words .He looked really good last night.
Bradshaw & Shaw : A game of footy into them. They looked a liitle sluggish and will benefit from the run.
Thought Goodsey was good 3 goals had a hand in 4 or 5 others though want to see him up the ground a bit more.
Rhino was good, Jack was good,Reg was OK on Riewoldt most of the night. Jetta,Kennedy showed they will be Ok as well
Tadgh was Ok, great to see he still has it, a little rusty though it will come back.

Negatives
Forward line pressure was terrible. Simply terrible
That effin ground up there,it gives us nothing . I hate it , giveme the SCG any time. Surface was below par as it always is.
We play Adelaide this week !!

[AngryOfBendigo]

I thought the boys did a fair job last night, considering we are in the rebuilding phase and the Saints are genuine GF contenders. Can't keep on blaming the umps everytime we lose. We did some dumb things and got pinged (if you're going to hold onto an opponents jumper make sure no ones watching) and some poor decisions were made - thats football. We're in for an exciting year. Sit back and enjoy the ride

[Molly dooker]

Quick comment again from my side of the viewing.

I was very surprised to see Roos put Craig B on Milne, what a genius stroke by him! How satisfyingly quiet was that little game winning pest all night!

OK, keep Jessie in, he will improve. I was having a knee jerk reaction suggesting Playfair to replace him. Forgive me, but I do love to see the boys put their heart, soul and body into the game. I think Jessie will settle and get bagfulls for us in the not too distant future, (I am hoping to say the least) so will Goodesy. Goodesy easily best on ground (Goddard close behind) but certainly not Reiwoldt as his influence and goals came from charity.

Very exciting folks, I agree, we are going to be a force this year.

[the doc]

what Liz said - we went close to a benchmark team with a yet-to-fully-gel team

we have nothing to fear from any team with this line up and approach - there are plenty of easy gains to be made (Tadgh getting back into the swing, Bradshaw regaining touch, midfielders better leveraging Seaby's work - these guys are serious quality in key positions) - bring on the crows!

only bit i am worried about is missing leaping leo marshalling the defence

[stellation]

I've struggled to come up with a coherent view of the game, and I must admit I'm not overly sure why. I didn't go into the game expecting to win, I was expecting a "moral win"/noble loss and that's what we walked away with. I went to the game thinking I'd be happy with a good showing, and it was a good showing, and I left feeling dissapointed because we really should have won that game. It was there for the taking, we were (in my mind) in general the better team on the night but we just made poor, poor errors all through it; the umpiring was unfortunate (going both ways, I know "it's where you get 'em" but we won the free kick tally by a fair bit) but we lost the game ourselves.

[stellation]

Really we had no one to blame but ourselves. Some of the turn overs were appalling

Very true. A lot of very good football served up, but then just some dumb decisions and awful skill errors.

[Damien]

Interestingly I try not to blame umpires because there are so many moments within the game, but it must be mentioned that Offsiders on ABC highlighted three free kicks given to Reiwoldt as being incorrect and game changing, hurting our momentum. Aghhhhh, felt good to see that haha

[stellation]

Anyone catch Roosy's spray? He didn't look happy...

He certainly didn't, but I have to say that watching it I was thinking "I'd love them to now show Richard Colless giving Roos a big spray over getting out coached!".

That's not me taking an overly anti-Roos stance, it's really on the whole coaching staff. No Plan B again- the overall gameplan seemed fine, but we were getting beaten in key areas (how many of our F50 entries were easily killed by loose St Kilda players?) and there seemed little attempt (to me at least, I may have missed it) to shake things up in those areas. There's more to game time coaching decisions than just switching a player.

[SwansFan1972]

Never happy with a loss, but when there is so much upside, they are more bearable.

St Kilda very very lucky to get away with that - in those 50/50 moments in all games where the funny shaped ball has a mind of its own, for some reason it just seemed to bounce the Saints way.

As for umpiring - well, two decisions were absolute 50/50's and both decisions had to be guesses (neither were conclusive even on replay) but they both went the Saints way. The goal for us that the goal umpire took an eternity to decide was touched (as the ball crossed the line, his body movement looked like he was going to call a goal, and then his hands went in the air) and Schneids 'goal' that may have brushed the post. Turn those two decisions the other way and we win.

And with St Nick going to ground and always looking for his mates in yellow, it stuns me that he is regarded as one of the best players in the comp. Sure, he's a great player, but he is unquestionably the most umpire assisted forward in the comp. If there was a stat for goal assists from maggots, he would lead the league by a mile. For a bloke of his size and skill, he is suspiciously easy to knock over. Saw a bloke walking out of the ground after the game with "12 RIEWOLDT' on his back (enjoying himself very much after the win) - if that jersey didn't come with a free box of kleenex and a diving cap and goggles, the tool wearing it was ripped off big time.

Goodesy carries defenders like back packs all game but would never get a tiggy one like Kleenex got against Reg.

Lots to be happy about for us (apart from the result of course) - our lack of success in round one hasn't been a measure of the season to come for us for a decade, so we have cause to be bright today! Finals are definitely in the plans this season (13-9, 14-8 very achievable for this group).

[top40]

Really we had no one to blame but ourselves. Some of the turn overs were appalling, yes some of the ump decisions were crap - but you get those week in week out and all teams cop them. You had two teams that played identical styles of footy. For me it was glowingly obvious that our midfeild just dont take risks and blaze away go forward quickly when we have the momentum - we still insist on taking the mark then stopping, having a look around, then the ump indicates "play on", panic sets in and we then kick to a player who did have a space on the lead but the opportunity had passed - we need to think faster and smarter. LRT - well he's at least consistent. Does something bad, something good, something bad - you get the picture. I do find it worrying though that Rhyce Shaw was kind of nullified by Kennelly being there - he just didnt get the chance to go forward and run off like he did last year. Why we still insist on handballing to someone who is about to be set upon annoys the crap out of me too. And our boys fell over alot more (when un marked) than St Kilda - was the grass dewy?
White - well its early days - but he had a shocker, Bradshaw showed glimpses, Jetta same - you could see that he was just itching to go for a run, but this was the game where that wouldn't happen often.
However, its not all gloom and doom and it is the first game - we should have won it - no doubt, And really at the end of the day we were beaten by accuracy - St Kilda got pretty much all the goals they kicked for, we simply didnt.
My highlight was that we were sitting with Dean Cox's granny (and you can so see the family resemblence - side on my goodness!) but Dorothy is now the "lady friend" of one of our dear one eyed chaps, Ted, she was sitting there with red and white streamers - she said to me "I'm doing it for Ted" (and she gave a good wink) I said to her that I new of the connection and thought it lovely to do what she did - mind you relations could be strained the day we play West Coast!!! to see two people in their late 70's getting a second chance of love is just beautiful - even if they go for opposing sides!

With all the debate about who's to blame for the lost, there is one absolute, indisputable fact:

Including the NAB Cup game, for three straights games between the two teams, St Kilda has got the money without being the evident better side. The winner of all three games effectively coming down to a coin toss win.

Surely our luck must change!

[Primmy]

If there is one thing to take away from this game it comes from SwansFan 1972. Kleenex!!!!! Oh that has made my day. Better than Poppet.

[BSA5]

Goodesy carries defenders like back packs all game but would never get a tiggy one like Kleenex got against Reg.

Except when he does, like in the dying minutes, 40 out, which he missed.

[SwansFan1972]

If there is one thing to take away from this game it comes from SwansFan 1972. Kleenex!!!!! Oh that has made my day. Better than Poppet.

Happy to do that for ya Primmy!

Can't claim it as original though - was a nickname for him that has stuck in many circles from a few seasons ago. Can't remember exactly which season but it was Round 1, STK v Lions at Gabba - season opener, his first match (I think) as captain and he lasted about five minutes. Lions crunched him and he went off with a shoulder - then spent the rest of the quarter bawling on the bench!

[SwansFan1972]

Except when he does, like in the dying minutes, 40 out, which he missed.

I conveniently choose to ignore those ones since they are so unique! Goodesy might get one in ten, Kleenex gets em all the time (and looks for em)