Autopsy 2025 AFL Round 6: A Dog day afternoon

[Max the great]

The shit canning of the captain has been pretty poor.

Almost as poor as his form.

It's warranted. Playing bad is one thing. Complete lack of effort is unforgivable. He has a responsibility to the club and fans who have been through soo much. If he doesn't care he deserves to cop everything.

 

[Yawkey way]

Some mixed reports on Arie tonight. I thought he was okay (relatively speaking) and that you can see the vision for him to fit in with NAS, Sinclair and (perhaps) Hill as surgical users off half back. Obviously not a great day for anybody but he did gain over 500m and kick at an efficiency rating of 79%, so not all bad.

Work in progress though.

He needs to work hard on a few aspects of his game and we need to find out where best to use him. He’ll be a player at st Kilda or at another club who knows how to develop and use players.

 

[akaifu]

A good day for the VFL side. A terrible night for the AFL side

Hopefully Ross swings the axe. There were already a couple players out there on their last chance and they did not take advantage

We saw Oscar Allen

12

Oscar Allen

Age

26

Ht

196cm

Wt

96kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.8

2star

K

6.6

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

3.8

4star

T

2.4

4star

G

1.1

4star

No current season stats available

D

8.6

3star

K

5.8

3star

HB

2.8

3star

M

3.8

4star

T

2.0

4star

G

1.2

4star

get managed as the captain of West Coast. We have a legitimate reason to do so with Steele - he looks cooked with that knee - but might not be the right time against the Lions so he probably gets one more

Far out Hill looked terrible today. I'm usually a massive advocate for him because of how hard he works but when you make such costly unforced errors and are run down that many times, it makes it real hard. Ross won't drop him though

Really need Doug back not only so he can play his role, but so we have the flexibility to put Caminiti forward because the lack of height in that second half was terrifying. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a defence of Doug + Wilkie + LOC + Tauru/Barrat with Caminiti + Sharman + Owens up forward at some point before King returns (if ever)

Obviously the biggest issue was the midfield but there's not much we can do about it. Boxshall in would be nice but not sure how we fit him in without compromising our rotations or dropping Steele. I feel like we missed Clark as someone who can win clearance and contested ball. Can't wait until Travaglia is AFL-ready for inside mid

 

[Max the great]

Imagine the melts if Jones gets selected ahead of him when the teams are released on Thursday.

We have been gifting Jones games for years on the back of putrid performances. He's not up to AFL standard. What makes you think that will change now? I completely expect it to happen again.

 

[Sainter88]

Sorry to intrude, but what’s happened with Steele? He looked completely out of the game today and I’m surprised. I love your team and potential but was really shocked how non influential Steele was.

He’s lord of the pinners at the moment that bloke

 

[moirae42]

Our pressure was legitimate trash. Which goes completely against our brand.

Dogs went at 82% DE for the whole game. Absolute witches hats.

Such a shit effort.

Henry should not have played. Those of us that saw his games at Sandy know he was just going through the motions and would have rightfully questioned his selection. Terrible decision really.

If Rowan is injured, stop playing him. He could hardly get around the ground.

Steel is not worthy of automatic selection. Not based on the past two weeks. No way. Play a kid getting a kick in the magoos because chances are Steel wont. He was spectating at times tonight. Nowhere near it.

These garbage losses like this one are just unacceptable. And its not just a question of talent.

Yeah young side. No worries. Gonna have your blips. But our leaders tonight. The senior guys... were just putrid.

Obviously you gotta move on quickly to next week but **** me they deserve a clip.

 

[SG34]

Our best player was the goal posts. They hit the ball hard, saving five Bulldog goals.


PS. I know Hill was run down a couple of times and kicked to turn overs, but at least he engaged with it. I just hope the club didn't pick Henry because of the noise about the honest reporting King's injury and fan discontent.

 

[The Slug]

Not much to take from that performance

 

[Plugger35]

Where is the commitment?

Who is willing to run through Jerusalem naked for us with some St Kilda gear like John Safran did?

 

[thekizzler]

Saw a quote from a Saints supporter not long after the match.

"Things are never as good as they seem and things are never as bad as they seem."

I think this accurately sums up the Saints season so far with the ups and downs.
--‐-----------------------------------------------‐---------------------
Whenever North and Carlton had big losses recently, I saw urgings from people on the Saints board to go look at their match threads and laugh. Well make no mistake, opposition fans would have had a field day in our threads after the match.
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For the 10-plus posters whose only contribution to the solution was pick Hugh Boxshall. You are all peanuts.

Box very well might get a game this week but he is a yet to debut AFL player. If we are very, very lucky, he will occasionally have a strong impact on a result this season. But most likely he will hopefully start his development into becoming a gun player.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For me, the Saints were smashed by a much- better team. A well-connected team that were programmed to shut down our strengths and prey on our weaknesses. It was a hugely impressive performance.

Basically, the Bulldogs completely shut down our ball movement by clogging the corridor and edges of the centre square. Our modus operandi coming out of defence is to hit up a player at half-back and then bring the ball toward the centre circle with a short, chip pass to usually the edge of the centre square. But this area and the corridor was stacked with Bulldogs players throughout the night. They forced us to kick wide, tightened the zone on these areas and then we needed to kick long to a contest where we were undersized and it was an easy situation to deal with. This forced our transition game to completely break down. We need to develop a better plan B. With this current undersized team, we need to be getting long kick closer to the boundary line and out of play.

With our strength taken away, the defeat was made even worse by our poor performance in the clearances, particularly centre, but also in stopping or hindering the Bulldogs transition.

This is why it felt like we had no answers to absolutely anything.

For me, we need to get more height in the team to help create a contest. Definitely in attack and it would be pretty handy in defence too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, absolutely rubbish effort by the journalists in Ross Lyon's press conference. A question about Liam Henry was squeezed in, but nothing about Jack Steele

9

Jack Steele

Age

29

Ht

187cm

Wt

90kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

20.9

5star

K

8.7

3star

HB

12.2

5star

M

3.7

4star

T

6.8

5star

CL

3.6

5star

D

21.3

5star

K

10.0

4star

HB

11.3

5star

M

4.0

4star

T

5.8

5star

CL

4.6

5star

D

16.8

4star

K

5.0

2star

HB

11.8

5star

M

2.6

3star

T

6.4

5star

CL

3.6

5star

or Rowan Marshall

19

Rowan Marshall

Age

30

Ht

201cm

Wt

105kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

15.4

4star

K

8.8

3star

HB

6.6

4star

CL

3.4

5star

HO

20.2

5star

D

12.9

3star

K

9.3

4star

HB

3.6

2star

CL

2.8

4star

HO

17.8

5star

D

10.6

3star

K

5.8

3star

HB

4.8

4star

CL

1.0

3star

HO

7.8

5star

. They have absolutely no idea what is relevant.

 

[Ephemeral Hope]

mixed reports on Arie tonight. I thought he was okay (relatively speaking) and that you can see the vision for him to fit in with NAS, Sinclair and (perhaps) Hill as surgical users off half back. Obviously not a great day for anybody but he did gain over 500m and kick at an efficiency rating of 79%, so not all bad.

Work in progress though.

Arie is the size of a proper defender but I agree he’s more suited to playing like a tall version of nas/sincs/hill. Those 3 means we need:

1 smaller defender lockdown style who can take the medium forwards and small forwards. Someone who can stop a ginnivan or bobby hill or Heeney/petracca

1 big boy key back who can take the gorillla key forwards like Darcy/king/mckay

1 tall defender who can lockdown or intercept (Wilkie is this ideally but he is forced to be the previous one). Hammer is this I think but I wish he was the previous one

 

[Max the great]

I don’t know what the answer is, I’m trying to blame it on us having too many softish athletic players who don’t wanna put their body on the line and get crunched (think Hill, Wilson, Henry, Collard, NWM), but then I think of all the players we do have that don’t mind getting crunched like Steele, Jones, Byrnes, Stocker and realise that it doesn’t make a difference because they all got shown up. What’s the answer ? I’m stumped. We got flogged.

Jones likes to get crunched? Is that serious? Hes petrified of contact

 

[mad-saint-guy]

What a pathetic performance from the midfield. Hard to bag the forwards or backs too much when the dogs are allowed to walk the ball out of the middle all day.

The spud Kennedy had more clearances than Steele, Garcia, Windhager and Jones combined.


Out: Steele, Jones, Byrnes, Henry
In: Boxshall, Heath, Hastie, Travaglia

 

[Munga]

Play the fit and hungry kids and maybe get L's, or keep playing the cripples and pea-hearts and get L's. I know which I would choose.

And when is the blowtorch going on the fitness boss (and who hired him)? We had some really good years with fitness under Ratts. We seemed to fire a good one and hired what many knew was a disaster. I haven't seen us with this many broken and mismanaged bodies since GT's era.

 

[mad-saint-guy]

Take out Marshall's stats and the center clearances were 20-2. Incredible

 

[saintron]

I dont see anyone on here mention about basic fundamentals of football. Get in front run beat your apponent dont give them a inch what did i see players not running getting in front and getting beat. shit show the coaches need a kick up the backside.

 

[Browny2Carlisle]

The selections and coaching lost the game before it even started.
Steele shouldn’t be in the team yet, still injured
Marshall is hampered by injury
Henry… body and head is not right.
Why did Trav get dropped?

We also have NAS, Sinclair and Shoey in the team but none are taking the kick outs.

We rely on this outside running game too much. When it works it works but it’s easy to stop. Macrae gets held and then there’s no answer in the middle. No big bodies or talls to do contested work.

 

[bergholt]

Bit disappointing tbh.

This was the game where we had the fewest kids for the whole year and it was also our worst performance.

Clearly the older players and the midfield are to blame and RTB pointed in that direction in the press conference. "Bont got off the chain and someone needed to take responsibility for him." "The problem wasn't planning."

Steele's the obvious one, if he's not fit then he can't play, and if he is fit then that's probably worse. He's averaging fewer possessions this year than in any year he's played for us, just not having impact.

Marshall also a problem. Zero marks, zero tackles isn't ideal. I understand we don't have enough talls at the moment but I'm not sure he's setting a great example.

Macrae's now had 17 and 19 touches in successive weeks. Not ideal considering he needs to be the engine room in the midfield. Maybe he's easy to stop? I don't know how things work in there but he's now taken 2 marks total across the last 3 weeks which suggests maybe he's not getting involved outside enough.

Hill not great, averaging 16 touches a game is the worst of any year he's been at the Saints. Obviously he's in the twilight of his career but we have a bunch of kids who could get valuable experience in that wing role.

Jones wasn't the worst but he's clearly not the future so I don't really see much upside in playing him ahead of Boxshall or Travaglia (though Trav looked cooked so totally fair to drop him this week).

Don't think we have any magical solutions to any of these problems but I agree with most people on here - if we're going to get thumped, let's get thumped playing the kids.

Next week is going to be rough, Lions licking their lips.

 

[Pardon me]

Caminiti development looking like a shining light.
Watch us derail a potential AA career down back by swinging him forward at every opportunity rather than playing a second ruck and having them rest forward whilst we wait for our great white whale to recover.

That game was beyond unacceptable.

We are delusional that anything other than mids is what we should be targeting.

 

[botts]

Why arnt there no press conferences up on the afl ap yet? I want to hear what Ross has to say

 

[dudeintheswamp]

The days turn into weeks, the months into years. Whiling away the moments, working quietly in the backcountry, biding time, waiting.

It's time to come down from the mountain.

 

[gringo2011]

Height/ We lack it all over the ground. wE need to play Moose and Keeler, and anyone else that can help with height.

Needed some smalls to win the ball to give it to them as well.

 

[gringo2011]

Sorry to intrude, but what’s happened with Steele? He looked completely out of the game today and I’m surprised. I love your team and potential but was really shocked how non influential Steele was.

Declared himself fit and was a passenger.

 

[gringo2011]

Sadly we actually covered more ground that the Dogs with more sprints and repeat sprints and still got spanked

Looked like we we're overly reactive and played to try to stop them instead of winning the ball.

 

[Saintbloke]

One thing is bleedin' obvious..We can't have Steele, McRae and Jones playing on-ball roles together in the same team, as they are too slow, and too limited as a unit. McRae has been our best, and Lyon will need to change that midfield structure- maybe move Steele to half forward, and play Hastie on a wing for a block of games in place of Jones- he needs more game time. Also time to for the selectors to have faith, and give Heath a run, and rest Marshall who isn't right and looked totally lost last night.
The opposition have worked Lyon out now, so he needs to be one one step ahead, as in his third season we're trading water- Basset did say one of the reasons he brought in Lyon, was to stop blowout losses..hasn't worked.