Autopsy Round 6, 2024: St Kilda v Western Bulldogs

[stfan]

A backline of Doogs, Cordy, Battle and Shoey??

I don't really think anything that can be done this week will fix our issues. Reality is we need some grunt players back in the side and up to speed.
Jweb, Dow, Crouch, Wood, Hunter*
We are soft as shite at the moment.

Yes as I posted earlier, our side will not be materially different in personnel for another 4 to 6 weeks.

Making it worse is that most returning will be coming back after a long stretch of not playing, and so will not be match ready (ie Sincs, Butler).

It will be very hard to get any serious momentum going for a while.


Bring in even more kids now, and watch out for 100 point thumpings. Better to keep rewarding those who are showing something like Windy, Wilson, Garcia.

Time to start rotating players like Pou through Sandy. Just having him float around the ground like he dose at present is not developing, it is stagnating. Play him at Sandy and give him a defined role.

Trouble is that we have little senior personnel that we can actually bring back now who who be match ready.

Port could get real ugly.

We might get enough back to make us competitive against North and Hawks. But they will both be eager for a win too.


Port:
King.
Howard
Dow? But geeze has not played for ages. Though he will be hungry to show something.
Hayes? Probably getting fit enough, but not yet demanding selection. But at least he works hard and has grunt

North:
Webster
Wood? But maybe one more week
Clark? Ditto, but unlike Wood no games or match practice. So surely has to have a run with Sandy first

Hawks


Freo



Now some will say Arie, but we already have too many kids at present.

 

[Plugger35]

To say we won’t see a performance like this again is a little bit of a stretch. Port will obliterate us

I'm hoping we will bring a much better effort against Port but with their midfield of Butters, Rozee, JHF and co. I think we're up against it.

Our midfield got dominated by the Dogs midfield even without Libba. we badly need Crouch back and Paddy Dow to play like Paqdy Cripps

 

[stfan]

Unpopular opinion, but I think there's a direct correlation between Wilkie's loss of his AA form and Howard being out of the side.

Cordy is a stop gap break glass option, GWS last year should've shown that.

We badly miss Webster. Our defensive unit, whilst it's the least of our worries, is frail without Webster and Dougs.

Nas, Sinclair and Bonner are all weak defensively, sure they are playmakers but all three together can be exposed defensively. Battle and Wilkie are undersized but make up for that by reading the play better than their opponent. That's why Howard is so important to our defence and the reason why Wilkie can't play the way we need him to.

Plus Howard is the only tall defender we have who spoils. We miss his fist. Which is why as you have pointed out Wilkie plays better with him as the roles are more clearly different.

Cordy dose not spoil, nor take intercept marks.

 

[jwint43]

We need a game-breaking GENUINE star mid. a Cripps/Danger/Trac/Bont-level mid. We havent had one since Banger and Lenny and without one were not gonna give other Clubs much finals angst.

Any combo of Steele/Crouch/Clark/Jones/Ross/Sinclair is not gonna win us a flag..or even go close. Windy looks like he MIGHT make a good mid, but assuming upward trajectory of our youngers players will do your head in. 3 weeks ago Nas was in AA form, but has fallen away with 2 pretty poor games.

Mark my words, without a GENUINE A-list mid, we're going nowhere.

You're 100% correct, and unfortunately you could have copy and pasted this comment from 2017 and replaced Clark/Jones/Crouch with Dunstan/Billings/Acres and it would still be true. Steele is a gun but he would be the 3rd best mid at most top 8 clubs and isn't an athletic game breaker. This is why we need to be patient with Owens, Windhanger and Pou. They all are victims of our overhype in pre season but they aren't all just going to take a massive leap in years 2 and 3 and all at the same time.

It's not going to happen overnight but it's the most exciting crop we've had in 10 years.

 

[akaifu]

The good thing is that the VFL team has a practice match this weekend which will feature Dow, Doug and hopefully Hayes. If they all get through, I wouldn't be surprised if all 3 are in along with King. 4 very nice inclusions. Does Dow's injury not being soft tissue make it easier for him to return after just one week of VFL?

Then the week after we get Clark, Wood and Webster back. Clark probs the one needing a run in the 2s with the calf but other two should be good to come straight back in?

 

[stfan]

A kid who turned 19 a couple of months ago is suddenly our new scape goat? He's just a kid, not yet mature or grown into his body and because of injury he's being asked to do so much more than he should be. Yeah we build up expectations on kids far too quickly, but we are also guilty of cutting them down when they aren't dominating.

Edit: I wanted to include some DOBs for perspective...

Phillipou: 27/12/2004
Shoenmaker: 7/1/2005
Collard: 26/3/2005
Garcia: 22/5/2005
Wilson: 18/8/2005
Hastie: 19/9/2005

Pou is not a scapegoat, but unlike the other young players has not be dropped to Sandy when form showed he should have been last season. And this season too. Just playing him every week in the seniors automatically has done his development no favours. It is normal for young players to come in and out of the team. It is abnormal to keep one in, when his form is only so so.

This season has seen a lack of pressure on senior spots due to our injuries and suspension.

The other aspect is our forward lacks players who can pressure and we have an over abundance of medium talls in Pou, Owens, Sharman and Menbrey. Adding to that is Higgins who often plays as a small leading forward, more than as a crumber.

Our forward line needs a better balance. Unfortunately Butler has not been in good form or injured.


Henry made such a difference, but we have only had him for one game. Collard is probably too raw and especially as we already have a high % of younger players. Garcia I think deserves a crack at HF/Mid for a brace of games.

 

[Simon Templar]

After that performance I didn't want to come in here as I knew it would just amplify the humiliation of being a Saints supporter.

 

[austinnn]

We might get enough back to make us competitive against North and Hawks. But they will both be eager for a win too.

Hawks, Roos and Eagles will ve looking at the Saints as one of the few AFL teams they are likely to beat this year.

 

[tomjoad]

Confidence is low. Once you lose faith the rest goes pretty quickly.

That and fatigue.
It was one of those games where everything went wrong. Nearly every kick, and every handball was either intercepted, or misdirected straight to the opposition.
Games like that, don't happen too often...but we're good for at least one of them a season.

 

[Sarcoidevo]

We were the equivalent of a very large tin of Surströmming or a plate of 15yo fermented tofu .... bottom line we flipping stunk hard

Worst of all we let a headbanded soft as cottage cheese hack kick 6 straight ... 6 flipping straight ... seriously fk off you two left footed showpony sht cnt spazdk

Watch the fknuckle kick 1.4 in each match and 2 oof over the next 4 weeks

Not a happy punter ... we better fk turn up against Port

 

[bergholt]

That and fatigue.
It was one of those games where everything went wrong. Nearly every kick, and every handball was either intercepted, or misdirected straight to the opposition.
Games like that, don't happen too often...but we're good for at least one of them a season.

Yeah sometimes bad things happen to good people, personally I couldn't watch the second half but in the cold light of day I'm not certain that it changes much. So many clear reasons for this game to end up the way it did:

• Three games in 11 days
• A bunch of sub 60 gamers who haven't worked out how to perform consistently at this level yet (Garcia, Wilson, Caminiti, Phillipou, Owens, Sharman, Windhager, Wanganeen-Milera, Byrnes, Stocker)
• Out of form players hard to replace because of injuries (Crouch, Clark, King, Dow, Henry, Webster, Wood, Paton)
• Underdone players without preseasons having had minimal impact (Sinclair, Jones, Butler)
• Dogs under the pump all week
• Dogs having lots of tall forwards when our backline isn't tall
• Dogs being a good clearance team when we're not

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt but maybe this is the recession we had to have, I certainly hope we're not that bad all year but I think a game like this here or there is probably inevitable.

 

[bergholt]

Yeah sometimes bad things happen to good people, personally I couldn't watch the second half but in the cold light of day I'm not certain that it changes much. So many clear reasons for this game to end up the way it did:

• Three games in 11 days
• A bunch of sub 60 gamers who haven't worked out how to perform consistently at this level yet (Garcia, Wilson, Caminiti, Phillipou, Owens, Sharman, Windhager, Wanganeen-Milera, Byrnes, Stocker)
• Out of form players hard to replace because of injuries (Crouch, Clark, King, Dow, Henry, Webster, Wood, Paton)
• Underdone players without preseasons having had minimal impact (Sinclair, Jones, Butler)
• Dogs under the pump all week
• Dogs having lots of tall forwards when our backline isn't tall
• Dogs being a good clearance team when we're not

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt but maybe this is the recession we had to have, I certainly hope we're not that bad all year but I think a game like this here or there is probably inevitable.

And then the bigger picture.


The cause of this is that our drafting was shit for years. Here's how many players we have left from the last 14 years of drafts (looking only the 18 year olds taken at draft age, ignoring mature age for a sec).

2009: -
2010: -
2011: Ross, Webster
2012: -
2013: -
2014: -
2015: -
2016: Battle, Paton
2017: Clark
2018: King
2019: Byrnes
2020: Allison, Heath
2021: Owens, Windy, NWM
2022: Phillipou, Van Es, Hotton, McLennan, Keeler
2023: Collard, Hastie, Garcia, Wilson, Schoenmaker

Compare that to the Dogs:

2009: Jones
2010: Johannisen, Liberatore
2011: -
2012: Macrae
2013: Bontempelli
2014: Dale, Daniel
2015: Williams, English
2016: -
2017: Naughton, Richards
2018: Khamis, West, Smith
2019: Weightman, Garcia
2020: Ugle-Hagan, Bedendo
2021: Darcy, Jones
2022: Busslinger, Clarke
2023: Sanders, Freijah, Croft, O'Driscoll, Smith

It's obvious there how poorly we drafted through literally 12 years of drafts between 2009 and 2020. We have 8 players we drafted at 18 years old from those years, they have 18! Many of which were key players last night. And yes some were father-son or academy, doesn't matter for the purposes of this analysis.


So we've been chasing a list. We've been picking up mature age players at draft and trade throughout that period and sometimes it's worked. These guys who were picked up after their draft year somehow are the core of our side:

2009: Campbell
2010: -
2011: Hill, Wood
2012: Membrey, Crouch
2013: Sinclair, Marshall, Steele, Jones
2014: Wilkie, Butler, Howard, Hayes, Cordy
2015: Bonner
2016: -
2017: Higgins, Dow
2018: Sharman, Stocker
2019: Henry
2020: -
2021: Caminiti
2022: -
2023: -


The incompetence at list strategy through this period can't be overstated as a cause of our current situation. We didn't focus on the draft; when we did we didn't take enough mids; when we did we didn't develop them well.

I reckon this happened because we were constantly looking for shortcuts. We were always hoping that we were closer than we were, and so we'd opt out of the draft to trade for a Jake Carlisle or a Tom Lee or a Dan Hannebery or whoever.

And then because that didn't quite work, we'd have to keep doing the same thing the next year, because we'd already traded away our collateral and still didn't have a senior core.


This is the genesis of our current situation. We have to hope that Owens, Windy, NWM, Phillipou, Caminiti, Wilson, Garcia, etc turn into serious players, because we haven't got the group of promising players slightly older than them to lean on.


But here's my actual point.

If we get too impatient in the current situation then we'll say "we don't have time to wait for the draft, we need to get free agents or senior players in right now!"

If we do that then we'll end up in the same situation in a couple of years. It's a sugar hit. Same with changing the coach.


We need to accept that we're in a shit situation and that the only way out is to be tough, go back to basics on list build, keep taking promising kids and pumping games into them.


Is Phillipou going well at the moment? No. Does that mean we make more progress by dropping him? I don't think so, not in the context of all this. Unless the coaches can see some specific emotional reason he'll do better in the twos for a while, we just need to keep playing him. By the end of the season he'll be almost 50 games and next year we'll start to get a sense of what player he's going to be. It took BJ Goddard until his 4th year to become any good at all, and in his 7th year he was AA quality. It'll quite possibly be the same with Mattaes.

Same applies to the rest of them. We have to keep pumping games into them, we literally have no choice.


Doesn't mean we have to like it. I have a lot of sympathy for everyone feeling shit about this. But unfortunately it is what it is.

 

[jh38]

Yeah sometimes bad things happen to good people, personally I couldn't watch the second half but in the cold light of day I'm not certain that it changes much. So many clear reasons for this game to end up the way it did:

• Three games in 11 days
• A bunch of sub 60 gamers who haven't worked out how to perform consistently at this level yet (Garcia, Wilson, Caminiti, Phillipou, Owens, Sharman, Windhager, Wanganeen-Milera, Byrnes, Stocker)
• Out of form players hard to replace because of injuries (Crouch, Clark, King, Dow, Henry, Webster, Wood, Paton)
• Underdone players without preseasons having had minimal impact (Sinclair, Jones, Butler)
• Dogs under the pump all week
• Dogs having lots of tall forwards when our backline isn't tall
• Dogs being a good clearance team when we're not

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt but maybe this is the recession we had to have, I certainly hope we're not that bad all year but I think a game like this here or there is probably inevitable.

Blooding the kids is nice and all, but the most concerning part is that our game plan has been worked out big time, and we don't seem to have a response to it. Dogs and Dons showed that if you chip the ball around, make us run around, and shift the zone then chances are you'll end up with a shot at goal. On top of that, they're waiting on the kick into the corridor and punishing us on turnover. No one in the team looked like they wanted the responsibility of kicking the ball. Its all well and good playing the kids, but you have to at least have some sort of game plan going/ a back up if it gets worked out. We did the same thing all night long.

 

[tomjoad]

Yeah sometimes bad things happen to good people, personally I couldn't watch the second half but in the cold light of day I'm not certain that it changes much. So many clear reasons for this game to end up the way it did:

• Three games in 11 days
• A bunch of sub 60 gamers who haven't worked out how to perform consistently at this level yet (Garcia, Wilson, Caminiti, Phillipou, Owens, Sharman, Windhager, Wanganeen-Milera, Byrnes, Stocker)
• Out of form players hard to replace because of injuries (Crouch, Clark, King, Dow, Henry, Webster, Wood, Paton)
• Underdone players without preseasons having had minimal impact (Sinclair, Jones, Butler)
• Dogs under the pump all week
• Dogs having lots of tall forwards when our backline isn't tall
• Dogs being a good clearance team when we're not

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt but maybe this is the recession we had to have, I certainly hope we're not that bad all year but I think a game like this here or there is probably inevitable.

Definitely, our team at the moment is cobbled together and inexperienced. Almost every line has players playing roles that they are unaccustomed to, whilst also having to carry an under done player, or a kid that is developing. It's going to catch up to us at times.
Add the fact that Sandringham seems to have a bye week more often than it gets to play, and it compounds the lack of development, or a chance for a player coming back from injury to get some match fitness before coming back into the seniors, as well as the weird fixture... it's a perfect storm.
Last night we played like we were trudging around in quicksand...we were bollocksed before the ball bounced.

 

[pebblesofsand]

I think I've made this observation a few times but didn't realise how appallingly bad we are in this area.

 

[pebblesofsand]

It is but it’s not off 1 game
He looks lost to me up forward like he struggles to know where to lead/what to do
His hands have dropped away I’m not sure he’s AFL standard tbh
Not alone but have thought that for a while.

Caminiti is the least of our problems

Anthony Caminiti and Aaron Naughton AFL Stats Comparison

Anthony Caminiti and Aaron Naughton AFL Stats Comparison.

www.footywire.com

 

[seasonedsainter]

I think I've made this observation a few times but didn't realise how appallingly bad we are in this area.




View attachment 1963685




View attachment 1963684

100%. I realised there I think I flinch a little bit whenever we handball it whilst under pressure in the middle. Because invariably, that handball is going to the opposition, going to a player who's hot or just simply getting turned over. We're truly low rent by hand out of the middle especially - and when on the run we're far from accurate or effective. It needs to be addressed big-time. As for the slam it on the boot kicks, give me strength...

 

[Ricmel]

As long as we don't repeat a performance like this for the rest of the year, I'm not overly concerned.

You brought back memories for me. I remember thinking the same thing after Round 8 in 1981.

43 years later and I must admit I am starting to get concerned. Next year is the one. I am sure.

 

[tomjoad]

Blooding the kids is nice and all, but the most concerning part is that our game plan has been worked out big time, and we don't seem to have a response to it. Dogs and Dons showed that if you chip the ball around, make us run around, and shift the zone then chances are you'll end up with a shot at goal. On top of that, they're waiting on the kick into the corridor and punishing us on turnover. No one in the team looked like they wanted the responsibility of kicking the ball. Its all well and good playing the kids, but you have to at least have some sort of game plan going/ a back up if it gets worked out. We did the same thing all night long.

Yep 100% The oppositions short - barely 15 metre kicks - through the play, are slicing us up and bleeding us out. I saw a couple of our guys trying to do it last night, but it was picked off each time. Opposition has also figured out how to crowd and shut up the space for our distributers. We've no room to move. As a result we look confused with our disposal, a handball when we should kick, and vice versa.
Last night you could see the players looking both exasperated and shell shocked with what was going on. A player in the right spot being ignored for a player not expecting the ball. No wonder we looked fumbly and hopeless. Not being able to mark to save ourselves, didn't help the cause either.
Last night was a bit of an anomaly, but the signs have been there for most the year, on how to beat us.

 

[BigPowerForward]

Most teams dish up an absolute stinker every year. Hoping last night was the outlier and not a sign of things to come
That being said, I am a firm believer that you learn more from your losses than you do from your wins.
Bank the learnings from this game and those learnings should hold us in good stead moving forward
What happens over the next 5-6 weeks will be the measuring stick of where we are at as a club; starting with the big challenge of Port Adelaide away next week.

 

[bergholt]

Blooding the kids is nice and all, but the most concerning part is that our game plan has been worked out big time, and we don't seem to have a response to it. Dogs and Dons showed that if you chip the ball around, make us run around, and shift the zone then chances are you'll end up with a shot at goal. On top of that, they're waiting on the kick into the corridor and punishing us on turnover. No one in the team looked like they wanted the responsibility of kicking the ball. Its all well and good playing the kids, but you have to at least have some sort of game plan going/ a back up if it gets worked out. We did the same thing all night long.

Meh, imo gameplan is overrated. Ultimately every team knows how every other team is going to play, it’s just about how well the players execute it. If you don’t have good enough players then any gameplan will look shit.

 

[BrutThough]

Caminiti is the least of our problems

Anthony Caminiti and Aaron Naughton AFL Stats Comparison

Anthony Caminiti and Aaron Naughton AFL Stats Comparison.

www.footywire.com

Any time he our main target, it is a huge problem.

 

[gringo2011]

Caminiti is t up to it
There’s a reason he wasn’t drafted
Think we need to be honest

He was alright IMO. Better than King last week and got us back in that game. Tracking at Harry McKay level at the same age.

 

[gringo2011]

Yeah sometimes bad things happen to good people, personally I couldn't watch the second half but in the cold light of day I'm not certain that it changes much. So many clear reasons for this game to end up the way it did:

• Three games in 11 days
• A bunch of sub 60 gamers who haven't worked out how to perform consistently at this level yet (Garcia, Wilson, Caminiti, Phillipou, Owens, Sharman, Windhager, Wanganeen-Milera, Byrnes, Stocker)
• Out of form players hard to replace because of injuries (Crouch, Clark, King, Dow, Henry, Webster, Wood, Paton)
• Underdone players without preseasons having had minimal impact (Sinclair, Jones, Butler)
• Dogs under the pump all week
• Dogs having lots of tall forwards when our backline isn't tall
• Dogs being a good clearance team when we're not

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt but maybe this is the recession we had to have, I certainly hope we're not that bad all year but I think a game like this here or there is probably inevitable.

Our list is still bottom 8. We look more like Hawthorn, Adelaide or North Melbourne on paper. Last year a lot of players played their best footy and carried the kids. This year without Wood, Crouch, Butler etc we look inexperienced and low quality.

The Dogs have been developing kids on top of their stars. We are a few years behind with a worse core.

 

[OxSaint]

Think Hills one of the very few able to hold his head up all season.

People that look at stats only would think that. His ball us is so hot and cold. He costs us more goals than he creates. Ball use under pressure is diabolical, and he runs himself into pressure a lot. He can’t release a handle once one finger is played on him, seems more worried about gently getting to ground.

I get that he works hard and has got on the end of it this year but three good kicks a game don’t make you forget the turnovers, the letting the opposition be first to the ball to avoid contact and the running into pressure like a rookie.

We have too many outside players in one team and I would prefer the others getting a game for the clubs future. Guys like Ronnie, Wilson, Henry, Wood, Hastie, NAS, Bonner.