Autopsy Round 10 - West Coast v St Kilda

[PJays]

West Coast are a basket case. Basic numbers confirm this. The football world knows this.

Yep

And so are Richmond and North. And they've both had multiple wins this season. The sky didn't fall in for their opposition.

For where we are, and supposedly heading, I personally think the performance was totally unacceptable and a real concern.

OK.

How many teams havent had at least one game that's "totally unacceptable and a real concern"?

It's the nature of professional sport.

In 95 St Kilda were a basket case, and we kept Carlton to 3 goals for the game, winning by 56.

That Carlton team lost 2 games for the year, and won the flag by 10 goals.

Point is- one unacceptable performance means little. Everyone understands this.

"widely tipped for bottom 4" hahahaha my god. the copium is strong! another cherry-picked alternative fact.

AFL.com.au predictions
Damien Barrett - 15th
Gemma Bastiani - 16th
Riley Beveridge - 17th
15th
15th
15th
16th
16th
16th
16th

10 AFL.com.au journos- all of them predicted bottom 4.

Our Sportsbet +/- wins was 9.5. And part 2 here

Only Richmond, WC and North were under 9.5.

Essendon were also 9.5.

So according to the bookies, we were expected to be tied with Essendon for the last spot in the bottom 4.

but thats ok we are right on track! right on track for what exactly? are you saying we are going to bounce back from here or are we now on track of placing as a bottom 4 club?

We're on track for 9-11 wins - the same prediction I made very early in the season.

 

[Ads734]

How is Dodson tracking? I wouldn't mind getting some games into him, who knows, we might not need tdk in a few years time.

I’ve really liked what I’ve seen so far. Both attaining and in games. It’s been very tough playing with three rucks. When he’s actually been able to ruck I think he’s been great.

His coordination and balance imo is far superior to most ruckman.

His kicking is not as good as good as Ro but better than Heath.
His hands are great and through his core/hips you can see he’s very good through stoppages.

I think if he keep improving and putting up numbers then maybe a late season debut and he might surpass Boyd and Heath. He’s still very raw. Imo I’d prioritise his development.

 

[akaifu]

How is Dodson tracking? I wouldn't mind getting some games into him, who knows, we might not need tdk in a few years time.

Theyve been trying to mould his forward craft so that at AFL level he can be a partner to Row/TDK. Everyone who followed the draft knows about his ability in the ruck - he's like a 4th midfielder

 

[PJays]

Our Sportsbet +/- wins was 9.5. And part 2 here

I'd also suggest if people knew King and Howard would miss most of the year, that 9.5 would've been 8.5 or 8. Maybe even 7.5.

 

[StCicatriz]

Yep

And so are Richmond and North. And they've both had multiple wins this season. The sky didn't fall in for their opposition.




OK.

How many teams havent had at least one game that's "totally unacceptable and a real concern"?

It's the nature of professional sport.

In 95 St Kilda were a basket case, and we kept Carlton to 3 goals for the game, winning by 56.

That Carlton team lost 2 games for the year, and won the flag by 10 goals.

Point is- one unacceptable performance means little. Everyone understands this.


AFL.com.au predictions
Damien Barrett - 15th
Gemma Bastiani - 16th
Riley Beveridge - 17th
15th
15th
15th
16th
16th
16th
16th

10 AFL.com.au journos- all of them predicted bottom 4.

Our Sportsbet +/- wins was 9.5. And part 2 here

Only Richmond, WC and North were under 9.5.

Essendon were also 9.5.

So according to the bookies, we were expected to be tied with Essendon for the last spot in the bottom 4.


We're on track for 9-11 wins - the same prediction I made very early in the season.

gee are we really assessing our clubs performance based on the ladder prediction provided by damien barrett

i dont think there is anyone on here, your self included, who have us as bottom 4. even your win prediction has us significantly out of the bottom 4. yet you think the WCE loss is acceptable because "hey some journos had us as bottom 4, so we aren't under performing".

you have have the wins on par for where you see us. but i really do doubt if you had chalked the WCE game as a loss before the season started.

 

[StCicatriz]

"Passive aggressive" and "dickish".

How about attempting to inject some calmness and rationality amidst the emotion and hyperbole.

Oh and "bullshit stats".

Whatever that means.

you're anything but calm or rationale right now LOL given how much youre jumping around

 

[PJays]

Im telling you to let the anger vent and stop trying to belittle people feeling emotional about a shitful loss.

As my final comment here- I'll say this about analysing sports.

Calm, factual, rational analysis based on stats and logic is always welcome. Or should be. Always. At every moment.

 

[denisp]

What losing to the Eagles does to a mother****er....damn some serious melts in here.

So there should be

 

[Hubnester]

Get that people are frustrated but let's not resort to abusing each other. Thanks.

 

[dudeintheswamp]

 

[mighty_sainters]

Haven’t read the thread because I was deep in ECO after walking out of Optus on Sunday.

With 13 minutes left on the clock in the last quarter, we were 17 points behind and Wood had it about 60 out. Forward line was open with 2 or 3 one on one situations but he chose to switch to NWM which was intercepted.

Would have been interesting if we got it under 2 goals in the last, crowd had just about lost their voice.

Overall it’s not a bad one to lose, still shows that we have plenty to do rather than level on 20 points with GWS.

King and Tauru will give us the spark we’re looking for post bye, I need something to get me up and about again.

 

[AirWinmar]

West Coast vs St Kilda

Players aged 22 and under
St K 11, WC 8

Players with 20 games experience or less
St K 6, WC 3

Players with 100 games experience or more
StK 9, WC 10

Crowd: 42,860 (Capacity 60,000)

So St Kilda was the younger team. 4th youngest in the AFL (by average age) on the weekend, but playing more kids than anyone.

Playing in Perth. Probably most of St Kilda's team had played there two or three times in their careers. Or not at all.

Who cares that West Coast have been struggling. Winning interstate is never easy for young players.

Plus, West Coast were riding high after getting so close to winning the previous week- being denied a shot at a winning goal by a brilliant chase down tackle.

And to top it off a recent premiership player of theirs passed away. Ensuring plenty of emotion in the three-quarters full stadium.

This is why I was very close to tipping West Coast.

And why the teeth gnashing in this thread is absurd.

Carry on.

It's fair enough supporters are upset

But your going to struggle when you roll out with more than a 1/4 of your team having played less than 20 games

 

[BrutThough]

It really does look as though we believed Battle was staying up until the last second, doesn't it?
Of course we should have contingency plans for anything happening to a list position but we certainly hadn't prepared properly for him going.

And even after trade period, we had 8 avaliable list spots. To not leave one open to even trial a mature aged key back was such a missed opportunity. I dont know whether it was pride - not wanting to be seem scrambling after Battle left - or just stupidity that we'd be fine without a replacement but it was a huge misjudgement from list management.

 

[Diehard Saint]

It's a very good question.

To be honest, I'd only be guessing as I don't know what the focus is when they review games or what emphasis is put on skills and composure at training.

I think targeting players who are naturally good kicks couldn't hurt.

I think historically Ross has been known as a more system based coach, rather than someone where skills are the focus.

yep.
The point being the skills were horrible under Ratts and Richo as well.
Surely its a no brainer to train these as well?
I can't understand it.
Just how goal kicking across the comp doesn't appear to have improved either.

 

[littlecreatures]

To be fair to PJay’s and to be devil’s advocate, really think he’s just trying to provide some commentary and analysis around why the performance was so poor. I think we all get and know it wasn’t up to scratch, and all of us left incredibly disappointed and frustrated.

He’s correct to an extent, a lot of us (maybe not Saints fans, but footy fans and pundits in general) had us close to bottom 4. I had us around there as strong possibility, but was hoping we might push closer to just outside the top 8, and we came out strong in earlier rounds which had us buoyed.

We’ve cut back the list quite heavily, yeah that alone isn’t reasonable explanation in itself for this sort of performance but it provides context and perspective. We’ve had serious alarm bells against Eagles in last 2-3 times we’ve come over too, so I don’t necessarily think the weekend was a complete and utter surprise.

Our senior crop I’m not sure can tow the line consistently anymore, at least not during a disrupted season with Marshall, Steele (past his best), Sinclair, Wood, King, etc all out for periods of time.

What I don’t get is the commentary when we’re doing well that, “Ross isn’t the right coach, he over performs, we can’t get draft capital as a result” - so then we square back close to a bottom 4 team and it’s basically “this is horrible, absolutely not good enough, underperforming, etc”. Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

It’s not exactly a particularly difficult task to identify the weekend’s result wasn’t up to standard, pin point holes, and it was clearly right at the bottom end where we see this side performing with games against Richmond, Port, Cats and Dockers towards the other end. Perhaps, some commentary, perspective and context around why it’s s*** might be a better and more constructive way to go.

I would see the season something like:

• Good - List depth has been tested and clearly not there, but we’ve seen green shoots with players like Caminiti down back, and Higgins, Nas, Owens continue to take their game to another level.
• Bad - Who on earth said putting Butler in the leadership group was decision of the season? Our leadership mix isn’t right, Steele is on borrowed time, and the sooner we chuck Higgins in there, make Wilkie captain, and fast-track Nas, Owens and Pou in there I think we’ll start to see a clearer vision.
• Ugly - Poor conditioning has been a long term issue, we’ve churned through footy departments, coaches and list managers in last 15 years which offers zero opportunity for success, and there’s been zero governance with getting this right or successfully integrating our commercial and footy streams.

 

[akaifu]

And even after trade period, we had 8 avaliable list spots. To not leave one open to even trial a mature aged key back was such a missed opportunity. I dont know whether it was pride - not wanting to be seem scrambling after Battle left - or just stupidity that we'd be fine without a replacement but it was a huge misjudgement from list management.

I don't think the club would've expected all of King, Cordy and Doug to be out for most of the season

Then for Tauru to get suspended for a month

That's just unlucky

 

[BrutThough]

I don't think the club would've expected all of King, Cordy and Doug to be out for most of the season

Then for Tauru to get suspended for a month

That's just unlucky

But for a side that has consistently played with 3 key defenders under this coaching groups tenure, why would you go into the season with only 3 and then fresh draftees? Feels like there was a lack of foresight there because even 1 injury was always going to leave us in a delicate position.

 

[akaifu]

But for a side that has consistently played with 3 key defenders under this coaching groups tenure, why would you go into the season with only 3 and then fresh draftees? Feels like there was a lack of foresight there because even 1 injury was always going to leave us in a delicate position.

I think the plan was always if King is fit and either of Cordy or Doug get injured, Caminiti would go back

So the depth chart is pretty much

Doug Wilkie LOC

Cordy Caminiti

Arie Tauru Barrat etc.

The club also would've expected at least one of Keeler or Heath to be at least a competitive forward - neither have impressed - on top of Arie being a decent 3rd tall. We just needed any of these scenarios to eventuate, and none have

It just means the list cull at season's end will be brutal

 

[BrutThough]

I think the plan was always if King is fit and either of Cordy or Doug get injured, Caminiti would go back

So the depth chart is pretty much

Doug Wilkie LOC

Cordy Caminiti

Arie Tauru Barrat etc.

The club also would've expected at least one of Keeler or Heath to be at least a competitive forward - neither have impressed - on top of Arie being a decent 3rd tall. We just needed any of these scenarios to eventuate, and none have

It just means the list cull at season's end will be brutal

Caminiti training much of the preseason as a forward suggests that wasn't the plan.

 

[akaifu]

Caminiti training much of the preseason as a forward suggests that wasn't the plan.

Because both Cordy and Howard were fit

 

[BrutThough]

Because both Cordy and Howard were fit

So our brilliant plan was to train him as a forward then if anything happened, throw him down back in back situation without any preparation or practice playing that position?

That would be incredibly stupid plan.

 

[akaifu]

So our brilliant plan was to train him as a forward then if anything happened, throw him down back in back situation without any preparation or practice playing that position?

That would be incredibly stupid plan.

I mean if you think from the other perspective:

Train him as a back and if Doug & Cordy are both fit and Max is not, play him as a forward

Isn't that equally stupid?

The point is none of this was planned. It was all contingency plans. No one can predict injuries and unavailability

 

[BigMonty]

And even after trade period, we had 8 avaliable list spots. To not leave one open to even trial a mature aged key back was such a missed opportunity. I dont know whether it was pride - not wanting to be seem scrambling after Battle left - or just stupidity that we'd be fine without a replacement but it was a huge misjudgement from list management.

It is very hard to just draft a plug and play 3rd defensive tall out of the state leagues. Boyd was probably the best available around the state leagues and he has been okay at best. Looks slow to my eye. Hayes almost worked except for injury.
Dodson seems like he is moving up the pecking order and is probably close to 2nd best ruck.
So just plucking a player from another club or league is not easy. We got very very lucky with Wilkie. Reckon Camaniti has been better than expected, but we are just very short of talls who can football that aren't injured.

If they all come back we will have a surplus at Sandy. I am sure we have tried to recruit a Battle replacement but maybe they were unable to move for a variety of reasons.

Losing to WCE puts us at 4 and 6 and now back in the making up the numbers pack rather than hunt for 8th spot.

Bit like Carlton game we just lacked a spark of cohesion and flair/fire.

Hopefully King back gives us that bit of confidence to press forward rather than in hope.

Hope we put on s good show against GCS.

 

[Sully111]

As my final comment here- I'll say this about analysing sports.

Calm, factual, rational analysis based on stats and logic is always welcome. Or should be. Always. At every moment.

You don't get to decide what's appropriate in a forum full of passionate supporters. Sometimes people are pissed and don't want to sit back in an armchair in their Armani loafers smoking a pipe and having a good old chinwag about the finer points of sports analysis. Sometimes... like... oh I don't know.... when you lose to shitty mcshitsville who haven't won a game you just want to scream F#ck this bullshit... especially when it's the same old can't-hit-the-side-of-a-barn drivel we've been dishing up for over a decade

And that's ok. It really is.

 

[Ads734]

I’m as frustrated as anyone but I’m going to try some perspective.

1. WC were due a win at some stage.
2. The emotion.
3. Playing at home.
4. The umpiring.

That’s all working against us.

Now for everything that went against a few things we self inflicted.

Despite the misconception, our midfield actually matched it and arguably won.

So the reality is , it’s our disposal and ball movement more than anything. Whilst we have two elite half backs , I said this in pre season we potentially should have looked at a half back so one of Naz/Sincs could go on the ball. At this stage as we know , robbing Peter to pay Paul.

In addition, it doesn’t help when either or both are also turning the ball over.

The slowness of ball movement is putting so much pressure on the forwards.

Owens missing all his shots, turnovers going into 50. Just not good enough.

What I don’t understand is early days they were praising our hands in traffic, ball movement and kicking skills and now.

I think maybe we need to bring in another elite kicking half back , is it a shuffling of roles and bring in Arie, Hastie ? IDK.