Preview Round 17, 2023: St.Kilda v Melbourne - Marvel Stadium, Saturday 8th July, 7:25PM AEST *STEELE 150TH*

[sammm]

Melbourne may be struggling to score/kick straight, but they seem to be doing almost everything else pretty well. Their rucks and mids will be too much for us alone I fear.

somehow it comes about that the club who previously was struggling to score accuractly 'kicks them out of their arses' against the saints.

 

[sammm]

Quite astonishing that a team could lose with this set of numbers:

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they were playing in the Alice. but probably not as bad weather as when we played in Darwin last year?

 

[The Punter]

You guys need to step up your game, the woe and despair in here is a pale comparison to the Demons board at the moment.

Long suffering Melbourne fans. It's been a tough <checks notes> 22 months.

That was a glorious game. I was so smug about that one. Was that where Geary did his leg fearlessly smothering a certain goal?

No, the one after that. We beat them in Ratten's 2nd game in charge.

 

[beside the seaside]

If Seb and Hill are only sore I suspect they'll both play.

If Jones, Billings and Clark are all available that is going to make selection very interesting this week.

 

[dudeintheswamp]

Fritsch out for two months really hurts the Dees, not just for this week, imo he's one of their most important players. Really opens up the race for that fourth spot. Only a week or two ago it seemed like the top four was pretty well locked in. Things are changing rapidly from fortnight to fortnight this season. Melbourne would still be favourite to finish fourth you'd think, and then there's the Saints and Dogs, all three teams currently on nine wins.

By my rather shallow calculations, to finish fourth a team might need fifteen wins. So who out of the Dees, Saints and Dogs can win six out of the last eight? (Just quietly I see both Adelaide and Essendon slipping out of the final eight, replaced by Geelong and maybe Freo). We don't play the Dogs again and it's already been said many times, but this weekend is a classic eight point game and realistically is our last chance at finishing fourth (unbelievable that we're still a chance!). All our remaining games (bar maybe Brisbane at the Gabba) are winnable so with a few players back maybe we can get on a bit of a roll again, similar to the start of the season.

Of course all this is written with the hope of last weekend being the last time this year where we don't show up for the first half. And yes, this is the last time I'll mention that game except to say in years gone by, finding ourselves in the position we did at halftime, there's a very good chance we don't come back and win that game. For all the melting I've read over the last few days, imagine if we actually lost that game!

Playing as we have over the last five or six weeks will see us beaten pretty easily I'd imagine, however if we can get back to the strengths we showed earlier in the year, system, pressure, selflessness, then it could be an almighty boost heading in to the finals.

I'd love to see Clark and Jones named this week.

 

[L_W_P]

After all this media on demons kicking woes, we probably allow them half as many inside 50s and they will kick 12.2 or some such, a majority of shots from the boundary 45 out.

Hopefully we kick at least 11.9 though!

David Neitz was the king of this.

I remember him giving Maxy H an absolute bath at the G one game. Was dobbing them form 60m out on the boundary line. Just could not miss.

 

[The Punter]

David Neitz was the king of this.

I remember him giving Maxy H an absolute bath at the G one game. Was dobbing them form 60m out on the boundary line. Just could not miss.

AFL Tables - Melbourne v St Kilda - Sun, 4-Jun-2006 2:10 PM - Match Stats

afltables.com

 

[Diehard Saint]

Long suffering Melbourne fans. It's been a tough <checks notes> 22 months.



No, the one after that. We beat them in Ratten's 2nd game in charge.

Not sure if it’s the one you mention ( think it may have been Richo actually) I remember the one when Joey beat them with a goal in the last 30 seconds or so.
Just that time we has a Dees supporting mate - a nice guy actually- sitting in our Saints enclave and I had just turned to congratulate him on winning the game - and whooshka! Joey goaled pretty much on the siren.
I think it was straight down there from a centre bounce.

 

[Nutsngum]

Listening to sen (Daniel Hoyne) who kindly pointed out the bottom 4 midfielders in the comp for disposals leading to scores. Three of the bottom four -in the league- are Ross, Steele and Crouch (dead last).

We have the three worst on ballers in the league (atm) all playing in the same midfield.

Whilst that would normally translate to a 200pt loss to Melb, if we just play all three pure defensive mid and go super stinge defensive set up, we could rely on turnover chains off half back but hill battling is a worry with that theory. Just need to avoid using our three liabilities on turnover somehow. NWM will need to play the game of his life for us to get close I think

Did he say how he come across this somewhat made up stat exactly? Like was it score involements averaged across disposals or something?

Because thats simply not true when at the very least Crouch his having an outstanding season and sounds very much like picking stats to prove a point.

 

[The Punter]

Did he say how he come across this somewhat made up stat exactly? Like was it score involements averaged across disposals or something?

Because thats simply not true when at the very least Crouch his having an outstanding season and sounds very much like picking stats to prove a point.

Crouch has been good, but I don't think we need stats to tell us our key inside mids aren't involved in generating scores as much as we'd like them to.

 

[Remboy]

Not sure if it’s the one you mention ( think it may have been Richo actually) I remember the one when Joey beat them with a goal in the last 30 seconds or so.
Just that time we has a Dees supporting mate - a nice guy actually- sitting in our Saints enclave and I had just turned to congratulate him on winning the game - and whooshka! Joey goaled pretty much on the siren.
I think it was straight down there from a centre bounce.

From memory they kicked a goal to hit the front with about 20 seconds remaining. It was Richo coaching. They had him miked up and I remember him on the phone saying he only wanted two forwards after Joey kicked the goal. Couldn’t do that now.

 

[Nutsngum]

Crouch has been good, but I don't think we need stats to tell us our key inside mids aren't involved in generating scores as much as we'd like them to.

If he said our midfield is underperforming a fair way then I would absolutely agree. But saying we have the 3 worst in the league is hyperbole I reckon. We wouldnt win a single clearance I dont think.

 

[BrutThough]

From memory they kicked a goal to hit the front with about 20 seconds remaining. It was Richo coaching. They had him miked up and I remember him on the phone saying he only wanted two forwards after Joey kicked the goal. Couldn’t do that now.

I don't think we have anyone in our current midfield who could do what Steven did to get us that goal. We miss that pace.

 

[Remboy]

If he said our midfield is underperforming a fair way then I would absolutely agree. But saying we have the 3 worst in the league is hyperbole I reckon. We wouldnt win a single clearance I dont think.

It would be good to know exactly what the stat means. If Crouch hand passes the ball to someone who misses Max on a lead and turns it over, that’s hardly Crouch’s fault.

 

[Holy Hunter Clark]

6 week 'nose' related hamstring?

On Pixel 7 using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[XhazzafootyX]

No reason we can’t win now. Two of their most important players are out

 

[The Punter]

No reason we can’t win now. Two of their most important players are out

There are plenty of reasons. But no Fritsch and no Oliver is helpful.

 

[Miha]

maybe this is the game where everything clicks and we go undefeated

 

[Nutsngum]

It would be good to know exactly what the stat means. If Crouch hand passes the ball to someone who misses Max on a lead and turns it over, that’s hardly Crouch’s fault.

Yeah, i havent listened to it but I think its the guy they get on from Champion Data who often have.. creative interpretations of their data.

We genuinely are underperforming though. Would really like to see Jones come in and provide some speed and aggression to our center bounces.

 

[moirae42]

maybe this is the game where everything clicks and we go undefeated

It feels like one team is going to get their act together and go on a run.

 

[Cairnsman]

Cordy a lock for this week

 

[beside the seaside]

No reason we can’t win now. Two of their most important players are out

They managed to beat the Pies without Oliver, with Viney and Petracca having big days in the middle. I think they still look way better than us inside even without Oliver.

I reckon our best chance of winning is that maybe things clicked a bit in the second half of that West Coast game and potentially that win was better than we realise. I know that sounds nuts but I actually thought we played very well in the second half and who knows we may have gained some confidence from the match (aside from still messing up lots of gettable chances).

The idea of May and Lever against us is terrifying. You'd seriously expect them to have 30 marks between them. Just not sure how we score enough to win the game, unless things somehow have clicked and we've found our mojo.

 

[Oh When the Saints]

David Neitz was the king of this.

I remember him giving Maxy H an absolute bath at the G one game. Was dobbing them form 60m out on the boundary line. Just could not miss.

Neitz broke the record for most goals from outside 50m in a game at that point in time (not sure if broken since) although stats only went back to the 90s. Something like 6 or 7 of his goals were from outside 50m. He literally couldn't miss if he marked it 60m out. Probably the only time anyone truly gave Maxie a bath that I can recall.

We lost by 13 points and if Neitz had kicked with anything like the expected accuracy from 60m out, we would have won the game.

 

[The_Steadier]

don't think we need stats to tell us our key inside mids aren't involved in generating scores as much as we'd like them to.

...and that is only 50% of the story.

Not only are our mids giving us stuff all for half decent scoring opportunities our way.... but they are also letting the opposition mids waltz in and generate quality scoring opportunities galore.

I'm so sick of clearance and contested ball stats not showing how much our mids (inc marshall) are getting smacked.

Who cares if we break even overall in clearances if most (if not all?) of our clearances are hack dump kicks forward... and the oppositions clearances are actually good ones (ie trying to hit up an actual teammate).

With marshal rucking as badly as he is- I think we need to play all 3 of our onball mids and marshall as taggers.
It wouldn't help us generate better quality clearances ourselves- but at least that would limit the quality of clearances the opposition get.

 

[gringo2011]

Listening to sen (Daniel Hoyne) who kindly pointed out the bottom 4 midfielders in the comp for disposals leading to scores. Three of the bottom four -in the league- are Ross, Steele and Crouch (dead last).

We have the three worst on ballers in the league (atm) all playing in the same midfield.

Whilst that would normally translate to a 200pt loss to Melb, if we just play all three pure defensive mid and go super stinge defensive set up, we could rely on turnover chains off half back but hill battling is a worry with that theory. Just need to avoid using our three liabilities on turnover somehow. NWM will need to play the game of his life for us to get close I think

It doesn't make them the worst mids in the league, just worst at delivering the ball leading to scores. Probably more to do with how we play as a rebound after losing clearance side. Hill, Nas, Sincs types are the preferred users inside 50.