Game Day Round 3, 2021: Essendon v St.Kilda *STEELE 100TH* *CLARK 50TH* *CROUCH DEBUT*

[George]

Get the job done boys.

 

[Murraj1966]

Just a clean regulation 30+ point win please and thank you.

No injuries no drama just a nice win would be great.

 

[tomjoad]

A big Congrats to our captain St.Steele. 100 games, a leader & club champ. Hope he rips the game to shreds with a 32 disposal 4 goal game BOG performance. Also hope Snake clunks 22 marks, and has 25 touches at 90% efficiency...just to remind those above how good he actually is when he's in the team.
Go Saints.

 

[scotteydog]

Off the topic, but just been thinking how nice it would be for us to snare B.King & F.MCasey over the next two years. I reckon we then win premierships in 2023-4 &5. Go Saints!

 

[Munga]

Work hard and get the job done!

Highmore a loss. Skillful and effective defender. Hasn't had time to shine yet, but he hasn't let much past him either.

Some very lucky boys get another go. I hope we don't mess this up.

 

[MUFKilda]

6:35 a.m. bounce up here. See all you pork chops and raw prawns then

 

[Saintbloke]

Go Saints. Probably a good idea for Long to go out- stupid free kicks he gives away in front of the umpires are not on. DMac I guess will be HBF or even on a wing. Bytel a bit stiff, but Crouch is one of our big signings and needs to be played. A good game for our forwards to pull their fingers out against ordinary oppositon.

 

[pebblesofsand]

 

[plugger66]

Big game. Big hangover Big drink. Small ruckman. Should win easily

 

[pebblesofsand]

Interesting mix of changes. My line up

B McKenzie Howard Wilkie
HB Coffield Battle Clark
C Hill Ross Billings
HF Membrey King Gresham
F Butler Carlisle Lonie
Foll McKernan Steele Crouch

Int Wood Sinclair Higgins Jones

McKernan over Hunter surprises me based on actual outputs for the year but McKernan is up against a team that delisted him twice, has a more hardened AFL body so that probably swung it his way.

Highmore out is reasonable. Came as an intercept marking player but yet to fully adjust to AFL and has only taken 5 marks in his two games. Allows us to play Battle as a CHB and use Carlisle as a deep forward/ruck option.

Crouch over Bytel is obvious.

Mason Wood

32

Mason Wood

Age

30

Ht

192cm

Wt

86kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

13.2

3star

K

7.8

3star

HB

5.4

4star

M

4.0

4star

T

2.2

4star

CL

0.3

2star

D

8.3

2star

K

2.7

1star

HB

5.7

3star

M

1.7

2star

T

1.3

2star

CL

0.0

1star

D

15.8

4star

K

8.6

4star

HB

7.2

5star

M

4.6

5star

T

2.6

4star

CL

0.6

3star

gives a us bit more height and flexibility.

Long out - have no problems with this - he gets cut a lot of slack on here. At times very poor decision making and more importantly for this game - not the greatest defensively.

It was either him of DMac for Tippa and while may get of the chain and kick a few I'd hate to think what might have happened if Long was expected to pick him up.

Expect Kent to be the injury sub.

 

[malevu]

Expect Carlisle to be tried on the ball at least early on. Plan B will probably be to play down back if it doesn't work.

This from Saints website -

 

[LiterallyNobody]

Win

 

[BrutThough]

We will come out breathing fire today and redeem ourselves from last week.

Saints by 43.

 

[Tyrian Lonestar]

Convincing win please Saints. 50+

 

[triggering bro]

Has the feeling of a massive smashing. Hope I’m right.

 

[aussierulesrules]

From the corresponding thread on the Essendon board:

“St Kilda have kicked 24.12 so far this year... most accurate team in the comp, though not the most prolific scorers (closely followed by Sydney on 37.19). Meanwhile, we've had 32.15 kicked against us – which is the most goals against for any team, and has our opponents collectively as the most accurate in the league.

I guess that's what you get for having an entire backline with only one guy over 50 games experience? (No defender over 50 games at all this week!)

St Kilda are also 7th for clearances but 17th for hit outs, so I guess they're decent enough at reading the opponent's ruckman..”

So none of their named back 6 have played 50 games yet (average of 32 games each) and neither of the two on the bench who might play back there have either.

If we’re able to dominate the midfield battle our forwardline could have a bit of a field day.

 

[gringo2011]

Off the topic, but just been thinking how nice it would be for us to snare B.King & F.MCasey over the next two years. I reckon we then win premierships in 2023-4 &5. Go Saints!

And a ruckman. We look like we need 2 KPPs...which I don't know what we do with Battle then. Perhaps Marshall would have to play solo ruck to make room for King up forward.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

What I would give to have Cain Ackland

Cain Ackland

Age

42

Ht

196cm

Wt

100kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

8.7

2star

K

4.9

2star

HB

3.8

3star

HO

11.7

5star

No current season stats available

D

4.2

1star

K

2.4

1star

HB

1.8

2star

HO

3.8

5star

about now.

 

[gringo2011]

From the corresponding thread on the Essendon board:

“St Kilda have kicked 24.12 so far this year... most accurate team in the comp, though not the most prolific scorers (closely followed by Sydney on 37.19). Meanwhile, we've had 32.15 kicked against us – which is the most goals against for any team, and has our opponents collectively as the most accurate in the league.

I guess that's what you get for having an entire backline with only one guy over 50 games experience? (No defender over 50 games at all this week!)

St Kilda are also 7th for clearances but 17th for hit outs, so I guess they're decent enough at reading the opponent's ruckman..”

So none of their named back 6 have played 50 games yet (average of 32 games each) and neither of the two on the bench who might play back there have either.

If we’re able to dominate the midfield battle our forwardline could have a bit of a field day.

Stringer and Tippa are my only concern. Forwards in the Stringer mould seem to do well this season and our small back stocks are thin and could struggle to contain Tippa.

 

[gringo2011]

What I would give to have Cain Ackland about now.

Do you need to reach something on a high shelf?

 

[stavro#4]

What I would give to have Cain Ackland about now.

I’ll take a 2008 vintage Michael Gardiner. Barely got on the park but when he did he was still better than what we have today.

 

[plugger66]

Interesting mix of changes. My line up

B McKenzie Howard Wilkie
HB Coffield Battle Clark
C Hill Ross Billings
HF Membrey King Gresham
F Butler Carlisle Lonie
Foll McKernan Steele Crouch

Int Wood Sinclair Higgins Jones

McKernan over Hunter surprises me based on actual outputs for the year but McKernan is up against a team that delisted him twice, has a more hardened AFL body so that probably swung it his way.

Highmore out is reasonable. Came as an intercept marking player but yet to fully adjust to AFL and has only taken 5 marks in his two games. Allows us to play Battle as a CHB and use Carlisle as a deep forward/ruck option.

Crouch over Bytel is obvious.

Mason Wood gives a us bit more height and flexibility.

Long out - have no problems with this - he gets cut a lot of slack on here. At times very poor decision making and more importantly for this game - not the greatest defensively.

It was either him of DMac for Tippa and while may get of the chain and kick a few I'd hate to think what might have happened if Long was expected to pick him up.

Expect Kent to be the injury sub.

I’d go with long. Probably needs a rest anyway. Kent probably needs game time. Also long is more versatile

 

[plugger66]

Stringer and Tippa are my only concern. Forwards in the Stringer mould seem to do well this season and our small back stocks are thin and could struggle to contain Tippa.

If as we should dominate around the ball they should get slow ball movement most of time. I’m not being arrogant but if are a half decent side we really should smash them. No excuses at all not even the ruck. We are bad as them in that position. Neither club could say as good as them.

 

[aussierulesrules]

The midfield battle:

McKernan/Snake- Wright/Hooker?
Steele- Langford
Crouch- Ham?
Gresham- Merrett
Jones- McGrath
Ross- Parish
Clark- ?
Sincs- ?
Hill- Cox
Billings- ?

The ruck battle/cripple fight looks about even overall and so does this group:

Gresham- Merrett
Jones- McGrath
Ross- Parish

But after that we look streets ahead, in both depth and quality:

Steele- Langford
Crouch- Ham?
Clark- ?
Sincs- ?
Hill- Cox
Billings- ?

 

[LiterallyNobody]

Do you need to reach something on a high shelf?

Dying