Autopsy Round 24, 2024 - Saints defeat Boos

[Verdun66]

Hunter Clark does a lot of things that go unseen at the bottom of a pack to get it going our way - he’s a different type mid but incredibly important I think
pick 7? there’s hope ….

In the play that ended with Higgo kicking the winning goal, Hunter went through that pack and created a bit of a gap. He jostled Walsh through past the ball when Walsh might have killed or cleared it. No stat. But so important. And possibly unseen.

 

[Verdun66]

I accidentally posted a poetic description of Jack Higgins’s goal…but wait…accidentally on the Carlton thread, because I had checked it a few days ago for their (arrogant) preview, and left a window of it on my phone. Delirious, I opened and posted in the dizziness of our win. Wow..they were pissed and I got some nasties back. Thing is I didn’t even mean to. Accidents happen. Oh well.

Terrible luck that…..

 

[St Neil]

Josh will regret it if he goes to the poopees

I think he will too.

He’s grown up being a part of something that finally looks like it is starting to blossom. He is walking away from that.

No amount of money will compensate him if he misses out on a Saints Flag. Even if he has success at Hawthorn he will be just another Premiership player. They have heaps of them.

He will have denied himself the opportunity to have been a part of something more special.

His loss.

 

[Plugger35]

This was one of our best wins against Carlton since this epic win against Carlton back in 1989.




We didn't play finals that year either but that win set the platform for us to play finals in the 90s.

A win like that was also one of the reasons I chose to become a Saints supporter so maybe that win today will suck in a few more.

 

[Mat Mann]

Ok
Mate I’ve heard the cliches
I’m a bird in the hand type fella - at 3.30 today we had 5 in the hand …I liked it
Do I feel our culture is “mortally wounded” if we drop this game ? (With effort of course…it’s not easy to lose and look you’re not trying …it’s a skill in itself …Im kidding..) point is I think you’re over stating what 1 game means to our culture
IF we nailed best 2 mids at picks 5-6 (with Battles compensation) that sets us up for a decade
Now we’ll need to do it from 7-8 (maybe later after any FS/academy picks etc who knows)
Anyway the game is done your euphoric congrats

if we lost to Geelong and Carlton, bugger it, we should have thrown the Essendon game as well, PICK 4 is ours. where's the culture then?

you're trying to measure two things that can't be measured

 

[St Neil]

It seemed to me that Hunter Clark

11

Hunter Clark

Age

25

Ht

186cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

17.5

4star

K

9.5

4star

HB

8.0

5star

M

3.6

4star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.3

3star

D

16.0

4star

K

9.6

4star

HB

6.4

4star

M

3.1

3star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.9

4star

D

13.2

4star

K

6.6

3star

HB

6.6

4star

M

2.2

3star

T

2.0

4star

CL

0.0

1star

played well. One boo boo I can remember. But he was in everything at one point when the heat really got going. Was scrabbling through the packs trying to get it to our advantage. Impressive.

He seemed a busted high pick. But all is not lost. I think the last few games have really meant a lot to him. He’s had a run at it (finally) and it seems like he has grasped the opportunity.

I think we’ll see him keep getting better as long as he gets some luck and stays on the park.

I think Clark is playing about 60% game time and I think that suits him.

He is much more effective as the game settles down and he is less prone to accidental mishaps as a result.

Reads the play well and you can see his confidence rising. He plays better when he has speedy teammates around him.

 

[my name was taken]

I think Clark is playing about 60% game time and I think that suits him.

He is much more effective as the game settles down and he is less prone to accidental mishaps as a result.

Reads the play well and you can see his confidence rising. He plays better when he has speedy teammates around him.

Wasnt that Luke Ball as well under Lyon

Can't believe that all went down 15 years ago

 

[Plugger35]

Wasnt that Luke Ball as well under Lyon

Can't believe that all went down 15 years ago

Luke Ball slowed down due to OP, Clark looks like he has OP too but he's just naturally slow. he makes up for it with his skills.

There is a place him in our midfield with his skills but we need speedy midfielders around him to make up for his lack of speed.

 

[MrFoster]

Sugar hit over

Carlton still make finals so we drop from pick 5 to pick 7 for a meaningless win

Yes, we don’t make finals. Asking a professional team to tank just so you get better draft picks is unacceptable.. we had early picks that turn out to be poor

If you think we're not better off by having picks 5 and 6 over 7 and 8, you're not being realistic. It gives you more choice to pick a player who we think would fit our specific needs. It's not worthless... saying so is ridiculous.

Likewise, if you think having a winning culture has no merit whatsoever, you're also misguided. The fact is we got our game looking much better at the back end of the season. That bodes well for next year.

There's no real way right now to measure which would have benefited us more. Time will tell.

At the end of the day, we've got the picks we've got. Hopefully we can use them well and the club can improve in all areas. There's a lot of room for growth with both players and coaching imo. Personally I was happy to see us play a better style of footy towards the end of the season.

By that theory, we should have lost every single game in the second half of the season on purpose so we can get pick 1 or 2? Oh that was no possible because Richmond and North are just so bad (they won 2, 3 games for the whole season where we were 3, 8 at half way mark).

Like a lot of people said, draft picks is important but in an even draft, it’s no guarantee that a pick 5 will turn out better than a pick 10.. Even pick 1 or 2 cannot guarantee this year!!

 

[Sarcoidevo]

What if who you wanted is taken the pick before you ? No value in an earlier pick?

Well if thats the case we may as well finish last every season .... I mean how stupid we are winning 11 matches ..... what duckin fumbarses

Should have won only 1 game then we would have had pick 1 in the draft

Can't believe how idiotic the club and players are

 

[Sarcoidevo]

It’s a forum mate do I need to break that down for you as well ?
You still telling me pick 7 is better than 5 ??
Jog on

And you are telling us that losing is better than winning

 

[Sarcoidevo]

Ok
Mate I’ve heard the cliches
I’m a bird in the hand type fella - at 3.30 today we had 5 in the hand …I liked it
Do I feel our culture is “mortally wounded” if we drop this game ? (With effort of course…it’s not easy to lose and look you’re not trying …it’s a skill in itself …Im kidding..) point is I think you’re over stating what 1 game means to our culture
IF we nailed best 2 mids at picks 5-6 (with Battles compensation) that sets us up for a decade
Now we’ll need to do it from 7-8 (maybe later after any FS/academy picks etc who knows)
Anyway the game is done your euphoric congrats

How do academy picks affect who we pick at 5 6 or 7 8 .... when we can't get them anyway?

Are u disappointed that we didn't finish last or 2nd last and we are going to miss out on O'Sullivan / Smith?

If only we had lost another 10 games ... damn you Saints!!

 

[Gavinmitchell11]

Those including losing so that we get an easier draw next year as part of the discussion, please…. If you’re relying on the draw to achieve anything you’re no good anyway.
Slipping 2 draft slots hurts but you can’t really do anything about it, you can’t tell players to go out and lose, they don’t care about draft position, they care about their performance and career. All we could have done is drop guys and play young fellas who likely would not have performed as well, but that will anger the group and cause more harm IMO. We can’t be upset with the club for winning games.
Let’s just hope we get lucky in this draft.

 

[MOLTEN GANGLANDS]

Mate. I think you’ll find more often than not pick 5 is a helluva lot betta than 6 or 7 in all of those drafts.. not sure you prove the point you wanted to

really? I have the bests as

pick 5 - mac andrew, connor rozee, de goey, cunningham
pick 6 - Humphrey, wingard
pick 7 - young, hopper, wines

the rest were too close to call, too recent a draft, or GOPs so who cares anyway

 

[MOLTEN GANGLANDS]

the reality is there's nothing we can do about it now re the picks, once the draft comes round we'll all be getting behind whoever we take anyway, so rather than crying over spilt milk start getting excited for our new draftees!

There are some bolters (travaglia, hynes), some will slide (smillie, langford), we're going to get a good look at some A grade talent. And those players are going to be drafted into a team with the best development/coaching/form of any saints team in recent memory, so their likelihood of reaching their ceiling is much higher than the watters/richo days. We've won 6 of our last 8, including beating 2 out of the top 4 (and came pretty close against the other 2).

Our most recent drafting and developing has been miles ahead of previous administrations (nas, pou, wilson etc vs billings, paddy, dunstan etc)

Just watching some travaglia highlights today make me pretty excited as he's someone who will definitely be available should we not snag a langford or draper.. I'm yet to even check out hynes who has big wraps too

im pumped

 

[akaifu]

A terrible win. Saints fans celebrating like we've won the premiership when in reality we beat an undermanned team without their two Coleman Medallists. Also hilarious you guys keep shitting on Blues fans for "not making finals" when in the end, as expected, they did. 2 hours of dopamine before crashing back down to earth, and now fans are scrambling to climb up the order or hoping for "luck" to go our way in the draft

Also the "culture" piece. How is one win going to define culture? Is it really that fragile and weak? You know what would build culture? A full year of winning and a premiership cup, which is what losing against the Blues would've helped to increase the likelihood of for the years to come

I know I sound like a major pessimist and a massive dickhead, but I'm looking to the future. I want our club to set ourselves up for long-term and sustained success and the best draft picks give us the best chance at achieving this - not some petty rivalries that in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing when they have more premierships than us

The draft this year has a clear top 6. We now have picks 7&8. There is a reason why experts are calling it a weaker top-end - because it is! And now we do not have priority access to it. Please do not compare this to the Pou and Wilson drafts, it is a completely different scenario and doing so would render you clueless of this year's crop

I won't get started on the fixture effect because tbh if we can't beat the better sides then we don't deserve to achieve anything. But it IS another factor that could help us achieve great things

Saints fans. If you want to reply to this, do not hold back. I want to hear opinions because these are my thoughts and I'm sinking with depression because of it. Please help me see the light

 

[akaifu]

the reality is there's nothing we can do about it now re the picks, once the draft comes round we'll all be getting behind whoever we take anyway, so rather than crying over spilt milk start getting excited for our new draftees!

There are some bolters (travaglia, hynes), some will slide (smillie, langford), we're going to get a good look at some A grade talent. And those players are going to be drafted into a team with the best development/coaching/form of any saints team in recent memory, so their likelihood of reaching their ceiling is much higher than the watters/richo days. We've won 6 of our last 8, including beating 2 out of the top 4 (and came pretty close against the other 2).

Our most recent drafting and developing has been miles ahead of previous administrations (nas, pou, wilson etc vs billings, paddy, dunstan etc)

Just watching some travaglia highlights today make me pretty excited as he's someone who will definitely be available should we not snag a langford or draper.. I'm yet to even check out hynes who has big wraps too

im pumped

Look, I love your optimism, but this is exactly the problem. Please don't take this personally, but supporters who have little to no clue about the draft (haven't even watched some of the first round prospects!) are the ones telling the draft nuffs to calm down and not "cry over spilt milk". There is a clear correlation between the people who are active in the draft thread and them being happy for the Saints to lose, because they know the ramifications of the win

Travaglia is not a bolter. He has been top 15 in my book since the start of the U18s champs. You are calling him a bolter because you are coping with the fact that there is no one else in between the gap between the top mids and this next tier of players. Same for Hynes - he is a late teens pick at best. He is in no way shape or form a bolter, in fact, he has slowed down the past month so is more likely to slide if anything.

You claim "some will slide" - how exactly do you see that happening?

This situation is incomparable to the Pou and Wilson drafts. Pou was the last of the top echelon (a group of 10). This year, it's a group of 6. Wilson slid because Windsor bolted - no bolters of Windsor's calibre as of yet this year (i'm not ruling one out yet)

 

[Sarcoidevo]

A terrible win.

Since when has winning ever been terrible?

I know I sound like a major pessimist and a massive dickhead

Yeah ... you do .... you even admitted it yourself!!

The draft this year has a clear top 6.

When has any draft ... in the history of drafts .... ever had a clear Top 6 .... ever?

 

[Ads734]

Look, I love your optimism, but this is exactly the problem. Please don't take this personally, but supporters who have little to no clue about the draft (haven't even watched some of the first round prospects!) are the ones telling the draft nuffs to calm down and not "cry over spilt milk". There is a clear correlation between the people who are active in the draft thread and them being happy for the Saints to lose, because they know the ramifications of the win

Travaglia is not a bolter. He has been top 15 in my book since the start of the U18s champs. You are calling him a bolter because you are coping with the fact that there is no one else in between the gap between the top mids and this next tier of players. Same for Hynes - he is a late teens pick at best. He is in no way shape or form a bolter, in fact, he has slowed down the past month so is more likely to slide if anything.

You claim "some will slide" - how exactly do you see that happening?

This situation is incomparable to the Pou and Wilson drafts. Pou was the last of the top echelon (a group of 10). This year, it's a group of 6. Wilson slid because Windsor bolted - no bolters of Windsor's calibre as of yet this year (i'm not ruling one out yet)

I’ve been following the draft for 15 years. The more I watch the more I realise between now and then there will be a bolter or two. The more I realise it’s about luck, about getting players to be in the right situation with the right coaches.

You know the famous 2018 ‘super draft’ you know who arguably the best player is ?

The bloke taken pick 11

Was he in the established top 7 ?

No

Zak Butters.

 

[MOLTEN GANGLANDS]

Look, I love your optimism, but this is exactly the problem. Please don't take this personally, but supporters who have little to no clue about the draft (haven't even watched some of the first round prospects!) are the ones telling the draft nuffs to calm down and not "cry over spilt milk". There is a clear correlation between the people who are active in the draft thread and them being happy for the Saints to lose, because they know the ramifications of the win

Travaglia is not a bolter. He has been top 15 in my book since the start of the U18s champs. You are calling him a bolter because you are coping with the fact that there is no one else in between the gap between the top mids and this next tier of players. Same for Hynes - he is a late teens pick at best. He is in no way shape or form a bolter, in fact, he has slowed down the past month so is more likely to slide if anything.

You claim "some will slide" - how exactly do you see that happening?

This situation is incomparable to the Pou and Wilson drafts. Pou was the last of the top echelon (a group of 10). This year, it's a group of 6. Wilson slid because Windsor bolted - no bolters of Windsor's calibre as of yet this year (i'm not ruling one out yet)

man you're an arrogant SOB

I'm saying don't worry about what you can't control, just get behind the kids we draft and hope for the best. It's in the past, it would have been great to lose by a point, it didn't happen, get over it. Did you want us to purposefully tank? Did you want steele and wilkie to pull the team aside and say "hey boys, I know we had the storm in here a few months back to talk to us about making every game count towards something bigger even if there's no chance of playing finals, and that mindset has really helped us get on a roll that could propel us forward next year, but yeah like, if you wanna take a short step or two now is the time"...?

It's just not realistic.

And sure I haven't had the free time to look too deep into the draft, but also just because you believe you have the draft sewn up from picks 1-30 doesn't make it so, good players can be found at all levels, if the last few drafts were redone pou wilson and nas - ALL PLAYERS TAKEN AFTER OUR FIRST PICK THIS YEAR - would be top 5 probably. So no mate, just because you think our picks are now shit, does not make it so. And all this whingy woe is me crap is weak a piss. Either you wanted us to purposefully tank, or you accept that it didn't pan out perfectly and we move on

 

[MOLTEN GANGLANDS]

A terrible win. Saints fans celebrating like we've won the premiership when in reality we beat an undermanned team without their two Coleman Medallists

wtf are you on about, no one is celebrating other than in the heat of the moment, I think the average sainter is a bit bummed we won and would have preferred to lose by a point or two.

"in reality we beat an undermanned team without their two Coleman Medallists" oh, sorry it would have been much better to have lost to an undermanned VFL team, makes total sense

 

[Ads734]

Rebuilding /resetting has many components,

Drafting a core, getting young talent, building a culture, improving skills, ‘learning how to win’

I don’t care what you say
RE blues and Deez, they had pick after pick. Untill they learnt how to win , nothing changed.

Developing young players comes in many ways. One of those is having them contribute to tough gritty wins on the big stage.

Pou’s game against Sydney set his last month up. It gave him the confidence.

Our entire year. Bar a few shockers we never gave up. The second lions game up there. No doubt that the attitude in that game helped us against Geelong and blues.

Wilson , Garcia, Sharman learning to play off and with guys like Sincs, Wilks, Steele in big moments means that hopefully next time , they’ll be the wind to do it.

Look at Naz ffs.

Beating big teams in big games is also massive for our overall brand. Our ability to get young players and keep them.

Say we draft Draper. We don’t win these games and we are non-competitive. Will he stay, will he go back.

I just cannot fathome how some are so upset by this. Beating the cats, Pies, Blues snd Swans is outstanding

 

[Sarcoidevo]

Re: fixture effect .... given the evenness of the competition who knows how the fixture will work out for us or other teams

You could finish in the bottom 6 and could well get a harder fixture than a team that finishes in the middle 6

You could finish in the top 6 and get an easier fixture

Injuries, suspensions, the timing on when you play teams, travel, weather, a team on the rise, a team on the decline .... all come into play

Adelaide finished 10th last year and drew Hawks (16th) twice this year ... they would have put that down for 2 wins at the start of the season but .... they played them at the back end of the season and lost both

Freo finished in the bottom 6 and drew Melbourne (4th) twice and beat them both times

The AFL fixture is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you are gunna get

 

[MOLTEN GANGLANDS]

I can assure you evert single employee of our club wanted to win that one. Before the Cats game it was slightly different but the energy at the club after that game, going into this one, and now going into next year is worth every draft slide. Trust me

but haven't you heard? there's a CLEAR top 6, picks 7 and 8 aren't fit to clean riley bonner's boots

 

[Sully111]

Yes, we don’t make finals. Asking a professional team to tank just so you get better draft picks is unacceptable.. we had early picks that turn out to be poor

By that theory, we should have lost every single game in the second half of the season on purpose so we can get pick 1 or 2? Oh that was no possible because Richmond and North are just so bad (they won 2, 3 games for the whole season where we were 3, 8 at half way mark).

Like a lot of people said, draft picks is important but in an even draft, it’s no guarantee that a pick 5 will turn out better than a pick 10.. Even pick 1 or 2 cannot guarantee this year!!

Did you read my whole post? I think you might have missed a bit