Analysis Saints Footy - what is our brand?

WhiskySaint

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I wanted to start this thread after the Bulldogs game, but thought it was better to wait to see us play a few real games.

We have heard it plenty of time, ‘we just need to play Saints Footy’, ‘we need to keep working on playing our brand of footy’, ect..

So what is Saints Footy? What is our Brand, and how does that manifest itself in our playing style?

To me the one obviouse thing is a physicality. As a 22 we look like we are trying to be really imposing and always seem to be proactive with a physical presence. Billings has been the most obvious change for mine, love him working his way to the center of a few scuffles.

Also Steele’s hit on Stringer. Could have been a Scuffle, or a push, but it was a solid bump. No one looked at Steele like that was an undisciplined 50m as it was (IMO) a statement of our brand.

So what else does Saints Footy entail?
 

Ricmel

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Not sure what our onfield brand is. We have a few tough nuts (Billings is not one of them, heard footsteps on the weekend) so there is that physical aspect but it looks to me they are trying to build a playing style a bit like Bulldogs this year - play on as often as possible and fast movement into 50. I think that really suits this team which finally has some pace.

We are going to cop a few hidings going the other way but equally I think we will surprise a few teams.
 
Mantra this off-season has been to 'build the pressure'. It was plastered along the walls of the change rooms on Saturday night and FoxFooty picked up vision of the boys each hitting the sign on their way out onto the ground.

Speed by foot. Limit handball. Apply immense pressure.
 
Here's a good shot of it - Gears speaking about it to the entire playing group before the bounce.

0kfcL1T.jpg
 
Way to kill the thread, George:mad:
I think it's much more than just pressure! Think we have been clinical this year. Playing with a lot more confidence. Must be a simpler game plan or something because it looks like the boys are enjoying the new changes.
 

nitewalker13

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Yes I think it is more than just pressure.

Last year, we were trying to play on at all the cost and we were making lots of mistakes and skills error which cost us a lot.

We have since tweaked our game plan, we are playing according to our strengths. The new coaches brought in bit of structure.

We are still adjusting to our new structure but we can see it works from the game against bombers.

I like our new approach.
 

Ricmel

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Yes I think it is more than just pressure.

Last year, we were trying to play on at all the cost and we were making lots of mistakes and skills error which cost us a lot.

We have since tweaked our game plan, we are playing according to our strengths. The new coaches brought in bit of structure.

.

I think Bruce back in helps a lot. He gives a contest and either marks or gets ball to ground where our real strength - forward mosquito fleet comes into play. Gives the team the confidence to come into 50 fast, unlike last year where they would ofteh stop and prop.
 

Saintbloke

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Good pressure, and with the return of Bruce, a couple more goals into the forward line, but still need more from our small/ mids on the scoreboard. I think our midfield and stoppage work is sloppy and will be exposed against classier midfields. A work in progress is our brand.
 
I think it's much more than just pressure! Think we have been clinical this year. Playing with a lot more confidence. Must be a simpler game plan or something because it looks like the boys are enjoying the new changes.
That's the approach that works. Choose a simple game plan thats represents going back to basics, then build on that to allow individual groups to capitalise on their aptitudes / skills. Once we establish a second level game plan - we need to mix it up or it will be easy to counter.
The next step gets quite meta but we need to get to a level that causes other teams to compromise their own game to focus on countering ours.
 
Blue collar, grind out a win by bringing teams down to our level? Pressure, contested footy and spread. Work for each other, all good stuff but highly laborious.

Sinclair this morning credited the new coaches with moving players out of set positions. Interestingly when they credited Ratts, Sincs said he's the forward coach and mentioned Lade.
 
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Blue collar, grind out a win by bringing teams down to our level? Pressure, contested footy and spread. Work for each other, all good stuff but highly laborious.

Sinclair this morning credited the new coaches with moving players out of set positions. Interestingly when they credited Ratts, Sincs said he's the forward coach and mentioned Lade.
Bringing teams down to our level? Jeez do you ever give credit instead of throwing shade?

If bringing down to our level is structuring up in defence, stopping the run, tackling hard, out running the opposition, taking speccies, kicking more goals, is dragging teams down, well I am all for it.

Our inferred low 'level' has us in the eight.
 
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Our best periods of games this year have been when we're holding up the opposition across half back - it harks back to the RL days - and last year teams were waltzing past us too easily. If you asked me at half time on the weekend how many touches Saad and McKenna had, it's have guessed 5 between them - they had no influence because our "team defence" was causing the ball movement from the back half to be so slow. Then we create turnover and go quickly the other way. That's our brand.
 
Bringing teams down to our level? Jeez do you ever give credit instead of throwing shade?

If bringing down to our level is structuring up in defence, stopping the run, tackling hard, out running the opposition, taking speccies, kicking more goals, is dragging teams down, well I am all for it.

Our inferred low 'level' has us in the eight.


Do you think our list looks as good as the best sides? Essendon's list is much better. Our midfield was Dunstan, Steele, Gresham and Billings for the most part with guys like Newnes and Sinclair getting on to a wing. Essendon have Heppell, Zaka, Merrett, Shiel and Smith. That looks a much more desirable list.

We work hard for our wins and play a team game. I could lie and say they are all the champions of the competition but it's not reality. I don't see why you think that's throwing shade. I don't mind being an average list with a big heart.
 

nitewalker13

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Blue collar, grind out a win by bringing teams down to our level? Pressure, contested footy and spread. Work for each other, all good stuff but highly laborious.

Sinclair this morning credited the new coaches with moving players out of set positions. Interestingly when they credited Ratts, Sincs said he's the forward coach and mentioned Lade.


I think one of the commentator said the same thing "Blue Collar effort" during half time against Bombers game.
 
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Pressure all around the ground but really up forward. Of the ball comes out slowly from defence we have time to set up. Going to sound ordinary on Paddy but when he was playing it was like being one short when we lost the ball. Now with 4 or 5 smalls and mediums rotating it means a huge amount of pressure on the opposition backs. Also maybe they realise that your ruck must actually influence the game apart from stoppages. That's a wait and see though until Longer is available.
 
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Do you think our list looks as good as the best sides? Essendon's list is much better. Our midfield was Dunstan, Steele, Gresham and Billings for the most part with guys like Newnes and Sinclair getting on to a wing. Essendon have Heppell, Zaka, Merrett, Shiel and Smith. That looks a much more desirable list.

We work hard for our wins and play a team game. I could lie and say they are all the champions of the competition but it's not reality. I don't see why you think that's throwing shade. I don't mind being an average list with a big heart.
I don't give a flying feck what a team 'looks' like on paper or what your opinion of lists are.
Games are played by teams on a ground, the only team dragged down on Saturday was the Saints.
Sorry it doesn't suit your narrative that our list is crap but discrediting the win on Saturday is pretty s**t.

Nobody, but nobody except you have tried to paint the game as of a team dragging down a superior team.

The superior team with superior players won and should have won by a heap more.

Theories about paper lists is fine, what counts is the 2 hours of the game, and the game on Saturday showed who was the better team.
 
I don't give a flying feck what a team 'looks' like on paper or what your opinion of lists are.
Games are played by teams on a ground, the only team dragged down on Saturday was the Saints.
Sorry it doesn't suit your narrative that our list is crap but discrediting the win on Saturday is pretty s**t.

Nobody, but nobody except you have tried to paint the game as of a team dragging down a superior team.

The superior team with superior players won and should have won by a heap more.

Theories about paper lists is fine, what counts is the 2 hours of the game, and the game on Saturday showed who was the better team.


The reality is we don't have a star studded list by any measure though. It might change as we grow in confidence and output but right now we have probably the least high profile list besides Gold Coast.

I don't care what it loos like on paper either if we keep winning. Collingwood came from nowhere and besides their stars no one rated their list a couple of years ago, now they are premiership favourites.

I didn't say particularly against Essendon that we play on our terms but that to me is part of our brand. We try to dictate the tempo and bring the oppositions best traits out of the game.
 

Feerits Elf

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Also Steele’s hit on Stringer. Could have been a Scuffle, or a push, but it was a solid bump. No one looked at Steele like that was an undisciplined 50m as it was (IMO) a statement of our brand.
Maybe Saints Footy entails being disciplined enough to refrain from taking a teammate to task on the field and in public for giving away an undisciplined 50m penalty, and nobody looking at Steele was a statement of our brand.
 
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The reality is we don't have a star studded list by any measure though. It might change as we grow in confidence and output but right now we have probably the least high profile list besides Gold Coast.

I don't care what it loos like on paper either if we keep winning. Collingwood came from nowhere and besides their stars no one rated their list a couple of years ago, now they are premiership favourites.

I didn't say particularly against Essendon that we play on our terms but that to me is part of our brand. We try to dictate the tempo and bring the oppositions best traits out of the game.


Names mean something if you have the right sort of named players. The problem with Essendon is their midfield are nearly all outside or at least mainly outside. You have got sucked into their list for the last 2 years. it was the same with our midfield. Last year our mids got plenty of the ball but weren't playing as a unit. That seems to have changed and without looking at stats I believe our numbers would be down on last year but we are working so much better as a unit. And that is without Jack really getting decent minutes as a mid so it will improve further.
 
Names mean something if you have the right sort of named players. The problem with Essendon is their midfield are nearly all outside or at least mainly outside. You have got sucked into their list for the last 2 years. it was the same with our midfield. Last year our mids got plenty of the ball but weren't playing as a unit. That seems to have changed and without looking at stats I believe our numbers would be down on last year but we are working so much better as a unit. And that is without Jack really getting decent minutes as a mid so it will improve further.


There is something psychologically wrong with Essendon though, their list should be much better than it is, inside mids or not. Worsfold looks like he's past it to me.

For us it's Definitely a team game this year. Haven't got many players racking up huge numbers, just an even contribution. It wasn't a criticism to me, we are a blue collar side getting white collar results, I'd take that any day. Geelong had a midfield that looked a million dollars last year but couldn't do anything with it.
 
I don't give a flying feck what a team 'looks' like on paper or what your opinion of lists are.
Games are played by teams on a ground, the only team dragged down on Saturday was the Saints.
Sorry it doesn't suit your narrative that our list is crap but discrediting the win on Saturday is pretty s**t.

Nobody, but nobody except you have tried to paint the game as of a team dragging down a superior team.

The superior team with superior players won and should have won by a heap more.

Theories about paper lists is fine, what counts is the 2 hours of the game, and the game on Saturday showed who was the better team.

Yep. The whole champion team vs team of champions thing.

Although having said that, in the next year or so some of our boys will become elite. I have no doubt of this. I have said ad nauseum that our expectations of young kids have been too high and that we needed some patience. Gresh, Steele, Billings... you can see it coming.

They are all starting to come into their own now maturity-wise and it’s going to make some exciting watching.
 
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