Made the pearl

Round 4, 2021
St Kilda 4.2, 5.5, 10.11, 15.12 (102)
West Coast Eagles 6.2, 10.3, 13.3, 13.4 (82)
Crowd: Some very loud humans at Marvel Stadium, Saturday, April 10th at 4.35pm

There aren’t many bleaker places than the Concrete Disney Store when St Kilda’s season is falling apart. If the stunned silence from the small home crowd after Oscar Allen kicked West Coast’s third opening goal didn’t say it, then maybe it was the frustrated silence peppered with the usual angry cold Saturday expletives as Jack Petrucelle bulleted through his fourth goal. At that point, we were a wayward centring kick or Nic Nat-to-Kelly combination from a stoppage away. Or Liam Ryan’s shot at goal soon afterwards directed a few metres to the right.

Wayne Carey said we were both cooked and done. Roo teed off on the couch on On the Couch. Gerard almost wistfully opined about a 2-4 + ??? = 7-6 scenario for the Saints, with all of the sympathy he could muster. For a few lonely moments in the Concrete Disney Store, we’d have to be jagging that win to go 2-4 from one of the teams who’d just played a genuine finals-intensity game the night before. At best we’d have to load up for a second-half of the season assault; the type we’d seen in in 1997, 2005, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08, ‘10, ‘11 and ‘16, with all sorts of varying degrees of success and heartbreak.

***

It was about the 21-minute mark of the third quarter that Matt pulled out the uselessly optimistic, “We just need to kick two goals from here and we can be in touch at three-quarter time”. Maybe it was several beers talking. Yes, all the numbers aside from the scoreboard said we were in it, but there was no real clear reason why anything might change at that point. The Eagles players spread across the ground defensively at a pace our wayward kicking and predictable movement couldn’t contend with, and we simply didn’t have the numbers around the contest to get the ball to advantage and force things forward on our terms. They always had the extra gear. We’d worked incredibly hard over the first six and a half minutes of that third term before the ball fell into Jack Billings’ lap in front of goal. The quick reply from the Eagles was disheartening because it was so expected. Max King slotted his fourth soon after, smashing the Paddy McCartin Three-Goal-Maximum for a young St Kilda tall forward ceiling, but Kennedy and Petruccelle added majors each within a few minutes (and then Liam Ryan kicked the ball on the full).

“Momentum is a funny thing”, so the idiom goes. There isn’t really another game in the world that can express it so intoxicatingly. We also saw an excellent example of the journey a single game can take us on when played at its proper length. These were particularly long quarters too; the nearly 35 minutes of the third quarter allowed for one of the more teasing runs from a Saints team in recent years. Dan Butler reappeared in earnest after nearly six months to break a six-minute deadlock, finishing off some fast hands before hitting the post straight out of the middle seconds later. After D-Mac’s hunting tackle and goal he snapped a shot wide again from his wrong side, and then kicked another goal after a reaching mark next the behind post. Lonie missed a snap that he should have kicked while burning a couple of guys, and then Max King missed a set shot, and then almost blew that tacky roof off once and for all with a winding dash through three opponents and a running, curling snap that didn’t curl enough.

There was no real significant moment, or play, or factor that clearly turned the game on its own. The momentum probably felt like it had turned when D-Mac caught McGovern in front of goal holding the ball. It was emblematic of the pressure the Eagles were suddenly under, but also of a St Kilda team shaking off the revised expectations and labels that had been thrown at them during the week. D-Mac played his best game in a career that has somehow meandered into its seventh year. Not only did he get an equal career-best 21 disposals, they were his most telling. A deep breath in the goal mouth suggested he knew exactly what the very loud murmuring throughout the crowd as he was lining up meant (you can hear it on the broadcast). No one was backing him, but he was the one with the moment in his hands.

All of the things we saw on TV and the promises over the off-season were here, right in front of us, in real life. Max King kicked 5.2 from strong marks and crumbing his own contest, and had an immediate hand in a few more. His three goals in the first quarter breathed life into the game before it was snuffed out entirely. The midfield was different unit; Jack Steele bullocked his way to 33 touches and a vital late goal, and Crouch had 12 tackles and was helped around the ball by an aggressive Zak Jones. Hill breezed up and down the ground – yes, in a good way – in the final quarter gliding across the turf while we held the ball, constantly providing a new option, making his opponents work, changing the space around him and whoever had the ball. The returning Marshall was able to limp his way to an effective performance, combining with Carlisle to nullify Nic Nat and help wrestle the midfield battle our way (and also joining Robert Harvey in St Kilda’s Completely Snapped Plantar Fascia Tissue club, although not by choice). Higgins brought snags, pressure and smothers, whether it was diving across a boot or having the ball kicked into his face. Billings collected his 25-plus possessions across the ground and appeared when it mattered most close to goal. Butler kicked 3.2 in a performance that not just kept us in it but helped turn the game when anything short of that would have likely meant an impossible road to salvage 2021.

On top of all of that, there were pleasant surprises. Carlisle’s presence in the ruck and around stoppages overall. Jack Bytel put on seven tackles and gathered 19 touches of fast hands, neat use and composure with a maturity that belied his baby face (never mind him staying out there after a head clash that had him lying down in front of the members late in the game). D-Mac played the best game of his career. His first half was busy and his second was considered, involved in several chains of St Kilda’s last eight goals. A quick turn and duck to avoid an oncoming tackle and a tidy handball that helped set up the Butler goal that started the streak before his own tackle and goal; and in the final term a side-step through the middle to put the ball to runners out wide instead of blazing away as the team had done ineffectually so often, a low pick-up from a marking contest and quick handball over the shoulder to help set up Steele, and the intercept and collect through the middle from the resulting centre bounce after Nic Nat won the hit-out, which ultimately ended with Higgins’ sealer – with the celebration of someone who grew up as a Saints fan – and completed a run of 8.6 to 0.1 in the final 45 minutes.

***

This team – 2021’s version of it, at least – appeared to be relegated to the realm of Gallant Losses At Best during the week. A decent-case (and perhaps likely) scenario for Saturday was a dogged effort, with some occasional flourishes that bring a raucous echo throughout the Concrete Disney Store, before the West Coast US College Jocks kicked away. Despite having the momentum and the loudest small home crowd you could hear, three quarter-time felt a little bittersweet. There was a turnaround, but surely it couldn’t keep going. All those wasted opportunities, we were still 10 points behind.

The result was never a fait accompli. We still had to keep doing the hard stuff around the ball and that good work still needed to be finished off. For all of the wasted opportunities and the fast West Coast replies, the pressure stayed up (with just a hint of swagger and mischief), ball use remained wise, and accuracy was back. Whereas Coffield and Carlisle had blundered into each other on the eve of half-time, it was now the Eagles making mistakes. Darling dropped the ball in the goal square, Ryan was forced into running too far in defence, Nic Nat and Jones collided into each other as the Eagles looked set to stream through the middle on the rebound. Higgins got in the face of Nelson after he was caught with the ball from a short kick. The previous week’s tackle count of 32 more than double to 69, and whatever metrics that go into Fox Footy’s vague pressure gauge thing were off the charts. Importantly, the 3.5 kicked in third quarter run became 5.1 in the last. The came from set shots, a slick Billings gather and snap, in a goalmouth rush, on the run.

***

“And the last bit – I’ve definitely got it, I know a lot of you blokes have it – it’s ‘fuck you’. So fuck them.”
– Adam Simpson, pre-Round 17, 2020, Making Their Mark

Who else but Essendon to leave us in an early-season crisis, triggering all sorts of existential crises? Who else but the bunch of US college jocks from the MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS team, getting it all from the umpires on the way, to give us the answers? Two Saturday twilight slots at the Concrete Disney Store; 32 degrees one week, 17 degrees the next. Anything you like. This was going to be textbook St Kilda.

Many of us who watched the Amazon documentary would have taken note of Adam Simpson giving St Kilda the “fuck them” before they pulled out an excellent late-season win, undermanned and faltering late, to seal a finals spot. It’s an attitude the Saints have lacked over the 148-year journey. The record books reflect that. Saturday wasn’t really revenge for last year’s loss (we’d be here for at least another 148 years if we tried that route), or for the retrospective knowledge that Adam Simpson said “fuck them” referring to the Saints. This was simple a time to take the evening for ourselves; whoever might be in the way, so be it. Even at 33 points down in time-on of the third quarter, it just had to happen. It’s the simple pleasures, mostly. You want to be at a packed Platform 28 with Saints fans singing the song over and over again. What’s better than being at the footy on a Saturday watching the Saints have a crack? (Well, maybe if the roof was open. And if Marvel stopped playing music after goals, and if the club didn’t curiously sneak in the shitty cover version of the song after the game.)

There are new guys, there are inexperienced guys, there are young guys, there’s a new captain in this team. For the first time in a very long time, any whistle when the ball was in defence didn’t inevitably going to mean a shot at goal for the opposition. Steele plays like and has the presence of a captain. Jones bodylines the ball. The excitement of King and Butler near goal. This was an evening of supporters getting attached to this team, right here, in the same space we are in.