Review Positives & Negatives - Saints v Crows - R8 2013

[Sunshine Saint]

Thoughts on the game

 

[jbazzle]

Positive - BT wasn't commentating, Newnes showed a bit
Negatives - Just about everything else, namely kicking, tackling, contested ball...

 

[Trojan_Saint]

Positives:

Newnes, Roberton, Steven, Webster, Ross. Young brigade looking the goods, which is exciting for the future.
Riewoldt and Montagna busting a gut, as always.
Fisher, Gwilt and Dempster looking like our heroes of old.

Negatives:
Milera and Saad
Lack of intensity in the second half.
Maister's game. Rooey looked far more likely with him off the ground.

 

[Ice-Wolf]

Positives:

Backline did ok, Gwilt was pretty good.

Negatives:
Forward Entries diabolical, we just fell apart anything forward of 70m out.
Forward pressure, virtually non-existant

 

[Murraj1966]

Positives: I didn't watch the game

Negatives: Hearing the game on the radio.

 

[Sunshine Saint]

Positives
Roberton - great dash, breaks open the forward line of opposing team. Crows had to put a tag on him, to try and negate his influence.

Newnes - best game I think I have seen him play. Two frustrating parts that he will correct over time, the long bomb to no one, when he kicks very long into the forward line. And on occasion he should take the game on more and head forward, but chooses to pause and kick backwards.

Montagna - great game. Never gave up. A credit to himself

Webster - doesn't look out of place and was not disgraced at all tonight Fantastic decision making and super quick hands

Ross - steady game. The more games we can get into him the better

First half pressure - great first half pressure, but unfortunately got overwhelmed in second half and this fell away badly

Negatives
Milera - the look back to see if a player would tackle him when running into an open goal, instead of driving forward with the kick, was a characterless act. Disappointed with him lack of pressure, lack of presence in the forward line. Back to Sandringham please

Lack of run - last week we ran the ball hard up the corridor. Today we paused, stopped and often didn't do this. Was it because Adelaide ran us off our legs, or we consciously not doing that this week.

Forward line structure - shocking

Contests from centre - we were losing these one after another in the second half. Felt for our backs then as the ball was rushing in there with great regularity

 

[Defacto]

POSITIVES:
1) Newnes: best game this year. found his feet again. will build from here.
2) Ross: has found his feet, having more of an impact. just needs to build the tank and stay competitive.
3) Webster: great game!!!! at one point was going at 100% efficiency by foot. very reliable. instrumental as he will free up geary and or wright to move into the midfield. the only knock on him, is that sometimes he loses concentration and become a bit of a passenger. needs to impact the contest a bit more. plenty to work with though.
4) Steven: really worked that tag. dal should take notice
5) roberton: solid. love watching him play (cant believe i am saying that)

Negatives:
1) saad: needs to be dropped. i dont know how he has stayed in the side since round 3.
2) milera: back to the VFL for atleast a month. saw the most selfish piece of play i have ever seen of a footballer. gave up a certain goal because of it. 25 which means its now or never for him. form i can tolerate, attitude i cannot.
3) mcevoy: worst game yet. but given how good he has been, it was going to happen eventually
4) hickeys kicking
5) siposs is struggling

 

[mysainters]

Positives
*We missed Wright, seriously, what a compliment this early in to his career. Oozes composure, which we lacked tonight
*Gwilt, Roberton and Geary continue their strong form
*Websters kicking skills

Negatives
*Roo had two on him all night, but one wore RWB, Maister needs to learn to drag the defenders elsewhere.
*Hickey is not a forward, I ridiculed Malthouse for pretending Hampson was one.
*Milney should not wear an all white number, the sleeves and the shorts, does him no favours with his veteran body
*Armo was quiet, again
*Our smalls are still horribly out of form

 

[CHBench]

Roberton, Webster and Wright are gonna make a pretty nice rebounding combo in the future.

Selection sucks.

Sub choices just as poor.

Lynch/Maric/Newnes trade looking like a winner for everyone.

 

[saintkildaman]

Good-
Roberton keeps on going
Newnes looked more at home
Welcome back Gwilty

Bad-
Terrible skills, especially kicks inside fifty.

 

[Terror Time]

Positives

Roberton
Newnes and Ross for doing good things at an early stage of their careers

Negatives

Coach
Selection
game plan
Run and carry
team effort

We are a slow side and Adelaide took full advantage of it. Going top heavy is not the answer. Nor is playing three forward smalls. I'm going to be at loggerheads with Watters because I believe he wants to emulate West Coasts style when I personally want to emulate Sydney or Geelong having lots of ball users who can run and carry and do the 1%ers. We can't get Nathan Wright back in this side fast enough and we'll need to continue to find that sort of player in coming years and develop them well.

 

[mysainters]

5) siposs is struggling

Thought he looks comfortable in the forward line last couple of times, not sure why we are not persisting with that?

 

[jbazzle]

Jack Newnes was brilliant.


Terry Milera has gone backwards, Saad also doesn't look him self from 2012.

Agree re: Milera but I think Saad is the hardest worker in the forward 50 (apart from Roo). He provides a lot of tackling pressure and continued effort which I haven't seen enough of from Terry and Milney.

 

[tbarker]

Positives
Roberton - great dash, breaks open the forward line of opposing team. Crows had to put a tag on him, to try and negate his influence.

Newnes - best game I think I have seen him play. Two frustrating parts that he will correct over time, the long bomb to no one, when he kicks very long into the forward line. And on occasion he should take the game on more and head forward, but chooses to pause and kick backwards.

Montagna - great game. Never gave up. A credit to himself

Webster - doesn't look out of place and was not disgraced at all tonight Fantastic decision making and super quick hands

Ross - steady game. The more games we can get into him the better

First half pressure - great first half pressure, but unfortunately got overwhelmed in second half and this fell away badly

Negatives
Milera - the look back to see if a player would tackle him when running into an open goal, instead of driving forward with the kick, was a characterless act. Disappointed with him lack of pressure, lack of presence in the forward line. Back to Sandringham please

Lack of run - last week we ran the ball hard up the corridor. Today we paused, stopped and often didn't do this. Was it because Adelaide ran us off our legs, or we consciously not doing that this week.

Forward line structure - shocking

Contests from centre - we were losing these one after another in the second half. Felt for our backs then as the ball was rushing in there with great regularity

Great post SS and I agree with everything you say because you summed it up perfectly. My only other thoughts:

Ray frustrated me the most. Killed many an attacking move. I love his effort but he simply isn't good enough.
Milne was absent and trying to do too much (again)
Saad is still out of form and has been all year. Not a natural footballer.
Why oh why did we go in with an underdone Maister??? Since when is he an A grader capable of coming straight back into the side after 4 weeks off?? It is either Hickey/Kosi/Maister. We looked much better with Sipposs last week. We could then have had ENOUGH MIDFIELDERS to run out the game. Are you hearing me match committee?????. Same goes for the forward line. It is 2 of Milne/Saad/Milera. Not all 3.
I thought Geary and McEvoy looked tired tonight and fumbled a lot. I still dont understand why Jones didn't play. Thomson killed us again and Jones would have been very handy.
Armo looks out of sorts still.
Sipo is not a sub. When will they work it out?? who makes the decision about the sub???

 

[mysainters]

I thought Geary and McEvoy looked tired tonight and fumbled a lot.

Think Geary really hurt himself in a contest early, he went head first and crazy hard at a contest as he does....can't remember which contest, but the commentators let out a gasp at the collision. Was sore, maybe a bit fuzzy in the head?

Effort was there all night though, had a goal pinched by Milne as well.

 

[CHBench]

Anyone stat savvy enough to post up the for/againsts for centre clearances and 4th quarter scores? I'm struggling to find them.

 

[joop]

Positives : Games Over

Negatives : We played

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

Positives

• Newnes and Ross contiinuing their form
• Roberton looking like he is the best pickup in free agencey this year
• Joey did well

Negitives

• We were crap in the forward line
• We went in too tall
• We need ledger to have a run
• Milera and Saad having the second year blues
• We need Jones to play to get some clearances and some defensive pressure
• We were carved up by the running of the crows mids

 

[Axcellence]

Just shows the question mark over Kingsley as the forward coach? Not enough heat on the assistant coaches, methinks.

 

[hayes]

The things I'm reading about Saad are similar to what I read about Milne last year after the Adelaide game. Saad wasn't great because of what he did with the ball, but he's still finding the ball. Milera is the one that I could live without right now, in all honesty I'm still trying to work out how one good game in the VFL is enough for a recall. Just staggering.

Still think Stanley's move to the backline is killing our forward line. Its forcing us to play Hickey as a forward who has the mobility of a statue, and if we don't play him we have no reliable ruck relief. Everybody says Stanley never set the world on fire up forward, but he doesn't have to. No reason why he couldn't be a Quinten Lynch type who's a genuine marking option, can provide ruck relief and chip in with a goal or two. Never had to be Rooey to stay there, but I guess its irrelevant now. I'm not saying he was ordinary today as he's been doing an admirable job back there, but if we play him forward we can afford to play another tall down there because of his pace.

We have to get back to the structure we had against Sydney and Collingwood. Three talls, two smalls and a resting mid as the forward setup. I just can't get over that we've decided to bring in these extra talls and smalls when the former setup was working so well. Just another staggering selection choice which has been a common theme this year. It allows us to fast track the development of our mids and obviously we can play more of them, because we need to start finding out who is and isn't worth keeping.

Roberton played another blinder, if I had one complaint though it would be that he drops the odd mark but I think with some more confidence he'll start plucking them. Loving the drive and dash to go along with a pretty reliable boot.

Probably the closest Newnes has come to putting four quarters together. Hopefully he builds on that. Seb was good as well, just always makes the right decision and uses the ball very well.

Steven tried hard and battled on. Webster doesn't look one bit out of his depth either.

Thought we really missed Wright. Could've broke the game open a couple of times.

 

[Squizz]

Positives
Roberton - great dash, breaks open the forward line of opposing team. Crows had to put a tag on him, to try and negate his influence.

Newnes - best game I think I have seen him play. Two frustrating parts that he will correct over time, the long bomb to no one, when he kicks very long into the forward line. And on occasion he should take the game on more and head forward, but chooses to pause and kick backwards.

Montagna - great game. Never gave up. A credit to himself

Webster - doesn't look out of place and was not disgraced at all tonight Fantastic decision making and super quick hands

Ross - steady game. The more games we can get into him the better

First half pressure - great first half pressure, but unfortunately got overwhelmed in second half and this fell away badly

Negatives
Milera - the look back to see if a player would tackle him when running into an open goal, instead of driving forward with the kick, was a characterless act. Disappointed with him lack of pressure, lack of presence in the forward line. Back to Sandringham please

Lack of run - last week we ran the ball hard up the corridor. Today we paused, stopped and often didn't do this. Was it because Adelaide ran us off our legs, or we consciously not doing that this week.

Forward line structure - shocking

Contests from centre - we were losing these one after another in the second half. Felt for our backs then as the ball was rushing in there with great regularity

Yup. That's about it.

Contested marks 4-14.

Clearances 22-27.

Tackles 41-47.

Clangers 40-32.

Lost them all.

On the corridor, I noticed the deliberate tactic by the Saints to cover the corridor at all costs (drifting off the mark to the corridor side every time). But with plenty of space on the wings, they were able to generate enough run. There was one where the guy was almost in the square. Milne covered the corridor and he just ran off (straight) and got 25-30m before kicking.

There was one situation early when Jack refused to break out of a jog to plug a hole. All he needed was five steps of effort and it was covered. Pass. Uncontested mark inside 50. Shot on goal.

 

[goodie23]

Positives:

• Good kicking in strategies, rarely got boxed in after a behind
• Started with intensity
• Newnes and Ross continue to show promise, Webster ran out the game well
• Roberton continued to shine
• Riewoldt
• Some good intercept marks
• Dempster did a good job on Dangerfield
• Gwilt was good

Negatives:

• Kicking for goal
• Kicking into the forward 50
• Hickey's kicking
• Kicks that didn't suit the target, putting it high for the likes of Milne, Ahmed, Montagna, Geary, putting it low for Hickey, Big Ben, Wilkes
• Ran out of legs way too early
• Siposs had little impact as sub
• Needed to put a tighter leash on Thompson
• Slaughtered in the clearances

 

[Sunshine Saint]

Yup. That's about it.

Contested marks 4-14.

Clearances 22-27.

Tackles 41-47.

Clangers 40-32.

Lost them all.

On the corridor, I noticed the deliberate tactic by the Saints to cover the corridor at all costs (drifting off the mark to the corridor side every time). But with plenty of space on the wings, they were able to generate enough run. There was one where the guy was almost in the square. Milne covered the corridor and he just ran off (straight) and got 25-30m before kicking.

There was one situation early when Jack refused to break out of a jog to plug a hole. All he needed was five steps of effort and it was covered. Pass. Uncontested mark inside 50. Shot on goal.

Squiz glad you brought that up, saw that often through the match too. We were often diagonal to the mark on a number of occasions trying to protect the centre corridor. It was obviously a match focus to do this.

Must say, I forgot to add earlier, great to have Gwilt and his poise and decision making back.

 

[mysainters]

Yup. That's about it.

Contested marks 4-14.

Clearances 22-27.

Tackles 41-47.

Clangers 40-32.

Lost them all.

On the corridor, I noticed the deliberate tactic by the Saints to cover the corridor at all costs (drifting off the mark to the corridor side every time). But with plenty of space on the wings, they were able to generate enough run. There was one where the guy was almost in the square. Milne covered the corridor and he just ran off (straight) and got 25-30m before kicking.

There was one situation early when Jack refused to break out of a jog to plug a hole. All he needed was five steps of effort and it was covered. Pass. Uncontested mark inside 50. Shot on goal.

What were the total marks in the end, felt like they marked easily all night all over the ground?

 

[mysainters]

• Slaughtered in the clearances

Why?

I'm unsure where to direct the spotlight to be honest.

We were smashed last week for much of the night.

Is it our mids fault, or are they flying blind?