We're a really good team. We thought we could beat an average St Kilda team (and they are very average) with a half arsed gameplan built around the 22 picked.
Very average? How much have you seen of us this year, especially recently? I think you're underrating us.
Do "very average" teams
convincingly win 3 of their last 8 games against current top four teams? (We beat Carlton easily in round 7, when they were sitting 2nd on the ladder, when they had lost only one match for the year and still had the likes of Murphy, Waite, Henderson, etc playing, we then completely dominated 4th placed Sydney for much of our match with them, the week after they won by 100 points and the week before they won by 90+ in their next match and last night we again smashed a team sitting in the top four).
In that time, we also lost to Adelaide (in Adelaide) by only 4 points, to an on-fire Richmond by a goal and against West Coast in Perth we got back to within a couple of goals at about the 20 min mark of the last quarter, on a hot day, coming off a six-day break, when we were down to 3 on the bench by quarter time. Last week, coming off the bye, we were sluggish as hell and put in our worst match of the year and made some horrendous selection mistakes (leaving out both Jones and Ray, our two best tagging options for Wells and Harvey, was diabolical), plus being down to 2 on the bench for the last 45 mins, on top of Kosi being physically ill for much of the game, yet we were still within a couple of kicks inside the last 10 mins of the game, against a rampant North.
You also say that you were the only team that hadn't been "flogged" this year, but our worst loss of the season is just 36 points, against Hawthorn, which was a close match until about 3/4 time, with them pulling away in the end. Our next worst was last week, when, as I said, we were withing 2 goals in the last 10 mins of the game.
The only game we've played this year where we weren't within a couple of goals (or leading) inside the last 10 mins or so of the match, was that loss to Hawthorn (which was close to 3/4 time) and I don't think "very average" teams are that competitive.
We also went through the toughest part of our draw without our two best/main ruck options (McEvoy and Stanley, who was also doing really well up forward: who both missed about 5-6 weeks), meaning that we had to take our best marking option up forward at the time out of the forward line and play him in the ruck and also play one of our only "talls" down back in the ruck as well, at the same time Sam Fisher (who is easily in our top 5) missed a bunch of weeks of footy, taking him out of our backline, at a time when Gwilt was also still out of the side (getting back from his knee-reco).
So we went through the hardest part of our draw with a seriously undermanned and undersized backline, makeshift rucks and short forwardline, yet were still ultra-competitive against, or convincingly beat some of the best teams in the comp.
You may not be aware of this, but we're also the second highest scoring side in the comp this year (Hawthorn passed us today), so maybe you shouldn't feel so bad about last night, as I don't think it was a "very average" team that you lost to (unless you have extraordinarily high standards).