Autopsy Round 1, 2019: St.Kilda v Gold Coast *Parker, Wilkie & Kent Debut*

[plugger66]

Just think if GC had 22 fit blokes out there. We would’ve lost.

Who knows

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Kent... after a great pre-season just didn't do as much as we expected.
Savage , pretty ordinary.
Pierce...Not better around the ground than anyone.
Apart from Jack Steven, the closest we have to Jamie Cripps is Jade Gresham.

 

[Enclosed_Animal]

PHEW! How the hell did we get away with that one? Bloody good feeling to get the win though. Plus I put half my Betfair account on us H2H, so I was riding every kick more than normal. My 2 cents below.

Likes:

· Whoever spotted Parker needs a raise. GUN! Long and Parker had 12 touches, 3 tackles and 2 goals between them by quarter time. Both faded badly as the game went on, but will be a killer trio with Gresh moving forward.

· Battle’s backline debut. Great game

· Webb is a gem

· Kents goal from the boundary in the 4th. He didn't do much, but that was clutch!

· Welcome back Bruce. Really really great mark in the back 50 with a minute to play! That’s leadership and experience.

· Good to have the old Newnes back too

· Playing on from marks a lot less. Did that the league most last year (34%). Was down in the teens today. Nice to see more composure

· WE BLOODY WON

Dislikes:

· Our start in the midfield. Witts won 6 of the first 9 contests (with 3 HO to advantage) and the Suns won 8 of the first 10 clearances. 3 goals down after the first 10 minutes or so. Pierce badly out of his depth

· The “we are the fittest team narrative”. Pretty much outrun in the 4th by the wooden spoon favourites that had two injured players.

· Our kick in strategies are pathetic. Savage on very very very thin ice. McKenzie clearly underdone too. No idea why he was out there

· Sincs kick back into the center with 15 seconds left. EXTREMELY dumb footy and could have cost us the game! Needs a rocket for that

· Bombing to 2 or 3 on 1 in the forwardline waaaay too consistently still

· Selection. We need to stop doing the “we are a developing / young team” thing. We are clearly selecting for the now. Had a quick look at the games so far. Might have missed one here and there, but the following is each teams players under 21 for rd 1:

6 – Cats (w)
5 – Hawks (w), Port (w) & WCE
4 – Crows & GC
3 – Brisbane (w), Bulldogs (w), Tigers (w) Swans & Blues (Carlton also have 2 more within a month)
2 - Demons, Collingwood
1 - St.Kilda (w)

 

[Persevering Saint]

I actually thought we looked okay. Dominated huge parts of the game with out applying scoreboard pressure. Like many have said we should have and looked like we would win by 5+ goals. Really struggled to manage their aerial threats and it had an impact all the way down. Will be better with Brown back next week.

So just like 2018. Dominated play, ruined by abominable disposal into the forward fifty, wasted opportunities. If we weren't playing children we would have lost.

 

[Ekomaira]

Jacky Steven a pro at the song now

 

[Verdun66]

Relieved to see us singing the song!!

 

[mightymalaka]

Thank F*ck for that! Was ready to neck some poor campaigner in the last 5 mins!
AFL cannot be serious with that standard of umpiring! We get screwed with that shit every year! It's got to be a conspiracy i tell ya!

We were very wasteful in the 2nd half and in the end bloody lucky to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat!
1st round of the season though and i'm taking it and running baby! When you have a history like ours you just take the win and be happy!

Have no doubt we will be better next week and we can go 2-0....Bring on the Dopers!

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Dunstan was nowhere today but my god that last contest was huge

He was second in the team for contested possessions.

 

[Big 0]

Great way to start the season - with 4 points. Dunstan’s contest will hang in my mind

 

[aussierulesrules]

Best reaction I've seen so far tbh. Good to get the win but like, we nearly lost to Gold Coast....

Yep good to win, but might be the least excited I've ever been to win a game by 1 point.

Got to wonder where we're going and how bloody long it's going to take to get there.

But then again who knows, maybe Gold Coast are better than we think, like North last year. Probably not, but maybe this was their GF.

We'll know soon enough.

 

[NarklesHelmet]

First half was ok. Second half was poor.

Overall, give it a D+. Which is about the mark I’d give Richo’s coaching career so far as well. It’s just all so uninspiring. 1 step forward, 2 step back type of stuff.

 

[archibald23]

Just wanted to say congrats on the round 1 win. It aint easy coming back from a deficit in the first quarter but your players pulled together and made the right decisions in the end. Good luck for 2019!

 

[Kilroy]

Heart giving me palpitations right now.

Out of jail - just.

Reload and start again.

 

[Persevering Saint]

I dunno, I'm pretty convinced we will be terrible again this year much like I was after R1 vs Brisbane last year.

It's eerie the similarities.

 

[Crusty Undies]

Ive never seen our fans blow a collective fuse like that in my life

Rightfully so though!

 

[StCicatriz]

as much as i hate richo and think he's completely ****ing useless and the administration is full of more hot air than a hot air balloon and should be charged with fraud for the amount of money they take from the AFL and the general public, headed by Mr "thank christ the last CEO was completely ****ing useless" Finnis.... but don't under-estimate GC here. they're better than what people think.

there's been a few upsets come round 1 and if last year is anything to go by, we just don't know how good sides are.

what is important is that we won. there are some greenshoots coming through.

what is concerning is how we were labelled by negan as the fittest side in the comp, yet we ran out of run against a very young side, with two guys on one leg. i'm not sure what the go is with him throwing that one up. when we had stacked the side with running players too.

dmac was fantastic. bruce back into form. parker far exceeded my expectation. lonie was very selfless and excellent. stuv back is handy. joyce did really well for how much development he has under his belt. billings did well, needs to be more damaging. dunstan i thought did he role perfectly, easily our best inside mid, jack steven aside.

pierce didnt work out. might be worthwhile going with marshall.

i dont think we can play clark yet given our issues running out that game. geary had a mare, but will get better.

 

[Plugger35]

Just got out of jail there, Richo will be breathing a sigh of relief, lose that game and the knives would already be out for him.

The umpires shafted us as per usual but even allowing for that we still should have won that game more comfortably than we did.

Can't see us beating too many other teams though when we are struggling to beat Gold Coast at home, we still need a lot of improvement.

 

[Sunnyjim]

Very impressed with all debutants today
Kent was great as a pressure forward
Loved Parker’s flair
Wilkie was brilliant and honestly most underrrated player on the ground.barely put a foot wrong and was key to holding that shambles of a defence together
Was happy with newnes today aswell thought he did most things well today
Glad to see us have a positive goals to behind ratio today aswell

Still tho our tendency to overlook a pass hasn’t really changed and there are some players that really need to look at themselves.
Would be shocked if we have the same XI as next week and I think this goes eithout saying that we have the worst defence In the competition by a mile without robbo and Carlisle. Joyce was decent and battle showed more in the second dhalf but if we line up with that defence against a competent attack that has experienced forwards we will get slaughtered.
Really hope we play marsh or Austin next week or even Rowe just for the experience

 

[plugger66]

PHEW! How the hell did we get away with that one? Bloody good feeling to get the win though. Plus I put half my Betfair account on us H2H, so I was riding every kick more than normal. My 2 cents below.

Likes:

· Whoever spotted Parker needs a raise. GUN! Long and Parker had 12 touches, 3 tackles and 2 goals between them by quarter time. Both faded badly as the game went on, but will be a killer trio with Gresh moving forward.

· Battle’s backline debut. Great game

· Webb is a gem

· Kents goal from the boundary in the 4th. He didn't do much, but that was clutch!

· Welcome back Bruce. Really really great mark in the back 50 with a minute to play! That’s leadership and experience.

· Good to have the old Newnes back too

· Playing on from marks a lot less. Did that the league most last year (34%). Was down in the teens today. Nice to see more composure

· WE BLOODY WON

Dislikes:

· Our start in the midfield. Witts won 6 of the first 9 contests (with 3 HO to advantage) and the Suns won 8 of the first 10 clearances. 3 goals down after the first 10 minutes or so. Pierce badly out of his depth

· The “we are the fittest team narrative”. Pretty much outrun in the 4th by the wooden spoon favourites that had two injured players.

· Our kick in strategies are pathetic. Savage on very very very thin ice. McKenzie clearly underdone too

· Sincs kick back into the center with 15 seconds left. EXTREMELY dumb footy and could have cost us the game

· Bombing to 2 or 3 on 1 waaaay too consistently still

· Selection. We need to stop doing the “we are a developing / young team” thing. We are clearly selecting for the now. Had a quick look at the games so far. Might have missed one here and there, but the following is each teams players under 21 for rd 1:

6 – Cats (w)
5 – Hawks (w), Port (w) & WCE
4 – Crows & GC
3 – Brisbane (w), Bulldogs (w), Tigers (w) Swans & Blues (Carlton also have 2 more within a month)
2 - Demons, Collingwood
1 - St.Kilda

Yep should have picked younger and probably lose. God some people will find anything.

 

[VDS66]

Our rucks will hold us back all year IMO.

Long needs a kick in the balls for his stupidity. Drop.

Average performance, but happy to win.

Going to be a long season based on this game.

 

[puppy_dog7]

Marshall definitely gets a crack next week surely

 

[jaza2003]

Feels like a loss rather then a win.

Going to be a long year boys

 

[Geary Is GOAT]

So just like 2018. Dominated play, ruined by abominable disposal into the forward fifty, wasted opportunities. If we weren't playing children we would have lost.

Decidedly different system to last year. I really liked how we changed the angles going into our forward 50 looking for uncontested marks.

We definitely didn't dominate play for the vast majority of last year including round one against Brisbane.

 

[CHBench]

Joyce, Battle & Wilkie held incredibly strong given their inexperience. Very impressive, and seems to be something to work with. That's the plus side of your 3 first choice backmen being unavailable.

Maybe my expectations were very low, but I didn't find this match as bad as people making out. Forward line seemed to have a bit more system to it, not only did we make F50 leads, we honoured them with many bullet passes. If Long can be a bit more disciplined and careful with his aggressiveness, he and Parker will be a very potent combination.

Unfortunately we're still waiting for someone aside from Steven to step up and take the game by the scruff of the neck.

This game did demonstrate how #ECO I've become though, that was the calmest 1pt win I've ever watched.

 

[Yawkey way]

Cop that all you filthy Bruce-haters!

Yep showing again he’s our number 1 tall forward when fit, Newnes and Sinclair proving the naysayers wrong again as well.

Parker and Wilkie both good on debut, Wilkie is a really good long accurate kick we need to use his leg more coming out of defence.