Round 2, 2021
St Kilda 3.2, 6.3, 8.4, 11.7 (73)
Melbourne 3.4, 6.7, 9.13, 12.19 (91)
Crowd: 25,903 at Marvel Stadium, Saturday, March 28th at 7.25pm
The dessert trolley of life is back for Victorian fans, as part of the weekly ritual. Footy is back, albeit not quite as we knew it. There’s been a glitch in the system. There are sponsors above the numbers. The ticket boxes at the ground don’t sell tickets but offer directions. There are DHHS messages and QR codes plastered up every few metres. Moving around the ground felt just that little bit naughty, and it was the fans who had to be cautioned about staying inside their zones. Going through foreign gates to get to foreign seats for a St Kilda home game. The Legends Bar was untenanted. The ground looked different from these one-off seats compared to our membership seats close by, but not quite the same. The usual Saints fans surrounding us were replaced, on this night, by others’ usual surrounding Saints. Are there people that aren’t able to be here tonight, or aren’t able to spend money on going to the footy, because of the pandemic?
***
Saints fans have been waiting to see Max King, Dan Butler, Dougal Howard, Brad Hill, Paddy Ryder, Jack Higgins and Zak Jones in the flesh at a home game. They’ve been waiting to see the 2020s version of Jack Steele and Jack Billings and Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield. Rich and Matt and I discussed how we’d missed the Rise to Competency of 2020.
Max King enthusiasts would not have been disappointed early, although much of the pleasure was born of adversity. OIiver, Gawn, Petracca, Tomlinson and Langdon all feasted on a St Kilda midfield that looked just a little too undersized and we needed to get our moments right. King set up the first two with handy forward 50 passes to Membrey and Steele from a higher position reminiscent of the early career of another number 12, and he kicked one on the siren with a celebration to the crowd that really brought this home crowd into the game for the first time. When he kicked the first of the second term, crumbing contest at the top of the goal square, he’d set up two and kicked the other pair of our first four goals.
Sometimes the occasion just feels a little too much for the Saints, despite the sentiment, and things seem a bit off. The 2005 1st Preliminary Final. Harvey’s club-record breaking game against the Cats in 2006, and a season-defining night against West Coast later that year. Grand Final Day 2009. This time it was the Homecoming. It’s that intangible quality. Everyone can see it, they can feel it, and everyone understands it with the simply interchange of the words “off” and “flat”. The reasoning isn’t always apparent, but can be attributable to some things. A hangover from the massive win last week, perhaps the weight of Spud’s Match and all that surrounds it. Perhaps the team is overwhelmed, likely they will be underwhelming. The better moments still feel a little too delicate.
Steele made up for embarrassing himself against the point post early, stepping back with the flight of a high Melbourne ball and letting it go, leaving it to thud into the turf just inside the boundary line. King put it on the lead for him and he took a tough mark that Plugger himself might have enjoyed seeing. It was a captain’s moment – of atonement, as well as chance to get things moving for the team – but there wasn’t much enthusiasm around him after it. It was left to Max King on the quarter time siren to create a connection between the team and the fans and the atmosphere around the stadium. A roar and a pumped fist to the fans who only a few years ago he was sitting with.
There was hangover from the Richo era. Playing on just a little too hurriedly can look great for the short periods when it comes off, but we’ve learned that it simply isn’t sustainable. It did put us to a threatening lead during the second quarter, and it had the home crowd taking ownership of this St Kilda team. Zak Jones and Billings combined to finish a fast-paced passage, and Josh Battle’s goal soon after provided the slick mid-game Butler/Ratten moment that we now know will probably be met with a challenge. The body language was up momentarily, forward 50 entires were plentiful and Melbourne defenders were being harassed. Battle won a free kick for deliberate next to the behind post and guys were presenting into space immediately. Battle instead casually improved the angle and slotted it. Maybe it felt a bit too easy. That the perfect moment was never too far away. Ratts had mentioned in the past that at times we’ve been trying to be too perfect. Last night this presented itself as a team-oriented complacency. Anyone would have given licence to Higgins taking advantage on his own in the forward line to head straight towards goal, but instead we ended up with multiple disposals in the opposite pocket, and then back on the flank, that was really the beginning of the error-riddled end. And just as soon as we were feeling that attachment to the players wearing St Kilda jumpers in front of us, we were reacquainted with the straining frustrated voices and the irate comments and the temperament quirks of other people around us at the footy, not just those who happened to be in our lounge room over the past 12 months.
To a man, the team was too cute going forward. Hill just wanted the home fans to enjoy him providing the slick and silky skills we’d been seeking for over a decade. He had 21 of the worst, quickly becoming a poster boy the kicks inbound that were sliced or cut off by Demons, for the Saints players streaming throughout the front half of the centre square only to miss a target and put it to no clear advantage. The precedent was set when he found open space running into attack in the second quarter and kicked it out on the full. An indifferent long shot at goal on the run in the third quarter added up to some vague Bronx cheers in the final term when he did hit a target.
***
It was only a matter of time before the game swung back hard in Melbourne’s favour. Pickett provided the X-factor that no-one else could. The Dees were well set-up around every contest, which allowed Oliver another zillion possessions and Petracca to remind us of choices made in November 2014. Perhaps we were too predictable, but Melbourne did the right thing and could pre-empt every move across the ground. Salem picked off the footy at half back at will and just had to use it cleanly coming the other way – it sounds simple, but we certainly couldn’t pull it off – and May, Lever and Gawn (when he wasn’t ruling ruck contests) shut down anything that went higher or deeper.
Whereas the previous week was a victory for contribution across the ground, this week was uneven. The small brigade of Lonie, Butler and Higgins were unsighted individually and collectively, their running patterns railroaded by unimaginative, reactive or wayward ball movement.
Steele played a captain’s game. He muscled his way into contests around the ground during the third quarter as the game demanded something be done before it was put out of reach, and his two goals in that term made it official that the game was still alive on the scoreboard. Ross looked effective being allowed to use his burst speed around the ground. Gresham was busy and agile, but again his finesse in getting past opponents was undone by his slicing kicking action that is slowly turning him into a metres-gained player before anything else. Dougal Howard may well have been our best player. High numbers feel a little more impressive the way the game has been played over the opening two rounds, but there has to be a critical mass of possessions Dougal Howard has before it reads that the opposition dominated play.
Melbourne could quite easily have put this beyond reach during the third quarter. The final margin was 18 points. A couple of mid-last quarter St Kilda goals flattered an already flattering margin. Melbourne kicked only one more goal, but the full scoreline shows 31 scoring shots to 18.
***
The last St Kilda game I had been to was at the MCG against the Blues on a beautiful August Saturday afternoon. A late-year inconsequential fixture; a day to relax, to sit out in the sun, and watch two young teams representing foundation clubs on a Saturday afternoon at the MCG. Away from the TV production studio noise and roof of the Concrete Disney Store. To enjoy the footy.
How much can I complain about the Concrete Disney Store being…a, you know, Concrete Disney Store? About the hundreds of millions of dollars burned by individuals and companies in creating what is just another office building amongst office buildings? The AFL has done its best, then and now, to eradicate the experience of going to the footy in favour of creating an of award-winning whatever-the-fuck, but what simply remains a monotonous grey bowl with seats. An “experience” rather than going to the footy, to see footy, to be in a space at the footy. An “experience” rather than an experience.
It’s times like these, we tell ourselves, to just be thankful for what we have. Rightfully, the AFL brought back the Saturday afternoon Grand Final, and acknowledging the importance of traditions and rituals in this period. An olive branch, but perhaps also a distraction or a bargaining tool. While we’re busy trying to remind ourselves “How good’s this?”, people in power will take the opportunity to make self-satisfying, self-fulfilling changes. Thus, music after goals is back at the request of no one, to the excitement of no one. Not to the addition of excitement after a goal and to what it might mean for a team, but to the short-circuiting of atmosphere that had specifically been created by what is happening in the game and in the crowd, not by the ego of the marketing team. I can tell you that there were zero Saints fans concerned about fighting for their right to party after a meaningless goal was kicked in the second half with the game out of reach.
And still, yes, how good it was to be at the footy. There is hardly a point to a St Kilda premiership if I’m not there with Matt or Dad or Evan or Rich. There is certainly no purpose for the journey – to that promised land, or elsewhere – if I can’t share that journey with them. This was a pertinent night to remember Spud and what we can learn, and to be reminded of what we hold dear.
The anticipation of driving into the ground on the AM dial with the tram line interference cutting in and out. Hell, driving from the ground, after a loss, listening to the post-match on the AM dial with the tram line interference cutting in and out. Getting annoyed at poor umpiring decisions, getting annoyed at Brad Hill skill errors. The rush of a forward line entry with Max King nearby. Watching the Saints with my brother and my dad and my cousin and my friend.