Autopsy Round 1, 2022: St.Kilda v Collingwood

[BrutThough]

Disappointed in the result but mainly frustrated because we looked like two different teams throughout the game, and one of those teams was great to watch. The issue was the other version of us wasn't. Despite the result, it was just great to be live at a game again.

- Hayes was great. So hard to believe he's never been on a list before. 3 goals on debut, some incredible marks and just handled every moment so well. Hasn't made it easy for Ryder to walk back in (I'd fit them both in if we had that luxury!)

- While Hayes will get a lot of the credit, I thought it was Sinclair who changed the game in the third quarter. As soon as he went into the midfield, we suddenly looked dangerous and alive. gringo2011 was right about moving him into the middle with our outs. Was surprised to see criticism of Gresham in here too. His 2nd half was a huge reason we were in the game. He is a midfielder who makes us a much better side.

- I reject the notion (I think it was from Rieowldt) that we only decided to 'try' in the 3rd quarter. There was a lot of positional and structural changes which occurred that helped us get on top, it wasnt suddenly from the players just trying more. As mentioned, Sinclair and Gresh into the middle. DMac to half back, Ross replaced him on the wing. Changed the position of the forwards. We started defending a lot deeper rather than being dragged up the field which cos us a few in the first. We got a lot better at keeping a defender back too. Took Byrnes out of the middle. My biggest question is why it took us so long to make some changes? As soon as Sinclair and Gresh went on the ball, we were a different team. And why was there multiple centre bounces at the start of the 2nd where we went with Steele, Byrnes and Owens? That really needed addressed moving forward.

- Higgins is incredible frustrating because he is walking that fine line between being dominant and costing us. Tonight is was the latter. King's misses also costly, especially since they were so gettable, but he was a big reason we were still in the game at half time. Another week where he seemed to always be double teamed - great coaching by Collingwood to constantly have Howe coming across as one of the few who can get high enough to compete with him in the air.

- Marshall is a superstar and should be playing as the number 1 ruck every week. Not much more to say about him.

- Probably the worst game Howard has played for us. I also thought Webster needs to work out where he fits with Paton in the side too. Battle was fine - not great but promising in the role. Wilkie worked into the game. Hill was pretty good - naturally we looked better when the ball was in his hands and his defensive/contested work has improved greatly. He made some mistakes but there was also a point where he took some risk to help us try to win. They didnt work but overall, happy with his performance.

- Forward line structure needs a lot of improvement. I just don't think we are making the most of the players we have in there at the moment.

Of the rest
Membrey was his usual, reliable self. Crouch's defensive and contested work impressed me tonight - nut sure if thats something you just dont notice on TV or if it was improved on last year but I liked his game. Steele was good but just below what's become his usual standard. Owens wasn't ready. Byrnes was okay in the last, but those first 3 quarters were a long way off it. Kent just bad. I like what DMac brings to the team. Wood solid. Ross played well - less numbers in the 2nd half as a result of moving to the wing but he used it well and made good decision. Butler didnt hit the scoreboard but you could see his tackle/pressure work so thats a tick for 50% of the role.

Improvement needed - hopefully there is someone fit who can come back - but bring on Freo.

 

[Munga]

I actually thought our ball-use moving it forward was ok. But it's hard not seeing the entire field live and what's happening beyond the ball. I'm not talking about our forward entries though, just moving it up the field seemed an improvement somehow.

Even when every fibre wanted quick ball movement from a mark, some players realised we were outnumbered at the next contest and had some composure to hold it while our numbers got there.

And our fitness seems a large improvement on this time last year.

I don't think things are dire, we'll improve from here. I think there are some interesting signs, can't explain it much though haha. But our midfield will struggle big time all year, that's just a cattle issue, we're yet to get up to standard there.

If we can neutralise the midfield, and umps, we'll snag a few wins.
But we won't touch a premiership until we get the cattle in the midfield.

 

[puppy_dog7]

Another year, another big prime time game with expectations and another absolute shit the bed performance again. Rinse repeat

Mentally weak club. Always have been always will

 

[Max the great]

You didn’t find that dour to watch?

It was exactly as I explained it.

Narrow defensive zone allowing chip kicks out wide
When we pressure at half back the ruck will support down the line
Work towards half forward who will mark and roll long to the forwards running back
Happy to give the quarter back 35m whilst we zone off trying to win the next kick
Selection wise:
Got pumped in the centre - however Hayes competed around the ground and surprisingly nearly won us the match
Owens Windhager NWM not ready yet for senior footy

Outside of butler we lack good pressure smalls

Butler? Boy oh boy. He was absolutely disgraceful tonight. His missus would be absolutely over having to get up 5 times a night to turn the lights back off. Don't even get me started on the arrogant tricky handballs he attempts that literally never come off!

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[Max the great]

The boys had a dip.

Collingwood were very good tonight I hate to say. hats off.

Mids need a lift. SInclair is on career best form. Back him in next week. Gresh needs to be in at centre clearances more.

On anyone bagging the coaching. I’m not Rattens biggest fan but I thought his Move of Sinclair into the midfield at half time was pivotal to our turnaround.

We didn’t have 22 blokes contribute tonight.

Kent Byrnes Owens awful.

Higgins worked hard but produced turd after turd with ball in hand.

I thought Wood was Ok. Worked hard back Into Defence. But is he a good match up for Sidebottom ??

But who is available ??

Sharman structurally doesn’t work unless you drop Hayes.

Connolly Or Long to half back so Sinclair can go into the mids.

Outside of that the well is dry.

Is Highmore available

What about Rattens move to chuck Owens in the centre bounce with 10 minutes to go when the game is on the line after he hardly sniffed it all night?

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[saint66au]

In other stuff from tonight, those new screens are super-crisp but why use 1/3 of them for an ad logo and another 1/3 with scores that are duplicated on the old screen??. Also HATE the flashing lights after a Saints goal

Lucky there wasnt a fire, with one of the cityside ramps to L3 gone and the concourse only half width, the crush to get out post game was pretty ugly

 

[D2D3]

I just straight up don't believe you couldn't play Sharman alongside King, Membrey and Hayes. From what I saw of Hayes tonight, he's just another quality footballer. Obviously, you lose some forward pressure if you drop Kent, but I feel like you're so much better off in other areas that you wind up being way better off.

I'm also not buying that Highmore isn't in our best team. It seems like the club is really invested in making Battle work somewhere. At this stage, I'm not optimistic he will. We've found a bunch of better forwards, we've got better wing options and I think we've got better options down back. He's probably going to get more opportunities to prove himself, and I hope he does, but I'm no longer a believer.

Lastly, I feel like Owens was set up to fail tonight. 45% game time in the first quarter and I don't believe he got much (if any) midfield time. All the pregame hype around him seemed to indicate the club had faith in him, but that's not how it looked out there tonight. Then, for some reason, later in the game, they're putting him in at centre bounces, including lining him up on Pendlebury. I really don't think that debut served him or the club very well.

It's not quite Richo picking Lewis Pierce over Marshall because Witts is big and scary, but there's enough weird stuff going on that I think we should let Ratten coach out his contract before making any decisions. Whoever does our SA recruiting needs to be signed to a forever contract, though.

I’m not even convinced you do loose forward pressure playing Sharman over Kent. Kent still plays like a marking forward anyway not a pressure one. Might as well play the full sized marking forward.

 

[Plugger35]

It’s actually a joke. Razor was a ******* disgrace as per usual

Razor was one of Collingwood's best players tonight, constantly killed our momentum with a bullshit free Collingwood's way.

We got a few frees against us at the bounce, free kick Collingwood, sorry Marshall you were standing too close to Grundy, blocking free.

So easy for umpires to cheat there and it is a massive advantage, a kick out of the centre and a goal, Collingwood got at least 2 goals from that.

 

[AirWinmar]

I normally wait a day after a bad loss but l need to get it out of my skull.

After the first 10 minutes l new we'd lose.

3 preseasons now under Ratts and Rath and our structures, positioning and running patterns are still VFL standard or below.
The first year l put down to newness. The second year l put down to injuries and exceptional circumstances. But no more.

We are not AFL standard in most aspects that matter. The list is "ok" but we continue to be a dog's breakfast on field. Crowding the drop point with no structure or exit strategy what so ever. The same goes for anywhere on the field. It feels like Richo is still in charge but we lack the grunt of those dark days.

My outs right now are Ratts and Rath. Happy with Hayes and Owens though.

You can never tell from the TV but l didn't see any lack of effort from the players, just poor organization in general.

Gutted.

Completely agree with you. Our structures, forward entries and cohesion is amateur level. Terrible to watch and requires max effort and individuals playing out of their skin to win. We had a good trick in 2020, but it's been found out and we don't have another 1

 

[Max the great]

I’m not even convinced you do loose forward pressure playing Sharman over Kent. Kent still plays like a marking forward anyway not a pressure one. Might as well play the full sized marking forward.

Yep. What pressure? The only pressure he brings is on his team mates when he spills a 15m dink kick on his chest and they have to try to win it back.

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[AirWinmar]

To be fair no one leads for each other. We are the anti Melbourne, we seem to ignore each other and chase personal glory. We look like under 9s. King was running up the ground chasing marks with fu** all structure behind him. Three Saints defenders would all go for the same ball and still lose it with opposition players in space behind them. It was comical. If there is a game plan, I'm not sure the player know it. A poster on here with contacts said that the players had complained that they didn't understand our game plan early last year. It looks like they still don't.

I mentioned it in another post. There were times we had the ball at half forward, fairly open forward line man on man and every forward was standing still and around 10 meters away from each so when we went the surprise lofted ball to King 2 other defenders could easily drift across

 

[Hubnester]

Razor was one of Collingwood's best players tonight, constantly killed our momentum with a bullshit free Collingwood's way.

We got a few frees against us at the bounce, free kick Collingwood, sorry Marshall you were standing too close to Grundy, blocking free.

So easy for umpires to cheat there and it is a massive advantage, a kick out of the centre and a goal, Collingwood got at least 2 goals from that.

My favourite was the incorrect disposal call which he magically witnessed through two players with their backs to him. But the constant throws out of the middle were let go no worries

 

[aussierulesrules]

Marshall is not a great first ruck against the better ones. Our midfield needs to improve drastically if we want to play him as one.

Well if we were to add a couple of guys like Jones and Clark in place of Mitch Owens for a start and had Gresh closer to full match-fitness it would drastically improve our midfield.

Unfortunately half our best midfield (including Ryder) were watching on in the stands or at home tonight.

 

[Ice-Wolf]

Razor was one of Collingwood's best players tonight, constantly killed our momentum with a bullshit free Collingwood's way.

We got a few frees against us at the bounce, free kick Collingwood, sorry Marshall you were standing too close to Grundy, blocking free.

So easy for umpires to cheat there and it is a massive advantage, a kick out of the centre and a goal, Collingwood got at least 2 goals from that.

Agree would give Razor the BOG for Collingwood, would be a joke if he didn't award himself the 3 votes.

 

[Patty_vanda]

Firstly, happy to admit I got it wrong about Hayes. He was terrific tonight and looked a totally different player than over the pre season games.

Now to the negatives

1. Our defensive game is embarrassing. We don't have the cattle to rely on a one on one game in defence. Our best key defender is a good average player and we have little after that.

I expected big changes under Enright but tonight was awful. Conceding 100 points to a bottom 4 side.

2. Our midfield is second rate. Yes we had a few out but only one you can argue is a starting mid.

The sad thing is I can't see where the improvement comes from anytime soon outside of Jones coming back.

The ace up our sleeves should be Clark but the fact we have refused to play him in the middle most of his career means he is green and has a lot of development to go through.

Guys like Cerra and Brayshaw taken in the same draft have been playing midfield for a number of years and look set to become elite mids of the comp.

We have also decided to ignore midfielders in the first round for 2 years straight and are hoping guys like Byrne's and Bytel will do it for us.

Summary - Unfortunately we don't have the cattle in defence or the midfield and our defensive game plan is not going to get us anywhere any time soon.

Spot on. We are crying out for an elite intercept defender IMO. And even then the midfield still has holes.

Mid table team stuck in no mans land unfortunately

 

[AirWinmar]

This is the most braindead under 12s gameplan ever. Bomb it long and hope someone takes a mark. If they don’t understand this we’ve got some pretty simple players

I was actually wandering if the players went against the coaching directive in the 3rd , when they started linking up a bit

 

[aussierulesrules]

IMO Wood was beaten badly by Sidebottom, McKenzie on the other wing had a lot more impact.

Not sure how you could say he was “badly beaten” when Sidebottom had 16 touches and 2 goals to Wood’s 13 touches, 1 goal, 8 marks and two contested marks.

As I said pre-game I don’t think wing is Wood’s best position by any means, but he was pretty solid there.

 

[StCicatriz]

Yeah, a few days ago I was singing his praises, now I'm getting serious Pelican vibes from the whole lot of them. Hawks 2015 game plan and list build might be a dated model.

I dont even know what the way out of this is now...

Like it makes me sick to my stomach knowing even when Melbourne sacked a whole bunch of their football dept it still took them 8 years to get a flag.

New recruiter. New coach in roos. Full list rebuild.

So even if we sack the lot now. Are we really staring down the barrel of 8 years. 2030.

The similarities are crazy though. Like Jack billings reminds me so much of Jack watts it's not funny.

 

[Plugger35]

Jack Hayes is blowing up.

Concreter turned 'cult hero' stuns AFL world

'How on earth has he not been on a list?'

wwos.nine.com.au

We might have to re-negotiate his contract.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

Jack Hayes is blowing up.

Concreter turned 'cult hero' stuns AFL world

'How on earth has he not been on a list?'

wwos.nine.com.au

If only we could clone him and his endeavour.

 

[StCicatriz]

 

[Patty_vanda]

This is a big problem with the culture inside the club now.

Hill was struggling. So instead of having him work through it and hold him to a standard he was recruited on we went and moved the entire structure of the side out the way to make room for him on the HBF. Because we can't stomach the idea that maybe 800k for Brad Hill hasn't worked out.

Now it's created a whole bunch of issues in the back 6 because surprise surprise hill can't actually defend to save himself.

Meanwhile at the same time the dees recruited Langdon who gut runs his ass off & has a genuine crack.

 

[StCicatriz]

Meanwhile at the same time the dees recruited langden who gut runs his ass off & has a genuine crack.

I've loved langdon ever since I saw him play u18 footy at leederville oval against WA

It's just infuriating we are effectively got a football dept playing glorified super coach giving widely changing assessments of where we are at.

Theyre either lying to us or they genuinely have no idea where we are at

 

[Plugger35]

I long for the good old days in the 2000s under GT when we had a forwardline of Riewoldt, G-Train, Kosi, Hamill with Milney swooping on the scraps.

Higgins is a poor man's Milney, Milney would convert about 9/10 crumbing chances, Higgins will convert about 4/10 chances.

 

[Patty_vanda]

Something which really made me scratch my head:

I think just before half time they showed the GPS kilometres covered for each team. We'd run about 12km more as a team than Collingwood (139km to 127km I think). This is despite them looking quicker and having too much space going forward. That really suggests to me something is wrong with our game plan.

Yes mate. It means there running all over the ground like headless chooks with no structure in place.

It was clear as day for the most part that Collingwood were out numbering us at just about every contest. Even Bucks said it was a credit to the pies work rate around the ground. & yet we’ve ran more km’s . Go figure