Autopsy Round 9 - St Kilda v Carlton *SPUD'S GAME*

[Mystifly]

I’d never thought about it like that, it is weird that we’ve done it twice trying to create a marquee game.

That said, both are very worthy causes, with the intention to raise significant money for charity. I’m torn on the idea of those games.

I don’t like turning them into a pre-game funeral, but I also don’t like that we ditched Maddie’s Match entirely, even if very little effort was put into it towards the end.

Maybe it should be something the clubs media team focuses on, while the players and match day remains largely normal.

Don’t know. The simplest answer is for us to just win these games, so that there’s no question mark hanging over the running of these matches.

Don't think about it like that I reckon, there are plenty of "marquee matches" that revolve around death, but are played to generate awareness and donations. We play the blue ribbon cup every year against Hawks, ANZAC Day is also along similar lines. There's also the Peter Mac cup and the pink ribbon match.

What I'm aware of though is that we have the DFC at Moorabin (which generates sweet f-all money) and heavily relies on Spud's game for donations to keep it going. So I can understand why the need to use the players to promote it. It would be great if we can turn this match into something that other teams want to be a part of, then it runs itself, similar to other marquee matches.

I did find it a little depressing at the start of the match watching the big screen listening to the suicide stories so not sure how that affects the players. It was pretty much the third quarter that lost us the game, so maybe it didn't affect them too much.

 

[SaintlyHymns]

He’s our most experienced player.

He got the ball in some poor positions (not all his fault) but his choices with the ball were his. Whether motive or mistake it was shit.

That one dinky kick he tried that went three metres straight to the Carlton defender nearly made me choke on my own rage.

 

[kosifantutti]

I thought I’d never seen a game where we were outmarked so often but I looked at the contested mark stats and it was 8 to 7..
Maybe I was mentally including free kicks or maybe their marks were closer to goal.
But Wilkie was beaten a few times and that just doesn’t happen.

 

[Diehard Saint]

I’d never thought about it like that, it is weird that we’ve done it twice trying to create a marquee game.

That said, both are very worthy causes, with the intention to raise significant money for charity. I’m torn on the idea of those games.

I don’t like turning them into a pre-game funeral, but I also don’t like that we ditched Maddie’s Match entirely, even if very little effort was put into it towards the end.

Maybe it should be something the clubs media team focuses on, while the players and match day remains largely normal.

Don’t know. The simplest answer is for us to just win these games, so that there’s no question mark hanging over the running of these matches.

Maddie’s Match had a very good run for 10 years, raising plenty of money.
However, nothing lasts for ever, and it was time, especially with both Riewoldts now out of the game

Spud’s game needs a re-think. A mental health awareness round, absolutely, a black armband for Spud, why not? But I feel it’s time to be separated from Spud per se with all the rigmarole that goes on beforehand.

I’m not trying to be disrespectful, I’ve had family members impacted by depression, but even though this all came about because of the tragedy I’m just not sure Spud himself needs to continue to be the focal point of this round. I wonder whether he’d want to be?

 

[KingJim]

No disrespect to the Spud man, his loss still hurts big time. I watched the guy play at Moorabbin, one of my heroes.

But this felt more like DUD's game. I mean Carlton....ergh.

 

[crinkoes]

Maddie’s Match had a very good run for 10 years, raising plenty of money.
However, nothing lasts for ever, and it was time, especially with both Riewoldts now out of the game

Spud’s game needs a re-think. A mental health awareness round, absolutely, a black armband for Spud, why not? But I feel it’s time to be separated from Spud per se with all the rigmarole that goes on beforehand.

I’m not trying to be disrespectful, I’ve had family members impacted by depression, but even though this all came about because of the tragedy I’m just not sure Spud himself needs to continue to be the focal point of this round. I wonder whether he’d want to be?

I can see your point but in my opinion, if we rebrand it to something generic then it won’t be a St Kilda thing anymore.

We need to take any chance we can at getting a marquee match. Friday night was our biggest home & away crowd against Carlton in our history.

Spud was such a big part of footy media and the people he worked closest with on Triple M and Fox Footy are Jason Dunstall, Garry Lyon, James Brayshaw, Brian Taylor and Damian Barrett. Those 5 are now spread between Channel 7, Fox Footy, Triple M, Channel 9, Sen, AFL media etc and really push the game due to their personal friendships with Spud.

Unfortunately I think if we ditch the Spud aspect then we will just get shuffled out of the spot and lose another chance at a big MCG game every year

 

[sauce_head]

Extremely overblown. It all comes from the first spuds game being played against Melbourne in 2021.

It was round 2, we were coming off winning a final for the first time in forever, losing to the eventual premiers in dynasty team Richmond in 2020, and then beat GWS in round 1 2021. Vibes were good.

There was an expectation that we should beat Melbourne, who missed the finals in 2020. They were a relatively unknown quantity at the time. So when we lost, IMO, everyone got shitty at the vibe of spuds game, and threw blame onto that. There may be an element of it being a downer but still I think it’s way overblown, and doesn’t come near to offsetting the importance of the event.

I remember being so shitty at Melbourne and thinking they didn’t deserve the win, and that we had just played below our usual level.

They of course, went on to win the premiership that year and hand us the longest drought in the league on the way out. Goes to show what I know.

Cut to 2025 and we are still complaining about the same shit. As far as I can remember nobody complained when we won spuds game last year against the Pies. Easy to play the blame game & FWIW, I’ve heard plenty of great things about the impact of spuds game and the pre game speeches throughout the weekend for a cause that’s much bigger than footy so I think we just need to put it rest and stop

I can see your point but in my opinion, if we rebrand it to something generic then it won’t be a St Kilda thing anymore.

We need to take any chance we can at getting a marquee match. Friday night was our biggest home & away crowd against Carlton in our history.

Spud was such a big part of footy media and the people he worked closest with on Triple M and Fox Footy are Jason Dunstall, Garry Lyon, James Brayshaw, Brian Taylor and Damian Barrett. Those 5 are now spread between Channel 7, Fox Footy, Triple M, Channel 9, Sen, AFL media etc and really push the game due to their personal friendships with Spud.

Unfortunately I think if we ditch the Spud aspect then we will just get shuffled out of the spot and lose another chance at a big MCG game every year

Kevin Sheedy will probably decide it’s best if Essendon have it one year after we have 70k there, then rebrand that as the start date.