Preview Round 19, 2023: St.Kilda v North Melbourne - Marvel Stadium, Sunday 23rd July, 4:40PM AEST

[bird_man]

The midfield was good then. Ross was looking great, Steele was flying, Wood was the best wing in footy, Crouch was flying. Even Byrnes had 27 touches in round one. Gresham had 17 touches and 2 goals. Hill was flying.

Form and injury has sent them back to earth with a thud. Even Owens who looked like he was pushing for the rising star has been patchy since the bye and Hammer has been okay more than good since early in the year. Losing Snags and Hill types who carry more load than you realise make a big difference to our structure. We haven't had much continuity for a while.

Form has been a much bigger issue than injury.

The question is, why?

 

[gringo2011]

Form has been a much bigger issue than injury.

The question is, why?

Wood the shoulder, Steele knee, collarbone and achilles, Gresham just doesn't seem to play well in a very structured environment and seems to have a hand issue, Byrnes starting to slow down after a long season. Hill the knee, Ross look sore before he did his knee etc. We really lack serious midfield depth and an indictment on list management. last year the midfield had injuries and the season derailed. Once is unfortunate, twice is bad management.

 

[bird_man]

Wood the shoulder, Steele knee, collarbone and achilles, Gresham just doesn't seem to play well in a very structured environment and seems to have a hand issue, Byrnes starting to slow down after a long season. Hill the knee, Ross look sore before he did his knee etc. We really lack serious midfield depth and an indictment on list management. last year the midfield had injuries and the season derailed. Once is unfortunate, twice is bad management.

Woods shoulder was months ago, that shouldn't be the reason his form hasn't been able to get to where it was.

Steele can't really use injuries as an excuse now surely. He's shown he can play good games but only does it one in every 3 or 4.

Byrnes is 22, not 18, so there should be no reason he should slow down.

 

[gringo2011]

Woods shoulder was months ago, that shouldn't be the reason his form hasn't been able to get to where it was.

Steele can't really use injuries as an excuse now surely. He's shown he can play good games but only does it one in every 3 or 4.

Byrnes is 22, not 18, so there should be no reason he should slow down.

The season wears them all down. I don't think Steele or Wood have shaken the injuries, just managing them. The whole list looks wobbly. Part is probably not getting reward for effort at the moment. They work hard and don't get a result so hard to fight through the pain.

 

[George]

The season wears them all down. I don't think Steele or Wood have shaken the injuries, just managing them. The whole list looks wobbly. Part is probably not getting reward for effort at the moment. They work hard and don't get a result so hard to fight through the pain.

Wears them down to play like s**t for 10 straight weeks and not have the energy to win 4 or 5 games from 12?

 

[The Cobra]

Just need to clone Rozee - midfield problems pretty much solved!

 

[Premium]

Decimated midfield?

I actually can’t believe I’m biting.

But sure,

22/23

Crouch missed 1 / 0
Gresham missed 4/ 1
Steele missed 4 /3
Clark missed 14 /6
Jones missed 13 / 16
Ross missed 1 / 3
Dmac missed 14 / 18
Billings missed 16 /17

The current split is 67 2022
64 in 2023 * which will blow out well over once the season ends with the Ross and Dmac injuries alone.

In 2022 and 2023 it would be hard to argue against that Steel/Ross/Gresham/Crouch would be our main stay mids

In 2022 The only time 2 or more missed the same game was in round 23 2022 Gresham (knee) and Crouch (suspended) - when the season was dead by the time we played Sydney.

Yet to happen in 2023.

Throw in the king and Membrey injuries on top in 2023.

And you blokes are acting like wet wipes screaming we are going backwards that this has been the same if not worse than Rattens time.

There was no point in Rattens tenure we played a match with the 4th youngest match day side in the comp.

There was no point in Rattens time we played 5 20 year old footballers at AFL level at once. We have consistently used 4-5 every week under Ross.

There is no argument against what we have achieved if we have matched Rattens side with significantly less talent and experience on the park.

Has the last 10 weeks been good? No.

But when the stats literally say the downfall is inside 50 conversion to scores. Then it’s no wonder when you’re kicking it to 17 games Caminiti and 20 year old Mitch Owens.

We will be even better for this in 12 months time. But the argument we have gone backwards is currently laughable - when we are equal in W/L to 12 months ago and are doing it with a side that is worse off.

Can't say we have gone backwards buy pumping games into kids like Owens , Milera , Windhager , Caminiti and having a lot of our firepower unable to play as in King , Membery , Billings , Coffield and Hayes.

Even with Steele playing awful and Gresham unseen and Jones just coming back into the fold and Clark as well it is amazing we are still clinging onto a spot in the 8.

We are about to play Nth and the Hawks the following week and winning and getting confidence back could well spur the team to surprise us going into finals.

To me 2 big factors have hampered us - not having our leading goal kicker from last year (King) and Steeles below average year and it has not helped not having Membery - all were top 7 in our fairest and best last year.

 

[hayes]

We got the new coach bounce at the start of the year. Same thing happened in 2020 with Ratten but ultimately you get figured out. Our offensive game was reliant on mostly uncontested marks and possessions which isn’t sustainable either. The new coach bounce is nice but it keeps putting unrealistic expectations on a team with the worst midfield in the comp.

 

[Premium]

Form has been a much bigger issue than injury.

The question is, why?

Was the preseason to hard - Steele and Ross told to drop weight to increase running capability , strange forcing your best player to drop weight when his at the top of his game , but then again was it the car smash of a broken collar bone that has effected the guy on top of it.
McKenzie - a right off
Bytel - he is playing this week.
Hayes - picks up a stress fracture after his ACL
King - does a hamstring when he is about to return to the park
Coffield - is he still around
Jones - where has he been
Billings - once one of the most durable players around is now injury prone
Clark - he is a whole case to himself - seems to be a player that just gets injuries
Gresham - not injured but after coming off his best season just seems jaded.
Membery - another durable guy who seems broken.

Then look at the other guys who are meant to be developing

• Allison / has not been seen
• Hotton / just comeback
• Keller / has play 2 games after injury
• McLenan / back last week
• Adams , Heath and Es have all missed games through injury.

and strange how the fitness coach quit.

 

[Premium]

We got the new coach bounce at the start of the year. Same thing happened in 2020 with Ratten but ultimately you get figured out. Our offensive game was reliant on mostly uncontested marks and possessions which isn’t sustainable either. The new coach bounce is nice but it keeps putting unrealistic expectations on a team with the worst midfield in the comp.

fit the midfield and where cooking with gas.

 

[Saintbloke]

Seem to have lost our mojo since the high performance fitness guy suddenly left- he was popular with the players. If players need to have their own meetings to sort out why they are not travelling well, then it points to a disconnect between coach and players

 

[sasaint]

Was the preseason to hard - Steele and Ross told to drop weight to increase running capability , strange forcing your best player to drop weight when his at the top of his game , but then again was it the car smash of a broken collar bone that has effected the guy on top of it.
McKenzie - a right off
Bytel - he is playing this week.
Hayes - picks up a stress fracture after his ACL
King - does a hamstring when he is about to return to the park
Coffield - is he still around
Jones - where has he been
Billings - once one of the most durable players around is now injury prone
Clark - he is a whole case to himself - seems to be a player that just gets injuries
Gresham - not injured but after coming off his best season just seems jaded.
Membery - another durable guy who seems broken.

Then look at the other guys who are meant to be developing

• Allison / has not been seen
• Hotton / just comeback
• Keller / has play 2 games after injury
• McLenan / back last week
• Adams , Heath and Es have all missed games through injury.

and strange how the fitness coach quit.

A lot of those names will be playing for Sandy on Sunday for the first time. Tough game too, against the Pies. Should be interesting to see how they’ve come back.

 

[SaintyMcSaintface]

Billings - once one of the most durable players around is now injury prone

 

[Sully111]

For quite a few weeks now, we've been one of worst sides in the comp.

We haven't been a bit off.... we've been shockingly bad.

The excuses that get rolled out blow my mind to be honest.

We've been below afl standard. Our skills have been an absolute joke.

It's not good enough.

The only saving grace is that young players are getting games. I'd much prefer it if Owens hadn't been played out of position for the whole season though.

 

[Shinboner '07]

Please go easy on us guys

 

[Spacedog]

Some observations from training today:

First drill:
-Lenny would throw in from the boundary, seemed a big focus on handballing from inside the contest to further outside, rather than the handball to a bloke 1m from you like we've seen in games. Went quite well, but obviously it's training and pressure is significantly lower.

-Simulated turn over ion d50. Handball chains out of the contest then down the wing, moving the ball forward being priority. The idea is there but as we've seen, the execution was pretty poor. Missed handballs galore ending in turnovers.

-After this I saw Battle working and chatting with Boris 1 on 1, getting some instructions and advice on his positioning and when to push up or leave the man, and something regarding which way he turned when the ball would come in.

Player notes from this:
-Hilly was very lively, and very vocal.
-Higgins did not have any strapping on the knee and seemed to be moving pretty well.
-Seb doing laps at good pace.

8v8: (saw one of these, the other was over the other side of the ground):
-Harvey was running this and was quite vocal. Reinforced multiple times to the group that the execution did not need to be perfect but that the most important thing was keeping the ball moving forward.
-Owens was called out by Howard, Wood, and Gresh for not owning a contest when there was one there, was a lack of communication and the senior players really let them know about it being important.

Full Team v Team:
-Unfortunately I saw Bytel caught with it in the contest multiple times trying to get out, just like I saw in the VFL.
-Still over handballing, creating chains but missing targets.
-Wood gave a few nice deliveries i50 to leading fwds, notably Pou who took a mark and goaled.
-Windy a nice offensive tackle on McLennan inside attacking 50.
-Kicks out of d50 in this weren't great to me, few chips across the back line and within d50, then bomb down the line.
-Byrnes was good to my eye, very quick feet and his decision making in the pressure of the pack was good.
-Lyon celebrated the centering kick and switch to the fat side of the ground from centre wing. Lead to a kick out to a running defender on opposite wing and delivery inside 50. He was vocally praising them for doing this, twice at least from what I saw.
-Moose was fwd, kicked a nice 55m goal.
-Sincs was playing back. Using his run well.

After full team v team:

-Hill and Sinclair individually were 1on1 with Bytel after this, coaching him, giving him direction.

-Owens was holding his shoulder. Came to the bench area, spoke to them and said it was his sore shoulder and that it was still pretty sore. Hopefully he's all good...

-Battle, Wilkie, Howard, Webster, Cordy (in the no contact hat) practiced some kick outs and overlap run for handball straight down the middle, was good to see.

-Wood practiced some nice high marks on the wing, and Pou did some 50m sprints through the mid.

-Butler did some nice work today inside 50, ran really hard on leads, and nice marking with pressure on him.

Cheers.

Did you see where Windhager and Hunter Clark played at training?

 

[AirWinmar]

The season wears them all down. I don't think Steele or Wood have shaken the injuries, just managing them. The whole list looks wobbly. Part is probably not getting reward for effort at the moment. They work hard and don't get a result so hard to fight through the pain.

Agree Steele was way down on his best after injury - only just regaining form now, Ross looked very stodgy when he lost form. Asides from that, I think at the start our young players like Owens, Pou and Caminiti performed way above expectations. As the season has gone on, they aren't having the same output which is natural for 1st and 2nd year players and unfortunately that has happened at the same time as our key mids.

Trickle down economics from there

 

[George]

For quite a few weeks now, we've been one of worst sides in the comp.

We haven't been a bit off.... we've been shockingly bad.

The excuses that get rolled out blow my mind to be honest.

We've been below afl standard. Our skills have been an absolute joke.

It's not good enough.

The only saving grace is that young players are getting games. I'd much prefer it if Owens hadn't been played out of position for the whole season though.

Prepare yourself, I see a 3 goal win v North coming

 

[Parkysp]

Watching the Port v Pies game tonight especially late it struck me how even a game is Aussie rules football and how across 36 players on a field it is just one or two that make the ultimate difference.

Powell-Pepper most would point out every mistake he makes. Put him in our team and we win more games of football. Simples. We're not that far off if we could get one of something similar.

In Aussie rules the greatness of one can cover the ordinariness of many. Same at local footy or AFL. The AFL industry likes to tell us it's magic but it ain't.

 

[DougalHoward]

Please go easy on us guys

You need to go easy on us

 

[luca77]

Please go easy on us guys

You'll be unlucky if we don't.

 

[George]

Game Day - Round 19, 2023: St.Kilda v North Melbourne

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