Review What We Learnt: Round 7 Edition

[Defacto]

Absolute gun! Seems to have so much time with ball in hand. Really does remind me of Pendlebury/DalSanto

i think he's a mix between dane swan and sam mitchell

 

[Fehring]

Things I learned.

I am in love with Dylan Roberton.

Gwilt played his best game since 2011. Like Lenny after his (first) reco, it's taken him 18 months but he lit it up last night. The best thing was that his agility was back.

McEvoy was so good, I'd give him the 3 votes over Roo. It's possible that Matt Kruzer is the second best ruckman from his draft pool, but he ain't the best. I also liked Hickey's party tricks in the ruck.

The lack of a genuine FB continues to kill us. In the last quarter, as the game slowed, spud after spud lined up in the Carlton fwd line to mark it 12m out. I don't care if Mitch Brown is only average, I'm considering a kidnapping mission over to Perth. Anyone in?

Wright was awesome. Being at the game, I thought he'd just been dragged for the sub and was just stupefied. Thankfully it turned out that our coach isn't an idiot after all.

Seb Ross. Yeah, baby.

They've got Fat Yak on tap at the Whitten Bar, which is better than Carlton and a whole lot better than midstrength.

I never get sick of yelling "let them rot!" when the final siren sounds v Carlton.

 

[MightySaint]

First saw Plugger in an intra-club game at Moorabbin, you just knew he wasgoing to be special..!
How could you hate Plugger, he still loves the Saints.. Was a good move for both Plugger & the club IMO..
His trade took us to the 97 GF, which we should have won of course..!

I started supporting the Saints around 92 and he was just incredible. Was shattered when he left. He should have retired as our favorite son.
I don't know why I feel how I do but it's the same distaste that I have for Hall. I guess I'm the only one?

 

[Smoke_Me_AKipper]

I started supporting the Saints around 92 and he was just incredible. Was shattered when he left. He should have retired as our favorite son.
I don't know why I feel how I do but it's the same distaste that I have for Hall. I guess I'm the only one?

Sorry dude - he is one of the champions of the game. He had to go for money reasons as he was deep deep deep in debt and Sydney offered him more than double what we were. He is a St Kilda man through and through.....you're on your own on this one!

 

[sammm]

The change here was that he was given the responsibility of being the #1 ruckman in the centre and forward half. I really liked that move from Watters. He basically had Hickey contest the centre square and take everything in the forward half, while Macca parked himself 35m out from the Blues goal and took all the ballups in the back half.

It probably wasn't as effective against Carlton due to them having 3 ruckmen but against the likes of North, Port, Brisbane, Footscray, Freo, Adelaide, Richmond and GWS, who all rely on a single ruck doing the bulk of the work, it could be a huge asset.

With the umps throwing the ball up around the ground ruckmen have less time to get to the contest. There were a couple of times in the first half where 2 midfielders went up because the rucks were so far away. Scotty caught this and adjusted.

For all the praise Malthouse is getting for putting Henderson (a forward) ya know... forward, I really thought that Scotty outcoached him all night.

Geary to Murphy was inspired.
Roberton stopped Betts and got on the other way.
Newnes and Ross rotating on Judd was a perfect lesson to give them.
The move of Riewoldt deep in the first qtr when it became obvious that no-one could stop him.
He got Milne and Saad up the ground and into the action so that they didn't starve.

Just a really great team performance from the head coach down last night.

I thought Dal Santo was on Judd?

 

[sammm]

There was somthing like 15 times BT said it. Throw in Darcy with at least 8, Richo with 5 or so and Ling with one you get nearly 30 times they said it. On an average quarter of 30 minutes it was said once every 4 minutes.

thats because McEvoy was everywhere

 

[Squizz]

I never get sick of yelling "let them rot!" when the final siren sounds v Carlton.

I thought a rousing rendition of the Carlton theme song was in order for the spineless supporters who tried to duck out before the siren.

"C'mon guys - you know the words!!!"

"YA DE DA DE DAR, YA DE DA DE DAR ... ... !!!"

 

[Squizz]

First and last reminder this is a game review thread. Any more teary reminiscing will be moved elsewhere!!!

 

[stkildathunda]

First and last reminder this is a game review thread. Any more teary reminiscing will be moved elsewhere!!!

Booooooooooooo

 

[L_W_P]

I thought Dal Santo was on Judd?

He may well have gone head to head with him most of the night. I guess I was just paying more attention to the kids so the 4-5 times I noticed them with an arm across Judd at ball ups stuck out.

 

[Half Back Pocket]

Big Bad Squiz!

 

[Persevering Saint]

He may well have gone head to head with him most of the night. I guess I was just paying more attention to the kids so the 4-5 times I noticed them with an arm across Judd at ball ups stuck out.

I thought that was coaching genius by Watters. If Dal is going to be tagged, just put him on his equivalent player, and get them to go head to head. Dal might end up with two on him, further nullifying his effectiveness, but he will nullify the effectiveness of those two players - the good player will have to argue with Dal, and the tagger on Dal will have nothing to do. It directly contributed to Steven getting off the leash as much as he did.

 

[aussierulesrules]

I thought that was coaching genius by Watters.

I'm actually a bit surprised that it took as long as it did for us to pull that sort of move. The two common options you have when someone is being tagged out of games on a regular basis are to either move them to a different area of the ground, like across HB or to the forward line, or else to send them to someone else, to create the exact sort of situation we saw on Monday night.

I guess the fact that we had CJ playing so well on the types that Dal would have been suited to going to probably delayed us from making that move, but we probably got to the point where we decided it simply had to be done and CJ payed the price. Having said that, Gears is now playing the type of role CJ was, so maybe we just didn't think of it sooner.

 

[The Enemy Within]

That we need 4 instead of 3 at the centre bounces to win a clearance.

 

[blktreacle]

I'm actually a bit surprised that it took as long as it did for us to pull that sort of move. The two common options you have when someone is being tagged out of games on a regular basis are to either move them to a different area of the ground, like across HB or to the forward line, or else to send them to someone else, to create the exact sort of situation we saw on Monday night.

I guess the fact that we had CJ playing so well on the types that Dal would have been suited to going to probably delayed us from making that move, but we probably got to the point where we decided it simply had to be done and CJ payed the price. Having said that, Gears is now playing the type of role CJ was, so maybe we just didn't think of it sooner.

Im struggling to see how CJ will get too many more games if geary is in form. i think geary has a much better skill set than CJ

 

[MordySaint]

Is it just me or is the whole football world in love in Ben McEvoy? The commentators, our fans and even opposition supporters. There is nothing better in football than a big man turning it on.

Plus Kudos to Scott Watters - his best game yet.... Respect.

 

[hayes]

Geary is a much better option for CJ's role because there's no issue if he gets taken forward. I thought we'd moved on from Geary to the midfield but here we are. He'll be good in there. Wright going down makes it harder to keep him out of the backline but I'm sure Webster will fill in nicely. For mine:

Out: Wright.
In: Saunders (sub)

Milne's last chance. His game against Carlton was a shocker with his shocking, unnecessary turnovers. Just keep it simple Milney, biting off far more than he can chew this year which is one of his biggest signs that he's out of form.

Geary to Dangerfield.
Dal to Thompson.

 

[Persevering Saint]

Which is exactly why CJ didn't play. He was still being defined as a tagger. The two players that would be tagged in that game were Murphy and Judd. The problem is, both those players can drift forward, and we'd seen several times in the last few weeks that when Jones has to switch from being a midfield tagger to a defender, he is often not up to the task. So Watters put Geary on Murphy, because Geary CAN most definitely play as a defender. And Scott put Dal on Judd, for the reasons we've mentioned. Thus, as a tagger, Jones became superfluous.

I would have said that would have freed up Jones to be an inside mid, getting us clearances. If we'd used him in that regard, I think it would have made a big difference. I said before the game that, "Lose the clearances, lose the game". Well we lost the clearances, and VERY nearly lost the game. I can't find the stats for the final quarter, but I think we would have been just behind the centre clearances until that last quarter, and then were blown away by the Blues' Judd and Murphy. If we had won those clearances, then the ball would have been going down our end instead of the Blues - suddenly, Henderson and Hampson in the Blues forward-50 would have nothing to do but think about getting home to their Missus after the game.

I have said, several times, I think the one or two mistakes we're making at selection, pretty much every week, are costing us about 20 points per game. Not playing another inside midfielder - so at the very least, playing Jones in that role if he's not going to tag - did just that on Monday night. We SHOULD have won that game by about 30ish points.

 

[tbarker]

Is it just me or is the whole football world in love in Ben McEvoy? The commentators, our fans and even opposition supporters. There is nothing better in football than a big man turning it on.

Plus Kudos to Scott Watters - his best game yet.... Respect.

I am probably going to get slaughtered for saying this but I thought McEvoy got toweled up by Warnock all night and it nearly cost us the game along with the lack of players at centre bounces. Otherwise a masterful game from McEvoy but thank goodness we had Hickey to give him a chop out and also give us flexibility.

 

[Sheeza69]

I pretty much agree with everything people have said about our players. I thought there was a lot to like from so many of them. My lessons from this match are less about players, and more about structure.

But before I get to structure, let me quickly say, there are not enough facepalms for suggestions that Stanley is a bad backman. He's fine. He's essentially a debutant this year, played 7ish games in the role, and has had one game where his opponent got away from him. Give him 30 games in the role, he'll probably be AA.

Structurally, we needed another tall and another senior inside mid - or hell, ANY inside mid. FACT: we lost the clearances 33 to 44, and that's despite Carlton's rotations being ruined by injuries in the first quarter. One of the main reasons Carlton came back in that last quarter was because they started demolishing us in the guts, clearance after clearance. If Hayes, Jones or even Ledger or Curren had played, the ball wouldn't have been going into Carlton's forward 50 every two seconds in that last quarter. It may well have been going into ours. THEN the game is much safer for us.

Add to that, we essentially had four big talls out there, spread between three positions, when we needed five: Roo, Hickey, Macca and Stanley. We started with one in the back (Stanley), one in the ruck (Macca), two in the forward line (Hickey, Roo). What that meant was, when things got too stretched down back, we switched to two in the back (Stanley, Macca), one in the ruck (Hickey), ONE in the forward line (Roo). Unsurprisingly, we found it hard to score in our forward line, even when we DID get it down there, because structurally we were way off. A BETTER solution is one less small, replaced by Beau when he gets back. THEN we'll have a completely different situation.

THEN, we'll have a one back, one ruck, THREE forward, to stretch defences. But if things go bad in the backline, we can have two backs (Macca floating back), one ruck (Hickey from the forward line), and still have TWO talls in the forward line. That will still make things tough for the opposition.

Can't agree more..
Jake Carlisle's a much better defender when he's not solely the only big man down back..
Without support, many quality key talls will struggle.. Either forward or back two tall KP players, generally enables the better player to have greater impact on the game..!

 

[Sheeza69]

Geary is a much better option for CJ's role because there's no issue if he gets taken forward. I thought we'd moved on from Geary to the midfield but here we are. He'll be good in there. Wright going down makes it harder to keep him out of the backline but I'm sure Webster will fill in nicely. For mine:

Out: Wright.
In: Saunders (sub)

Milne's last chance. His game against Carlton was a shocker with his shocking, unnecessary turnovers. Just keep it simple Milney, biting off far more than he can chew this year which is one of his biggest signs that he's out of form.

Geary to Dangerfield.
Dal to Thompson.

Maybe CJ in for Wright, & he can either tag or play inside..With the Crows going with a smaller forward line, Gears maybe needed back to allow us the CJ option to tag Dangerfield/Thompson. If CJ get's dragged down back, Gears can switch & CJ reverts back as an inside mid..Got killed in the clearances when the Blues ran riot last qtr..

 

[Fehring]

Im struggling to see how CJ will get too many more games if geary is in form. i think geary has a much better skill set than CJ

While I see merit to your argument, I would say that I think CJ may actually be a better shot at goal than Geary.

 

[Sainttony]

While I see merit to your argument, I would say that I think CJ may actually be a better shot at goal than Geary.

Gears should have kicked three goals on Monday but missed them all.

Was also not very happy when Ahmed was asked to play on during his walk in. If they are going to do that he may need to change his approach to a much shorter walk in.
As contravertial as Murali being called for throwing

 

[Barrels]

• I honestly don't know what game some people are watching. Stanley outpointed his opponent for nearly the whole game but I still see some criticising him here. He is a perfect player for the likes of Hampson. I was really happy with his game and see him improving week by week. Can't possibly work out how anyone could say otherwise but it is a free country I guess.

Agreed. The desperate spoil on Hampson in a one-on-one on the lead in the third quarter (I think) exhibited why he should stay there at FB. He has the crazy pace to not be beaten on the lead by quicker FFs, but the height (and leap) to challenge the gorillas once he fills out properly and learns the craft better.

I think it was Richo who mentioned after that spoil, that Stanley's pace for a big lad made him worthwhile persisting with down back and that once he learnt to use his body he'd be quite handy.

The point by Ian Dunross re McEvoy and needing 4-5 preseasons shouldn't be lost. Big guys, by and large, take longer to mature physically. Macca has only really done so lately, and Rhys is nearly 18 months younger than Ben, and hasn't had the relative luxury of being settled into the one position.

Also hasn't had a settled line up or consistent experienced team-mates around him all year. Will get better. And if he moves forward in years to come, will be better for the experience.

 

[hayes]

Anyone have the contested ball stats from this game? I couldn't find them to save my life.