Autopsy Round 16, 2024: St.Kilda v Port Adelaide

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Thoughts:

  • Am I the only one who noticed we looked better in the middle as soon as Campbell was subbed off?
  • Also, if we're going to continue down this path, it's time to play Heath and not Campbell. We're 0-4 with Campbell in the team.
  • almost everything good around our (limited) scoring yesterday had a Hunter Clark involvement.
  • Pay Josh Battle
  • The turning point of the game was Max King's point. Not that he missed, but that he ever got the ball. Mitch Owens beat three blokes, kept the ball in, got into position in the goal square where he could have a straightforward snap and... handballed.

This encapsulates to me what the issue is - we have a team of underdogs who don't want the moment. At that stage, Owens has to want to kick the goal himself. To be the man. And he didn't. From that moment on we were going to lose. And no amount of early draft picks will change this, because any skillful player with confidence will have it drained out of them unless the attitude to winning inside the club changes.
 
I'm not sure if King is a coaching issue. It looks more like an injury or confidence in body issue. He's not leading hard, can't seperate from opposition and doesn't leap into packs.
IMO trying him in different positions will be a bigger liability. You can coach him all you want but you can't make him go out give ultimate effort which is what we need. Can drop him but that doesn't look on the coaching radar.
He needs to climb out of this hole himself. Become the leader this team needs him to be.
I remember watching King pre season when he was fully fit and he was a different person, crashing and bashing, going for his marks etc. I thought then he was in for a big year. He’s a shadow of that now.
 

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That's all well and good but Port were ripe for the picking and we lacked the skill to get it done.

If we don't find a way to improve our midfield then we are stuffed. We basically got beaten by three players yesterday.

If Crouch and Steele had been in the team playing well, we'd have done OK in that game.
We have ZERO ball winners without those two.
We were relying on Dow, but that's not what we get from him yet.
Sure as hell not Clark.

They are kind of an unsung hero sometimes. At the Demons all we hear about is Petracca and Oliver, but its Jack Viney who pulls the ball out of the guts every week.

A little ray of sunshine was Phillipou leading the VFL game for contested possessions, and also getting in some good tackles and clearances.

Windhager can be a ball winner ( not consistent yet ) , but probably not while he's tagging.
Don't we have someone who is generally more useless who can spoon the scariest opponent?
 
His posture needs to be more like Joe Daniher and less like Dustin Fletcher for a start. He needs to get bust, his career is falling away. Get some fire in that belly and do whatever it takes to be The King of Kings.
Can King be transformed into a Tom De Koning type. He has the height, is quick has a reasonable leap and has good ground ball skills?
 
Thoughts:

  • Am I the only one who noticed we looked better in the middle as soon as Campbell was subbed off?
  • Also, if we're going to continue down this path, it's time to play Heath and not Campbell. We're 0-4 with Campbell in the team.
  • almost everything good around our (limited) scoring yesterday had a Hunter Clark involvement.
  • Pay Josh Battle
  • The turning point of the game was Max King's point. Not that he missed, but that he ever got the ball. Mitch Owens beat three blokes, kept the ball in, got into position in the goal square where he could have a straightforward snap and... handballed.

This encapsulates to me what the issue is - we have a team of underdogs who don't want the moment. At that stage, Owens has to want to kick the goal himself. To be the man. And he didn't. From that moment on we were going to lose. And no amount of early draft picks will change this, because any skillful player with confidence will have it drained out of them unless the attitude to winning inside the club changes.

No doubt Campbell helped Marshall pace himself for the game.
It made sense to sub him when they did, Marshall being well able to run the rest of the game out, bring on someone more attacking.

In the stats Clark was credited with 4 score involvements.

Our kicks into the 50 were :
6 Nas
5 Wood
5 Hill
3 Webster
3 Henry
2 Steele
2 Clark
2 Bonner
2 Butler.

If you are a mid and Jimmy Webster is kicking into the 50 more than you are, you need to lift.
Clark was also going at 50% disposal efficiency. Compare to Windhager's 90%.
 
Don't we have someone who is generally more useless who can spoon the scariest opponent?

Season 11 Nbc GIF by One Chicago


Wild new tactic- but I don't see anything in the rules of the game prohibiting spooning your opponent.
Worth a shot.
 
Forgive me for still being here but I have an opinion on Max King.

Compared to his brother, he's obviously suffering. Both have had injuries but Max's have been more frequent but less severe. Ben to my knowledge just the one bad one, the ACL.

But one of the bigger reasons I think in the form difference is the teams. Since Max started playing for St Kilda, Saints have been competitive, if not real threatening. They've been around the mark and made finals a couple times. Therefore they attract more attention than Gold Coast who have been awful til this season. Ben King was probably not copping the attention and heat from defenders and pressure that Max has been. Teams might not have put as much work in to stopping the Suns as they do to the Saints in those years, and in a way that allowed Ben a bit of a free hit at it, some junktime confidence boosters that he could build on. Max has never had that chance. Max has never got his confidence flowing. Not as much junktime in St Kilda games either way due to the low scoring nature of the contests.
 
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Forgive me for still being here but I have an opinion on Max King.

Compared to his brother, he's obviously suffering. Both have had injuries but Max's have been more frequent but less severe. Ben to my knowledge just the one bad one, the ACL.

But one of the bigger reasons I think in the form difference is the teams. Since Max started playing for St Kilda, Saints have been competitive, if not real threatening. They've been around the mark and made finals a couple times. Therefore they attract more attention than Gold Coast who have been awful til this season. Ben King was probably not copping the attention and heat from defenders and pressure that Max has. Teams might not have put as much work in to stopping the Suns as they do to the Saints in those years, and in a way that allowed Ben a bit of a free hit at it, some junktime confidence boosters that he could build on. Max has never had that chance. Max has never got his confidence flowing. Not as much junktime in St Kilda games either way due to the low scoring nature of the contests.

No forgiveness needed IMO.
 
Don't we have someone who is generally more useless who can spoon the scariest opponent?

Season 11 Nbc GIF by One Chicago


Wild new tactic- but I don't see anything in the rules of the game prohibiting spooning your opponent.
Worth a shot.
Is this week’s game the Pride Match?

If so, any umpire paying a free against our spooner should get called out for blatant homophobia.
 
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It feels like we lost by 120 pts. Anyone notice that?
We lost by two points.

How, in our diabolical situation (too many to list, you know the story, just look at the players in Sandy guernseys) we managed to be ina position to win several times in this match is incredible.

That awkward mess-up between Owens and King in the last sums it up.

Pay no attention to Kane Cornes stirring up trouble. (Tells himself- but I was cross to hear him say ‘he doesn’t care about St Kilda, only King)

Take some solace from;

How diabolical were Richmond when stitched them up in 2017… ‘16? Melbourne too and Carlton..let’s not forget. Same coaches, same player list. All went from paupers to princes.
 

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Food for thought.
Steele was the only Mid who had over 20 touches for us (had 25).

How the hell is Max meant to thrive in a team where the Mids are getting smashed?

Yeah he doesn't help himself at times with some efforts, but we can't win it at the contest and give him a genuine chance when opposition defence hasn't set up.

He needs to be better, but it's not all his fault. Chip it along the wing coming out of D50 and then he has to out mark 2-3 opponents, which key forward has thrived in that sort of game style?

On Pixel 7 using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
Food for thought.
Steele was the only Mid who had over 20 touches for us (had 25).

How the hell is Max meant to thrive in a team where the Mids are getting smashed?

Yeah he doesn't help himself at times with some efforts, but we can't win it at the contest and give him a genuine chance when opposition defence hasn't set up.

He needs to be better, but it's not all his fault. Chip it along the wing coming out of D50 and then he has to out mark 2-3 opponents, which key forward has thrived in that sort of game style?

On Pixel 7 using BigFooty.com mobile app
Ignoring the wings, he was the only mid over 16 disposals.

Thats absolutely pathetic and they aren't copping anywhere near as much criticism as they should.
 
I was disappointed with the performance of Steele. In a match that we lost by 2 points, the difference was Horne-Francis. He smashed us through the middle then ran on to help out in attack and defence. He was Steele's direct opponent but Steele was unable to match Horne-Francis' speed or stamina and while Steele performed quite well at times, he didn't hurt Port anywhere near as much as Horne-Francis hurt us.


He's been shit since he knee blew out. He started the year in great form but hasn't been the same since. We should be booking him in for surgery now and get him right for 2025. He's looking dispirited and done beat. You would rather losing with a keen Phillipou and Garcia than a broken down Steele, Clark and Dow.
 
Ignoring the wings, he was the only mid over 16 disposals.

Thats absolutely pathetic and they aren't copping anywhere near as much criticism as they should.
The obvious way out of our current predicament is midfielders. The annoying thing is both Dow and Clark actually look good when they get it but they just aren't getting it enough. Windy is the same.

We could improve quickly with some good midfielders but who is it going to be? Aside from Pou who is still a bit of a question mark, what young mids are really going to come on?

I'm sure they have a plan for this area, in fact Ross said as much in the presser. Whatever it is I hope it works.
 
He's been shit since he knee blew out. He started the year in great form but hasn't been the same since. We should be booking him in for surgery now and get him right for 2025. He's looking dispirited and done beat. You would rather losing with a keen Phillipou and Garcia than a broken down Steele, Clark and Dow.
Even with his knee, his output is double of what our other mids are giving.

It's easy to say you'd rather lose with Phillipou and Garcia in the team over Steele but sending them out there without a senior midfielder alongside them would be cruel. And a one-legged Steele is still our best mid by a mile.
 
Food for thought.
Steele was the only Mid who had over 20 touches for us (had 25).

How the hell is Max meant to thrive in a team where the Mids are getting smashed?

Yeah he doesn't help himself at times with some efforts, but we can't win it at the contest and give him a genuine chance when opposition defence hasn't set up.

He needs to be better, but it's not all his fault. Chip it along the wing coming out of D50 and then he has to out mark 2-3 opponents, which key forward has thrived in that sort of game style?

On Pixel 7 using BigFooty.com mobile app
I think most of the frustration today isn't do do with thriving or not, it's to do with him being able to compete and play some kind of role in a 2 point home loss to an out-of-sorts team we've hardly beaten in forever.

But I agree with you, I think there's a long-term toll of playing for 5 years in a team without an AFL level midfield.
It's not the number of entries, but the poor quality of entries, leading to limited opportunities, pressure when he gets a good opportunity, downward spiral of confidence, skill and emotional/mental/physical strength.

It's been a crazy series of events. You pick a forward because forwards take longer, but the lack of mids available to us by whatever means has been ridiculous. Add an unfit Steele, no Crouch, no Dow in the early season. Still no Crouch. No improvement from Matteus at AFL level so far. And we weren't good enough in the guts even without those things happening.

But the point is the effect on Max, and yeah I think 5 years of garbage entries have hurt his development badly. And he's not done himself any favours at times too.
 
Unfortunately it’s pretty clear we’re still a fair way off it at the moment.

However we’re at least now in a position where we can maximise this year for development purposes.

As such it’s time to priorities picking the kids when form warrants its.

As such I’d like to keep Ari, Camma, Sharman (full game).

Time to blood Heath in the Campbell role.

Think it’s nearly time to bring Pou in (post Sydney) and play mid.

From there any replacements due to injury should prioritise youth.

Give a late fairwe run of games to Ross and members.

Pray to god we hits good kids in the draft.
 
Unfortunately it’s pretty clear we’re still a fair way off it at the moment.

However we’re at least now in a position where we can maximise this year for development purposes.

As such it’s time to priorities picking the kids when form warrants its.

As such I’d like to keep Ari, Camma, Sharman (full game).

Time to blood Heath in the Campbell role.

Think it’s nearly time to bring Pou in (post Sydney) and play mid.

From there any replacements due to injury should prioritise youth.

Give a late fairwe run of games to Ross and members.

Pray to god we hits good kids in the draft.
If we do that, seeing that Caminiti & Sharman have had runs in the backline, would it be worth giving King a couple of games there? Remember Ben played there in his early years, might do him good with a different kind of pressure.
 

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Autopsy Round 16, 2024: St.Kilda v Port Adelaide

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