Autopsy 2024 AFL Season: Rnd 21 Saints v Lions

[OxSaint]

Very tough watch.

Bonner needs to go. Surely getting a game into a kid is more important than anything Bonner can offer.

Still not seeing Mitch as a forward. But the whole forward line lack seperation today. Lions defenders barely had to compete in the air, we competed with ourselves instead.

Mids were putrid. Lions mid waltzing out of centre bounce untouched was embarrassing.
Some have gone after Dow which I thought was harsh. Can’t blame the sub that come on once it was all over. Made one mistake late, but had good moments as well.

Dougal looked awful again, he always manages to let Daniher look like Wayne Carey.

They played Nas beautifully. Anyone marked be Nas worked hard forward and made him defend which he failed to do on multiple occasions. Played some midfield but he is a long way off on his contest work.

Good to see Pou impact through the middle and getting some pill.

Ultimately, whenever an oppo midfiled has power and speed we get obliterated.

 

[Ads734]

Also , all those who said Gus couldn’t kick. Lol looked as neat as ever.

 

[JG22]

So the wallper thing didn't work. 2 or 3 more good drafts before we rise up the ladder. Gotta replace 6 or so I think? Need a monster ruck (ROMA a big mid), 3x mids, another tall back and another tall fwd.

Spot on. No more crucial a draft than this one with likely 2 picks inside 7

 

[Saints TV]

 

[Rogue Warrior]

I was very frustrated with our lack of pressure and physicality. There were opportunities for our blokes to legally hammer an opp player and they didn’t.
3 on 1 vs Charlie Cameron

23

Charlie Cameron

Age

30

Ht

180cm

Wt

76kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.1

3star

K

8.4

3star

HB

3.7

3star

M

3.0

3star

T

3.2

5star

G

1.5

5star

D

9.6

2star

K

7.9

3star

HB

1.7

1star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.7

3star

G

1.9

5star

D

9.6

3star

K

5.4

2star

HB

4.2

4star

M

1.4

2star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.2

4star

and they all spread to provide an option, when a simple and legal shepherd would have taken him out of the contest.

In addition, the lions consistently looked to have bigger bodies around the contest. Looked boys against men at times.

Lastly, while they had a lot of supply our defensive structure looked very poor. It’s normally reliable but today they managed to get 1 on 1s on a slow play with high balls in and still manage to take a mark.

It’s incredibly demoralising how hard it is for us to rebuild the midfield, without giving up talent, when Brisbane will likely finish top 2 and again get a top 3 pick (and probably a later 1st rounder). This is in addition to grabbing pick 3 (Ashcroft), pick 12 (Fletcher) + Dunkley in 1 off-season, while finishing top 4. On what planet is that an equal competition. Nothing short of disgraceful. This sort of garbage makes the league reminiscent of the Premier League. The AFL needs to stop taking about equalisation and admit they have no interest in equalisation.

 

[Murraj1966]

The difference between a premiership calibre midfield and our midfield was on show today for all to see. That was an abysmal effort from all involved bar Pou.

Defence had 0 chance to setup with the amount the ball was coming in direct from centre clearance so I can't put as much heat on them as they were under the pump all game and it showed. Brisbane's pressure was immense and we didn't help ourselves with the constant shooting ourselves in the foot though.

As expected from that the forwards received some of the worst delivery I've ever seen so our problem stems from the one area we've all been complaining about for years and years that never seems to be a priority.

That's right, our half back flanker situation. We need 10 more.

 

[Saints TV]

What did we learn from today's lesson?

 

[tomjoad]

Also , all those who said Gus couldn’t kick. Lol looked as neat as ever.

He did some good things, and looked comfortable and confident enough. There was a lot worse playing out there.

 

[Ephemeral Hope]

Ah a new vomit gif I like it

 

[Nutsngum]

Probably the worst ive seen us play in 5 years. Almost no pressure on the ball carrier, dropping simple marks, no communication at the ball drop, multiple players leaving their men to put on ineffectual "pressure". The list goes on.

On top of that, Brisbane played a near perfect game. Almost no unforced errors, kicked extremely straight, ran with freedom and got the bounce of every ball right into their laps.

You can barely read a thing into it in the same way you cant truly read into Sydney being 70 points to 0 last night.

Pros are Philipou continuing on his good form and you can tell he loves and cares about playing well. Another pre-season and he is going to be impacting games.
McLennan didnt look out of touch of the game at all, very good debut.

 

[Brains Trust66]

Really it’s the same guys each week keeping in the game , well most weeks . This will be shown when the votes for the season are added up . It’s disappointing that three quarters of the team played poorly. I don’t blame the younger players because you know they are always going to be up and down throughout the season . McLennon look promising, Pou was terrific, NAS tried hard but basically it’s Sinclair , Steele , Marshall , Battle , Wilkie and the young kids . It’s hard to put much blame on the forwards too as the ball was mostly down the other end .
I don’t understand how it’s basically our mids that have been playing well except in our bad loses it’s the oppositions mids that killed us . So I guess it’s guys like Hill , Wood , Membrey, Howard who play well when the team is firing but go missing when things get hard . Plus our two recruits that we had big hopes for in Dow and Bonner who have been very disappointing.

Also can you blame the coach for not making moves like throwing Higgins on the ball as he was wasted standing in the forward line when the ball is never coming .

I’m not have ago at those players as no one goes out to play and deliberately play bad but something needs to be fixed but I’m at a loss as to what to do .
At the end of the season questions will have to be asked about guys like Jones , Ross ( I know he’s been injured but he’s playing in the twos now .) Campbell and guys like Allison who has been around for a long period without getting a senior game .

 

[Mav3rick]

Geez we're a fickle bunch, last week Battle was staying and everyone was stoked, now it's let him walk we need to draft another mid. Yes we need midfield talent clearly but more draft picks won't help the current group, free agency or trade could.

 

[Riewoldt]

Take this with a grain of salt (because I made it myself), but I was quite surprised when I read that Brisbane's team was younger tonight. This probably looks better with Windhager, Henry and King, but regardless we got done by 85. Paints a grim picture when its possible (likely?) they win the flag and get the best player in the draft



FWIW I've got no agenda here, just thought it was interesting.

 

[akaifu]

Also , all those who said Gus couldn’t kick. Lol looked as neat as ever.

Gus is an adequate kick, its just his decision making that is sometimes questionable. Batch literally said that the only downfall to Gus' development this season has been his ball use, and you can see that he's a very safe user without taking on any risky kicks. Plays within his limits so doesn't make mistakes, although there was a shocker in the second half

 

[mad-saint-guy]

Played our grand final last week and I'm okay with that. Shit performance but we were heavily outgunned.

Good to see Pou pick up where he left off. Gus didn't look out of place. Stocker had some fight in him. Please can we never play Bonner again?

 

[Waiting for Godot]

I’m not big on Dow but he at least deserves a bit of leniency. He has barely played all year. Been injured for 70% of it and hasn’t played in 5-6 weeks

That pretty much mirrors his career at Carlton. We took on their "Billings".

 

[Saintos The ITK]

Not too sure how bringing in blokes that can’t get a game at their club is meant to improve our club.

 

[Saintbloke]

Only one positive was that Gus looked like he has a future- the rest was rubbish by the team and coach.

 

[jimmytigs]

suns losing woke us up i think,at least we fixed our % issue now,bit of a buffer there,really would have been a totally wasted season if we climbed a couple more spots for nothing

 

[LJC05]

Mattaes further solidified the belief I’ve had in him in this game. He didn’t stop competing and you can tell he actually gives a shit, which is refreshing.

I’m a broken record on this but jeez the Lions were just just so much bigger and taller than us that when things aren’t going our way, we just cannot compete against size and strength to turn the game in critical contests. We need some bigger and taller bodies on this team.

 

[Sully111]

It was like Men vs Boys out there.

Ready to put this season to bed to be honest.

 

[austinnn]

Let's be honest with ourselves, we've had a few good wins of late, but we've also played a number of teams out of form.

Today was a bit od a reality check of where we are actually at.

This for me is the most important point of all the points made on this thread. Sydney, West Coast, and Essendon gave us plenty of space to play well - three of the lowest pressure oppositions we've faced this year, it was obvious we were going to face a different animal this week.

Also, we were amazingly accurate last week, unfortunately it was also unsustainable.

I'm not shocked, I just hoped we'd put up more of a fight, but it seems plenty of our players thought it would be a bit easier thsn it was after winning for a massive three weeks on a row against traffic cones from NSW, WA and VIC. We have very suspect senior leadership if you ask me.

 

[Klaatu]

It was like Men vs Boys out there.

Ready to put this season to bed to be honest.

Intimidated & bullied our side, were is our mongrel player i can't name 1, also i was seduced by Dougal over the past weeks last night back trailing in like a caravan, you can't give 5 metres when their mid fields on top.

 

[beside the seaside]

The Lions are a very good side. They got on top of us in every area including pressure.

It hurts when you see Ashcroft out there and you know another top 3 pick is incoming. How do we catch them?

We need to build the midfield out around Phillipou. Can Wilson end up an inside mid? What's Windys ceiling?

Not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater but that was a serious window into how far we have to go.

Their two best mids they got in through trading. Eventually we need to be able to get gun players in through free agency and trades. How we work that into the strategy when competing against bigger clubs is the challenge.

 

[pebblesofsand]

Brutal demonstration of the need for quality mids.

So the very harsh professional equation becomes - do you pay $900k a year for 5 years for a 3rd defender or play someone like Schoenmaker and spend the extra $600k a year on top of what you'd offer the likes of LDU or Brayshaw.