Autopsy Round 15, 2021: Richmond v St.Kilda *CONNOLLY DEBUT*

[CursingFijian]

I’d like to know if he’s ever hit a bloke who was looking at him.

If you’re on the ground and exposed then that’s his territory, weak as piss and twice as yellow cheap shot merchant.

Turned the gut punch in to gutless with his late snipe on Dunstan.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Missed membery last game. We just simple win with him playing. He would have been the spare down back.

I don’t remember hearing… did we get a father/son or a father/daughter pick from him?

 

[plugger66]

I don’t remember hearing… did we get a father/son or a father/daughter pick from him?

No idea but I do know he shouldn’t have a baby in footy season. Neither should Ross or Carlisle.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

I don’t remember hearing… did we get a father/son or a father/daughter pick from him?

We can’t assume gender nowadays, have to let the child decide at their 3rd birthday party with the support of all their friends

 

[Diehard Saint]

No idea but I do know he shouldn’t have a baby in footy season. Neither should Ross or Carlisle.

Too right.
He would have been back in defence against the Crows and probably save us the game.
( I’m only half joking)

 

[John2010362340]

We’ve won our last 6 with Ryder and Marshall plying together, I don’t count Cats because we were leading when Marshall went down.. unfortunate, hope Ryder plays on..

 

[BigMonty]

Looked like Richmond players had the flu. They were just not on and after the defeat against WCE last week and the trip back were probably ripe for the picking. They looked really unsharp.

No Lynch certainly did not help and their injuries during the game again did not help.

We made our usual mistakes and they did not hurt us on the rebound...

Let's face it against Adelaide we played like a team that did not have the confidence to win because we lacked the confidence from a season of dissapointment and disruption of our structures to win. When Adelaide pressed with run and pressure we did not answer it and rolled over.

This was our line in the sand game. From the start we showed intensity at the ball and the opponent and with hard nuts Dunstan Long and DMAC ensuring all contests were very contested we showed what we as a team can do.... play hard not pretty but get the job done.

Marshall straightens us up and we start running straight and guess what we start kicking goals through forward pressure as we are confident on where the ball is going.

Our team are not great skilled footballers but we can be pretty irresistible when we have a structure that we play to.

That has been missing most of the season and why we win 123% of the time with Marshall and Ryder....simples.

Go Saints

On SM-G977B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[stavro#4]

I'm more frustrated about the Adelaide and Sydney games now that we beat Richmond.

Geelong. Christ is even throw in Melbourne in round 2. So many chances that night

Strange what a win does. Apart from a couple our recruits now look good. He will get another year. Butler mckernan Frawley and hanners are the only ones struggling now and pick wise they cost us nothing. One cost is money but only for one more year. The rest cheap as chips.

Butler had 2 of the latest whistles I’ve seen as he was galloping into open goals 35 out. He has been that close for weeks to putting in a few 2020 performances

Looking at the backline last night with Howard, Wilkie and Highmore as best 22 defenders. Sinclair really hitting his straps as a small defender with Paton hopefully coming back at his best too. Webster and DMac doing there thing. Battle playing defensively. Long to me is still a defender but his move forward for that extra spark seemed to help last night. Then throw Connolly now into that mix as well is there any room for Coff and Clark in that backline anymore or do we develop them into the midfielders they were drafted to be? Clark is amazing to watch when he is winning ball at the contest and pretty much having the rest of the season off both him and the coaching staff should reassess his development strategy with the view of more midfield time and what he needs to do be successful in that position. Coff is an interesting one. We've seen his skills as an intercepting HBF but going back to an article from 3yrs ago they speak of his explosive speed in a 30m sprint. He looked slow last night and eventually coming off with a hamstring complaint I wonder if the coaching staff do the same as Clark and reassess his development too and regain his explosive speed and play him in the middle as that bigger bodied midfielder who can explode out of centre bounces. Could be wrong in my thinking here....happy to get roasted for my thinking.

I really enjoyed Coffields game the longer it went on. It felt so relaxed when he was under a high ball 1:1. Was looking like he was finding touch in a more attacking role higher up the ground.

Win those 3 (which we obviously had every opportunity to do) and all-things-being-equal we’d be 9-5 right now, despite the fact we’ve been missing as many as 9 of our best 22 all season (9 in R1, back to 9 last week- then lost an in-form Clark after a quarter- and 8 again last night- and had 2 guys very underdone).

Pretty remarkable that despite being decimated by injuries pretty much all year and having a very unsettled team all season we were that close to being 9-5.

We’re nowhere near as bad as many think and we haven’t fallen anywhere near as far as say Melbourne did 3 years ago after they made a prelim.

We aren’t anywhere near as bad as some games make us feel. But finishing 9th and 10th 11th is a horrible place. Either be good enough to make finals from here or give me 8 games of Connolly Clavarino Byrnes Bytel Highmore Coffield etc. so that we know going into 2022 what we have on our list is good enough to push us into a finals contender.

 

[Mowman]

Was Ryder this good at Essendon?

 

[stavro#4]

Was Ryder this good at Essendon?

Pretty he sure he played really well at CHB for them for a period very early on. He then broke out as a ruck before moving to port.

 

[PostmanBish]

Long was good tonight as well, his pressure up forward made a difference.

He had a few moments in front of the cheer squad where you just sensed he reactivated his beast mode and got back onto the “edge” where he becomes a danger to everyone in a 5m radius … gotta watch the replay but it felt like they got his balance back during the bye

 

[CursingFijian]

You will not have heard the interview post game on ABC Radio b/w Malthouse, Ling and Paddy Ryder.
The specific question was about Dunstan but I thought Paddy’s answer was illuminating. Not only on Luke but the whole team.
He said that they (the Club, Dunstan, the coaches, Paddy himself? - not clear) had focused on what Luke does right, not what he does wrong.
Which allowed him a certain freedom in approaching the game.
Positive reinforcement I guess.
So if “Bridging the Gap“ included this, specifically for Luke, I’m speculating that something similar might be true club wide.
Not complaining, “Bridging the Gap” is 1 from 1.
Still a long way to go.
Both Malthouse and Ling were strong on that.
Gotta back this up.

And also, Malthouse was a huge wrap for Luke. Ling supportive but not as effusive.
Malthouse saying that every team needs a player like Dunstan: heart and soul, scrapping, get the ball forward at all costs. DE was irrelevant to him as most players of his type have a 50% DE because of their role.

I tend to agree.

If you are going to embrace players like Dunstan then you have to embrace the chaos that comes with him. Dunstan is never going to be the most precise footballer, and his teammates just need to understand that the next possession after his is going to require them to be focussed and ready for anything.

Asking Luke to be precise out of congestion is just setting him up for failure. It’s not a feature of his game and he isn’t Paddy Malone in this regard either. Crouch and Ross also capable of a quick turn and bomb. Ryder and Marshall also often grab and roost from stoppage.

I think we saw an increased preparedness to play dirty ground ball get footy against Adelaide. Little toe pokes and paddles to advantage, more kicking off the ground and slap outs from congestion, followed by quick turn mongrel punts rather than clean takeaways and lace out delivery.

Richmond gets lauded for this style of play all the time. And in the big games where you know the contest is going to be hot, it actually can give you good field position.

There is still a role for the silky users like Hill and Sinclair and Connolly. But embracing the grunts and everything they bring to the table, including the chaos, is good for the team dynamic in my opinion.

 

[PostmanBish]

I loved Longy up forward, been suggesting that for a while. Brings the hardness and pressure, he’s meant to be a natural forward with X-factor just hasn’t quite got there. I see room for improvement, I’d keep him there over playing Lonie again. Byrnes is giving me big Stuv vibes which we love and clearly Leo is already our best kick. Sincs has to be up there in the BnF

I like him forward because he brings a pressure and hardness that our smalls tend to lack at times.

Also, if you cross the line and give away the odd dumb free at our attacking end it doesn’t always become a freebie to the oppo.

Enjoyed his work last night …

 

[SufferingS8INT]

It’s amazing the difference Marshall makes. He didn’t set the world on fire tonight, in fact Grimes took the chocolates when he was up forward. But what he does for our structure and our ability to maintain constant midfield dominance is immense. It’s a real shame Ryder has only one or two years left in him, let’s hope young Max Heath can learn a lot from him and Marshall as atm we have the best ruck tandem in the comp.

The most frustrating thing is that whilst we’ve been losing the media and like have been blaming everything from our trading and drafting to club turmoil when it was blatantly obvious to anyone who knows and loves this team it was purely a confidence issue with so many players.
I’m not sure whether it was a directive or not but our players seemed more willing to take the oppo on tonight, I mean literally try and break tackles and step around them. Little acts like this combines with unrelenting attack the ball are contagious and you could see the team grow in confidence as the game went on.

it’s so good seeing some young kids come in and look good too. Byrnes is a pure footballer with a great footy IQ. Must play midfield as much as possible as he is a point of difference. LeoConnelly looked great.He was hesitant to pull the trigger at first but looked like Montagna when he charged through the middle with his first touch of the football.

it’s a real shame we copped the hardest draw this year. I did the ladder predictor and wow it’s almost unfair how hard the home run is!! But if we can improve on today’s performance we are always a chance. Maybe we can set the record straight in games against Geelong and Sydney and make up some percentage against Collingwood and Carlton. But more importantly let’s hope we can bring the same effort next week!

 

[Confuscius]

How lazy are the "where has that been all year from St Kilda?" takes that I've seen.

We've been up for the fight in the first quarter of every game except Essendon. Simple concept... Forwards convert early opportunities and the rest of the squad fires up to another level. They miss and we drop our effort far too quickly.

Never as bad or good as it seems and I've been pretty doom and gloom this year. 6 points out of the 8 barring a massive upset with a significant injury list after throwing the Swans Cats and Crows games. There's a solid base to build upon.

It'll take a massive effort to get back into the 8 and i can't see it happening, but if they show up like last night and have a fair dip every week we'll definitely have set ourselves up for a better year next season

 

[PostmanBish]

I know he has had a bad year but Coffield can read the play so well

Looked like he was getting some confidence back before getting hurt. Seemed to be running on top of the turf rather than underneath it, if you know what I mean?

 

[gringo2011]

Looked like Richmond players had the flu. They were just not on and after the defeat against WCE last week and the trip back were probably ripe for the picking. They looked really unsharp.

No Lynch certainly did not help and their injuries during the game again did not help.

We made our usual mistakes and they did not hurt us on the rebound...

Let's face it against Adelaide we played like a team that did not have the confidence to win because we lacked the confidence from a season of dissapointment and disruption of our structures to win. When Adelaide pressed with run and pressure we did not answer it and rolled over.

This was our line in the sand game. From the start we showed intensity at the ball and the opponent and with hard nuts Dunstan Long and DMAC ensuring all contests were very contested we showed what we as a team can do.... play hard not pretty but get the job done.

Marshall straightens us up and we start running straight and guess what we start kicking goals through forward pressure as we are confident on where the ball is going.

Our team are not great skilled footballers but we can be pretty irresistible when we have a structure that we play to.

That has been missing most of the season and why we win 123% of the time with Marshall and Ryder....simples.

Go Saints

On SM-G977B using BigFooty.com mobile app

Yeah, we certainly didn't get peak Richmond. I haven't seen them that flat for years. One thing you usually get from them is fight, sometimes they cruise then strike but they never put up anything last night. They have done it a couple of times this season where they look a bit disinterested but not for the whole match. It's looking like the end of the reign to me. It will be hard to make top 4 this year and last year they were probably lucky for the weird season making it easier for a battle-hardened side.

That said you can only beat what's in front of you and we did that.

 

[SufferingS8INT]

How about a big f*** you to the bookies putting us at $5 odds to win suck sh*t mofos

Or a big thank you in my case. Only put a 10$ on us but that’ll buy my beers for tonight

 

[D2D3]

Was Ryder this good at Essendon?

Legit though I knew Ryder was good, but I never realised how good until he started playing for us.

 

[SaintersUnite]

So surely Billings for Coffield only change next week? Or is Jones gonna be pushing for a spot back?


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[kernelT]

Sooooo… Connolly had SEVEN marks and ELEVEN disposals in 30 minutes of footy

If he had managed that from a full game you'd say he's had a decent debut.

 

[CaptainRisky]

I was wrong

 

[kernelT]

Love seeing DMac take on Dusty a few times, don't mind him getting caught that one time in the process… just great to see us playing with confidence to move the ball forward.

 

[Sully111]

Sooooo… Connolly had SEVEN marks and ELEVEN disposals in 30 minutes of footy

If he had managed that from a full game you'd say he's had a decent debut.

His composure was good to watch.

 

[CursingFijian]

The roast and toast thread on the Richmond board is a thing of beauty.

Demanding the immediate retirement of Houli and Cotchin and play the kids.

Asking for a royal enquiry into how poor Samson Ryan got in ahead of Parker.

Accusing Hardwick of shagging them out of another premiership.

It’s beautiful.