Autopsy Round 6, 2024: St Kilda v Western Bulldogs

[Jade Buddha]

I just don’t get our centre set up. Marshall constantly put it down Richard’s and Treloar’s throat last night. Now is it he doesn’t know where we want it or is it he just puts it anywhere where hit can get the hit out. Our mids can’t seem to read it either or are they just too focused on their opponents. We’ve watched this crap for way too long now. Something has to change.

 

[beside the seaside]

This is the reality - 12 players with 100 plus games to 13.

We went in favourites. Did you think the game would be over before quarter time?

Every week there will be opponents that can get it done, sometimes you're not quite good enough and then there's plain pathetic.

16 guys with a combined 18 tackles, most of our senior guys included - utter garbage that makes fans not return.


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We actually didn't go in favourites. Dogs got backed in massively last minute and ended up clear favourites, which is interesting.

 

[L_W_P]

Last night was terrible. No excuses.
But our reality is in this image. Our core isn’t Marshall Wilkie Sinclair Steele.

It’s it’s everyone younger from King Owens Pou Nas Wilson Windy etc

The coach is the only reason we aren’t in a position that reflects the list.

This is our truth. You can choose to ignore it. You can demand more because you believed we should be tracking for top 4.

But it has and always was a rebuild/retool without burning it to the absolute ground like North.

You can’t be expecting kids between years 1-3 to carry this side. North show you every week that it doesn’t work. Gold Coast have shown you for a decade.

Weren't we saying this a generation ago though?

"Our core isn't Armo, Gilbert, Hickey, Weller... It's Billings, Acres, Lonie, Steele..."

Starting to think the issue isn't drafting or talent identification, it's development.

If we have botched the Marshall/Steele era and are looking to the 'kids' then the board got their resoning for sacking Ratten wrong. There's no more to get from the older group. Another rebuild/refresh is incoming.

We will see what happens when we have Doogs & King back in but Ross needs to make a call pretty quickly.

he wasn't neccesserily brought in to win a flag immediately but the expectation was that the standards of the club would rise and that we would become a perenial finalist "always in with a shot". Happy to write last night off as a bad night, but would want to turn it around pretty quickly.

 

[stavro#4]

Weren't we saying this a generation ago though?

"Our core isn't Armo, Gilbert, Hickey, Weller... It's Billings, Acres, Lonie, Steele..."

Starting to think the issue isn't drafting or talent identification, it's development.

If we have botched the Marshall/Steele era and are looking to the 'kids' then the board got their resoning for sacking Ratten wrong. There's no more to get from the older group. Another rebuild/refresh is incoming.

We will see what happens when we have Doogs & King back in but Ross needs to make a call pretty quickly.

he wasn't neccesserily brought in to win a flag immediately but the expectation was that the standards of the club would rise and that we would become a perenial finalist "always in with a shot". Happy to write last night off as a bad night, but would want to turn it around pretty quickly.

I think it’s clear we botched the 2019 offseason.

Last year was a, “what do we actually have” test and it said we have a handful of A graders but none on that superstar level and we have really good kids - and we want and need more.

All of which the club has been open about. Hence the president saying. We won’t go too early with our cap space if we are too far behind.

 

[Nomis2933]

Of all the things that bother me right now with the Saints, the biggest frustration is our goalkicking woes and our lack of attention given to it. The mechanics of your ball drop hand to foot are taught at my local club from a very young age. It staggers me how a professional outfit still allows its players to drop the ball from too high, or twirl it around. Like a golf swing, it is about alignment and follow through. Pardon the pun, but we have dropped the ball on this important skill. Higgins, for all his good qualities, is a goal butcher. The bloke plucked out of the crowd at half time kicked better than him half pissed.

 

[SG34]

Mnnn
We finished strongly again...
From mid-way the through the 3rd, we won the game!
That is just on 45 minutes!
The final 45 minutes of the game we outscored the Bulldogs by 1 point!

Just saying.

 

[kernelT]

I just don’t get our centre set up. Marshall constantly put it down Richard’s and Treloar’s throat last night. Now is it he doesn’t know where we want it or is it he just puts it anywhere where hit can get the hit out. Our mids can’t seem to read it either or are they just too focused on their opponents. We’ve watched this crap for way too long now. Something has to change.

From a fully rebuilt coaching team sold on the promise of great structure and processes we have looked really badly organised and the selected teams strangely unbalanced. Some of it must be the amount of young guys in the side, but it looks to be getting worse each week.

 

[luca77]

If we’re rebuilding why trade for Henry and keep Campbell/Doogs etc.

Henry?! Henry is 22 years old! Younger than Max. And looks terrific so far.

Campbell is break glass in emergency because Heath hasn't come on. I doubt we're spending a lot of money there. Doogs is still there, probably because he's got a contract (not sure about his status there) and 200cm defenders don't grow on trees, whereas 200cm+ forwards seem to be increasing in number. Given he's playing 2s, it's not like he's costing anyone a spot.

We moved on Billings, Gresham, Coffield, three best 23 players last year who would have been bloody handy last night with their experience.

Cutting too hard and sliding to the bottom to get picks can be a very slippery slope. If you stay competitive, your kids will get there in the end. If you are uncompetitive, talent gets wasted or pisses off to greener pastures, crowds stop coming, and you end up crying for money/picks etc. I'd rather fight it out, personally.

 

[kernelT]

Weren't we saying this a generation ago though?

"Our core isn't Armo, Gilbert, Hickey, Weller... It's Billings, Acres, Lonie, Steele..."

Starting to think the issue isn't drafting or talent identification, it's development.

If we have botched the Marshall/Steele era and are looking to the 'kids' then the board got their resoning for sacking Ratten wrong. There's no more to get from the older group. Another rebuild/refresh is incoming.

We will see what happens when we have Doogs & King back in but Ross needs to make a call pretty quickly.

he wasn't neccesserily brought in to win a flag immediately but the expectation was that the standards of the club would rise and that we would become a perenial finalist "always in with a shot". Happy to write last night off as a bad night, but would want to turn it around pretty quickly.

These eggs are different, have a suck.

 

[DougalHoward]

We'll look a lot better when Henry and Dow become available

 

[Saintbloke]

Mnnn
We finished strongly again...
From mid-way the through the 3rd, we won the game!
That is just on 45 minutes!
The final 45 minutes of the game we outscored the Bulldogs by 1 point!

Just saying.

Lyon seems to have plan this season where you only ever play competitive footy for a half, and mostly catch up footy. The Dogs clearly took their foot off the pedal later in the game last night.

 

[MordySaint]

I think it’s clear we botched the 2019 offseason.

Last year was a, “what do we actually have” test and it said we have a handful of A graders but none on that superstar level and we have really good kids - and we want and need more.

All of which the club has been open about. Hence the president saying. We won’t go too early with our cap space if we are too far behind.

Have agreed with most of your posts this year and I still love this club.

BUT ...

We have been poor in all games this year. Lucky to have two wins under our belt. Best win was against Collingwood when we had the rub of the green through-out the game and still nearly lost it. This team doesn't like to be front runners, they like to come from behind... which is a dangerous stragegy.

The players really let the supporters down in a big way, there are too many issues with this team to discuss in one post.

 

[Plugger35]

Of all the things that bother me right now with the Saints, the biggest frustration is our goalkicking woes and our lack of attention given to it. The mechanics of your ball drop hand to foot are taught at my local club from a very young age. It staggers me how a professional outfit still allows its players to drop the ball from too high, or twirl it around. Like a golf swing, it is about alignment and follow through. Pardon the pun, but we have dropped the ball on this important skill. Higgins, for all his good qualities, is a goal butcher. The bloke plucked out of the crowd at half time kicked better than him half pissed.

King's goalkicking is a lottery too and both him and Higgins are supposed to be our two main goal scorers, neither of them can be relied on.

Too often they miss straight forward set shots for goal which deflates the whole team who have worked so hard to give them opportunities.

 

[phantom13]

Henry?! Henry is 22 years old! Younger than Max. And looks terrific so far.

Campbell is break glass in emergency because Heath hasn't come on. I doubt we're spending a lot of money there. Doogs is still there, probably because he's got a contract (not sure about his status there) and 200cm defenders don't grow on trees, whereas 200cm+ forwards seem to be increasing in number. Given he's playing 2s, it's not like he's costing anyone a spot.

We moved on Billings, Gresham, Coffield, three best 23 players last year who would have been bloody handy last night with their experience.

Cutting too hard and sliding to the bottom to get picks can be a very slippery slope. If you stay competitive, your kids will get there in the end. If you are uncompetitive, talent gets wasted or pisses off to greener pastures, crowds stop coming, and you end up crying for money/picks etc. I'd rather fight it out, personally.

Or you get stuck in the perpetual hell of 6th-12th forever, neve getting top end picks and ****ing your cap by paying spuds enough to not go below the cap floor.

 

[gringo2011]

Last night was terrible. No excuses.
But our reality is in this image. Our core isn’t Marshall Wilkie Sinclair Steele.

It’s it’s everyone younger from King Owens Pou Nas Wilson Windy etc

The coach is the only reason we aren’t in a position that reflects the list.

This is our truth. You can choose to ignore it. You can demand more because you believed we should be tracking for top 4.

But it has and always was a rebuild/retool without burning it to the absolute ground like North.

You can’t be expecting kids between years 1-3 to carry this side. North show you every week that it doesn’t work. Gold Coast have shown you for a decade.

Jesus, try selling that message to the fans. None of the players under Max King's age look that good yet that you'd bank them. Wilson looks good off last night and Garcia promising. Owens and Phillipou would be lucky that there isn't players pushing up from the VFL and Windhager was getting good numbers but turned over more kicks than he hit targets. Sharman was meh.

Nas is the only set and forget best 22 gun and had his worst game so far. Our best players by a long way are Marshall, Wilkie, Sinclair, Steele and Hill on 2024 form. They'd want to be challenging before that core goes because they are not tracking like they'll be stars yet apart from Nas.

 

[Tom12]

Just chiming in with my yearly (and I think this makes 6??? years??) 'if Seb Ross is anywhere near the midfield we have a hard ceiling as a middling team' post.

 

[luca77]

Weren't we saying this a generation ago though?

"Our core isn't Armo, Gilbert, Hickey, Weller... It's Billings, Acres, Lonie, Steele..."

But looking at those names, does it matter?!
The second group you mentioned is clearly better than the first, but still nowhere near the quality or number of other teams. We got screwed over with GWS and GC, we got screwed over with our #1 pick not getting on the park, we get no free hits from location, father sons, academy (Windy and Owens were late and we missed the kid that went to the Hawks thanks to the timely rule change), we get pushed back further with North's charity. Things could be a lot worse with all that in mind, see North.

You mentioned development, and the worst thing for that would be to bottom out and get pumped every week. So we work on system and fight, which is exactly what we brought Ross in for. If it doesn't work, we can't say we didn't try - and we had no system or fight under the previous 2 coaches.

I dunno, I get emotions are low today, but real decisions need to be made by sensible people without hysteria.

 

[stavro#4]

Have agreed with most of your posts this year and I still love this club.

BUT ...

We have been poor in all games this year. Lucky to have two wins under our belt. Best win was against Collingwood when we had the rub of the green through-out the game and still nearly lost it. This team doesn't like to be front runners, they like to come from behind... which is a dangerous stragegy.

The players really let the supporters down in a big way, there are too many issues with this team to discuss in one post.

I’m not defending the performance.

I’m not telling you to love and support them and be kumbiyah

As I’ve posted.

Factually 4th youngest side.

North hawthorn eagles. The bottom 3 sides are below us.

That’s a huge issue.

 

[stavro#4]

Jesus, try selling that message to the fans. None of the players under Max King's age look that good yet that you'd bank them. Wilson looks good off last night and Garcia promising. Owens and Phillipou would be lucky that there isn't players pushing up from the VFL and Windhager was getting good numbers but turned over more kicks than he hit targets. Sharman was meh.

Nas is the only set and forget best 22 gun and had his worst game so far. Our best players by a long way are Marshall, Wilkie, Sinclair, Steele and Hill on 2024 form. They'd want to be challenging before that core goes because they are not tracking like they'll be stars yet apart from Nas.

And the messaging has been we need and want more kids. They need games.

None of this is surprising. Go listen to Ross every week. He isn’t talking these boys up as contenders.

He says they need to work. We want to play kids. We will “get help” as more experienced players return from injury.

He talks about inconsistencies. He talks about effort.

 

[my name was taken]

We started well last year, played a new style with a new coach, but I think opposition coaches are now picking Lyon's game apart this season

I'm not convinced that's true.

I don't know who to blame for a teams inability to kick the ball through 2 big sticks when given fairly stock standard opportunities that should have great conversion rates but I think that responsibility isnt sitting at the top. We have already seen a seasons worth of blooper reel quality set shots.

Comprehensively beat last night but fix that kicking and every possibility it was a 5-0 start to the season before getting a beat down back to reality.

And that's without discussing the appalling field kicking, how many goals conceded last week due to poor kicking and f all awareness.

Doesn't sound like being picked a part by teams to me, more of a list issue

 

[MordySaint]

Jesus, try selling that message to the fans. None of the players under Max King's age look that good yet that you'd bank them. Wilson looks good off last night and Garcia promising. Owens and Phillipou would be lucky that there isn't players pushing up from the VFL and Windhager was getting good numbers but turned over more kicks than he hit targets. Sharman was meh.

Nas is the only set and forget best 22 gun and had his worst game so far. Our best players by a long way are Marshall, Wilkie, Sinclair, Steele and Hill on 2024 form. They'd want to be challenging before that core goes because they are not tracking like they'll be stars yet apart from Nas.

We have been done this road twice already since 2010.

I was pretty pumped and looking to the future of Dunstan, Billings, Acres and co.

Future fest was meant to take us to better things. #SaintsFutureFest

Next generation commits as 19 sign on for #SaintsFutureFest

Re-signing blitz comes to a close with an unprecedented 19 players re-signing with St Kilda as part of #SaintsFutureFest

www.saints.com.au

19 resignings - anyone left from that rebuild

 

[CursingFijian]

We definitely looked tired last night.

But, we have somehow lost our forward 50 pressure, and I think this is more about teams having worked Ross Lyons defensive squeeze out. The ball has been coming out of our forward 50 with way too much speed and ease, and it just exposes us badly in the defensive half.

Last night looked like a training drill way too many times, and all our moments of defensive ferocity were in our around our defensive 50.

Ross says he wants to be a front half pressure team, but we are way off that at the moment. I'd be paring back the players who aren't contributing in that sphere

 

[luca77]

Or you get stuck in the perpetual hell of 6th-12th forever, neve getting top end picks and ******* your cap by paying spuds enough to not go below the cap floor.

Well Richmond have shown that you can go from perpetual 9th to winning multiple flags.
We have shown that you can collect top draft picks and still not win a single flag.

It's not a video game where you get to just hit the restart button and go from scratch without consequences, and giving up will just leave us down the bottom when Tassie come in - which could be the end of us, given we never recovered from the last 2 teams coming in.

 

[kernelT]

We'll look a lot better when Henry and Dow become available

Season will be cooked by then.

 

[Broski]

Look, there is much to be said about last night's performance and how it was arguably one of the worst displays since Ross returned last season.

Most of the negative emotions that have been created from this result are valid. We are all heavily invested in this club and ride each result more than the average punter - we wouldn't be posting here if we didn't care.

However, it is incredibly important to understand where we sit as a team in comparison to every other team, especially after the genuine excitement that was created throughout the preseason. Even with a clean injury list, we were never going to win the flag this year, or make the top four - our list doesn't stack up against genuine contenders, such as the Dees, Lions, Port, GWS etc.

Do we have some great young talent capable of driving us into contention in the next couple of years? Absolutely. But we need to be very careful about the expectations we put on these youngsters. Regardless of talent, they can't be reliant on carrying the club to wins against the best clubs. Consistency of performance is always going to vary when your age demographic is on the lower end, and without enough high-end experienced players lightening the load, we are always going to susceptible to these type of losses.

Going after youngsters because of last night's performance is idiotic - although they aren't immune to criticism. Their improvement isn't going to be linear and some of them might go backwards temporarily, before making the jump to good AFL player. Most importantly, we can't be in the mindset that every draftee will become a 200-gamer at the level. We will miss more than we hit in the draft sense, that's just how it works. Injuries ruin careers too and we have no idea if we will have a number of "what if" careers. We have seen enough from a handful of youngsters to know that we have something to work with - but we need to keep adding.

It is also important to note that even if we do everything right, there are 17 other clubs trying to do the exact same thing. Look at the Suns, they have three first rounders this year, as well access to another academy gun. We simply can't compete with that. We also don't have that trade pull that bigger clubs have, we always have to work twice as hard just to get ahead.

In terms of this season, we will have a number of highs and lows. Getting some experienced players back from injury will make us a little bit harder to play against, and most importantly, lighten the load and expectation on the youth to win us games. Pou, Owens Windy etc aren't going to have 20 touches and two goals a game, but we have to have a competitive team to allow them to develop and have moments. Getting the likes of Wood, Henry, Howard, Dow, Clark and Crouch back from injury will change the way we line up and our rotations in general.

This is much longer than expected and doesn't cover everything on my mind, but we need to have faith and believe that we are on the right track, even though that is hard for many of our long suffering fans. Last night makes up question everything and whether we are going to get that second flag and that's valid.

We can't predict the future, but what I do know is that we are an incredibly patient bunch - we have to be. We will get stuff off our chests and reset for next Friday, which will offer an opportunity to respond against a contender.

It's a long season and we will ride the results together - much love.