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

[gringo2011]

I never rated Dunstan and bagged him for years. They let him walk out over a relationship breakdown with our coach when he’d played the only above average season he’d ever played. One of the more embarrassingly handled outcomes in memory. We lack midfield depth still and got zero return for another FRDP. That’s exactly the kind of shit list management that Gags was renowned for.

 

[Nutsngum]

So he injured his PCL and that was the time we decided to throw him in the ruck for the first time?
wtf are we doing

They dont do scans during the game. He probably thought it was just a knock at the time and would come good.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I never rated Dunstan and bagged him for years. They let him walk out over a relationship breakdown with our coach when he’d played the only above average season he’d ever played. One of the more embarrassingly handled outcomes in memory. We lack midfield depth still and got zero return for another FRDP. That’s exactly the kind of shit list management that Gags was renowned for.

We lose the list spot , but i'm pretty confident that Dunstan was better depth than Max Hall, and he'd be playing every week this year.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

They dont do scans during the game. He probably thought it was just a knock at the time and would come good.

Having done a PCL, they are weird. They relate more to twisting and side load on the knee.

I did mine while ski-ing ( back to the carpark after a hard day ).
I caught a ski-tip in a tree root, fell, and it turned my foot until something went twang.
I got up , tested my knee, which felt weird but not too painful.
Ski'd the rest of the way to the car park.
We'd caught a bus , so i loaded my stuff into the bus, then got on, turned sideways to step past something in the aisle and went crashing down, to much laughter.
Being kind of dumb, i let it heal naturally, which meant i ended up with some cartilage issues.

Eventually a doctor told me , that unless i play professional sport, don't get a rebuild, because it will eventually relax back to the same condition it was in.

As an ongoing thing, i have to be careful how much i twist that knee, because normally , and in my other knee , you can feel the tightness if i go to far, but in that knee i cant.
It never really stopped me from running or walking, but i did quit Taekwondo ( at which i wasn't very advanced anyway ), since that was probably what caused the cartilage damage ( if not the initial incident ).

 

[Cairnsman]

He should take the rest of the season. No point in rushing back. Get fit and strengthen his body. Come back fresh for pre-season.

In the meantime, give his role to Sharman and let him settle there. These days even Cairnsman will agree

I'm actually ok with Max being out now, it sucks for Max and I hate seeing any player get injured especially seriously, but from a stance point of giving Cooper and Caminiti and even Owens a chance to play without Max being the focal point, it's going to be interesting to see how or if we play differently.

Will we be quicker, will our F50 entry mechanism change ?

 

[Cairnsman]

Actually, it's everyone else making it sound like recruitment of talent is straight forward. "Go to the draft with early picks".

Last year we had three All-Australian squad players. Every single one of them was selected in the rookie draft.

This isn't a computer game where all players are an overall rating. Do all the players Geelong and Sydney draft just come as the finished product?

Every player who ends up on an AFL list has talent. I've lost count of how many players we have drafted with "elite kick" in their draft profile who after a few years turn into Wayne Thornborrow.

We've had many reasons over 150 years for not being successful, but since 2010 clearly one of them has been "unable to satisfactorily develop talent into required performance".

Talent is a promise. Performance is the objective. I don't want any more promises, I want performance.

Talent is procured in many different ways, we lack talent.

 

[pebblesofsand]

I never rated Dunstan and bagged him for years. They let him walk out over a relationship breakdown with our coach when he’d played the only above average season he’d ever played. One of the more embarrassingly handled outcomes in memory. We lack midfield depth still and got zero return for another FRDP. That’s exactly the kind of shit list management that Gags was renowned for.

Not sure how you figure that Gallagher was at fault.

Dunstan was an uncontracted unrestricted free agent who said he'd prefer to retire ahead of signing another contract with the Saints because he believed he'd been pigeon holed by the coaches and selectors.

 

[gringo2011]

Not sure how you figure that Gallagher was at fault.

Dunstan was an uncontracted unrestricted free agent who said he'd prefer to retire ahead of signing another contract with the Saints because he believed he'd been pigeon holed by the coaches and selectors.

Could have easily tried to sort the drama out. To have walked away with nothing was poor list management. They did an anatomy of a trade where Geelong traded a long line of picks into Jeremey Cameron that started about 15 years ago. They maximise trades out and minimise what they pay to get players in. We failed to replace his depth role too.

We were extremely poor at getting anything back but happy to pay top dollar for trades in.

 

[Diehard Saint]

I'm actually ok with Max being out now, it sucks for Max and I hate seeing any player get injured especially seriously, but from a stance point of giving Cooper and Caminiti and even Owens a chance to play without Max being the focal point, it's going to be interesting to see how or if we play differently.

Will we be quicker, will our F50 entry mechanism change ?

I agree, but primarily I think some time out to strengthen both body and mind may be a good thing. He plays like the weight of the world is on his shoulders and hopefully this’ll give him time to reset, come back and do a strong pre-season.

I’m still very much on his bandwagon.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Not sure how you figure that Gallagher was at fault.

Dunstan was an uncontracted unrestricted free agent who said he'd prefer to retire ahead of signing another contract with the Saints because he believed he'd been pigeon holed by the coaches and selectors.

Needed more hugs, we should have kept Watters.

 

[pebblesofsand]

Could have easily tried to sort the drama out. To have walked away with nothing was poor list management. They did an anatomy of a trade where Geelong traded a long line of picks into Jeremey Cameron that started about 15 years ago. They maximise trades out and minimise what they pay to get players in. We failed to replace his depth role too.

We were extremely poor at getting anything back but happy to pay top dollar for trades in.

You can't blame the list manager when a player leaves because of a rift with the coach.

As for getting nothing for Dunstan - well that's pretty much the compo the AFL would hand out for losing an UFA on a 2 year minimum deal.

Perhaps we should have offered him 3 years on $400k and hoped like hell that someone would match and then get a 3rd rounder.

 

[austinnn]

I just watched the replay after only really giving the live game half of my attention, and this is my conclusion:

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE

First of all, some are making out that despite the score, Port massacred us. This just isn't true and can only be surmised by the Doom section of Saints fans and oppo fans who want to rub our nose in it. It WAS a close game all game, well reflected in the score which saw the two teams with level scores several times during the match and rarely more than a goal between us. There were times when Port had the ascendancy, but just as many times when we did. The game could have been a Saints win right up until the final half a minute.

Equally, anyone claiming that it was due to the Power's inaccuracy that we were anywhere close is having a laugh. We wasted plenty of golden opportunities to score ourselves, and again blew plenty of chances to get the game on our terms throughout the match. We were actually a little more efficient with the ball inside 50, which doesn't say much for Port since they were 47% to our 51% - which is probably what led so many to declare this game "unwatchable".

The only stats area we really fell away in were, predictably, hit outs and clearances (especially centre clearances, which we lost 5 to 13) inside 50s and marking inside 50.

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Watching the game, I definitely noticed how clean their advances up the field we're compared to ours, but it didn't really feel that we were outclassed or up against a far superior team. Port can say they were missing Dixon and Rategolea, but we were missing Crouch.

Parts of the game were pretty exciting from a Saints fan perspective, yes it was scruffy and sloppy but it has been like that since 2021. We've got stacks of players down on form right now but the wheel will turn.

 

[Nutsngum]

I just watched the replay after only really giving the live game half of my attention, and this is my conclusion:

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE

First of all, some are making out that despite the score, Port massacred us. This just isn't true and can only be surmised by the Doom section of Saints fans and oppo fans who want to rub our nose in it. It WAS a close game all game, well reflected in the score which saw the two teams with level scores several times during the match and rarely more than a goal between us. There were times when Port had the ascendancy, but just as many times when we did. The game could have been a Saints win right up until the final half a minute.

Equally, anyone claiming that it was due to the Power's inaccuracy that we were anywhere close is having a laugh. We wasted plenty of golden opportunities to score ourselves, and again blew plenty of chances to get the game on our terms throughout the match. We were actually a little more efficient with the ball inside 50, which doesn't say much for Port since they were 47% to our 51% - which is probably what led so many to declare this game "unwatchable".

The only stats area we really fell away in were, predictably, hit outs and clearances (especially centre clearances, which we lost 5 to 13) inside 50s and marking inside 50.

AFL - News, Fixtures, Scores & Results - AFL.com.au

Australian Football League. All the latest AFL news, video, results and information

www.afl.com.au

Watching the game, I definitely noticed how clean their advances up the field we're compared to ours, but it didn't really feel that we were outclassed or up against a far superior team. Port can say they were missing Dixon and Rategolea, but we were missing Crouch.

Parts of the game were pretty exciting from a Saints fan perspective, yes it was scruffy and sloppy but it has been like that since 2021. We've got stacks of players down on form right now but the wheel will turn.

They killed us in inside 50s but honestly, their disposal into it was almost worse then ours and our backs just picked them off all night. Despite their midfield dominance we restricted them from entering well which is a hall mark of being difficult to play against.

We did get lucky with Webster's shitty kick across the boundary not being paid and the arm chop against Todd Marshall (from memory) not being seen though.