Be sweet

Round 15, 2021
Richmond 0.5, 1.6, 2.7, 2.10 (22)
St Kilda 3.2, 5.3, 8.7, 9.8 (62)
Crowd: 14,787 at the MCG, Friday, June 25th at 7.50pm

Sometimes you just know.

“I think we are going to win tonight” was a much-too positive message to receive on a Friday morning after I’d gone the Whinge Royale about the Saints the previous weekend..

“Dunstan Ross Steele crouch in the wet”

Nah, still not feeling it. An 86-point loss last time they met, and that one was coming off a stirring comeback win we had all of five days to enjoy. We’ve barely built any momentum this year and this didn’t appear to be the time to do it. How many honest feedback sessions can you have after another pasting or embarrassing loss before it all becomes kind of dull?

However.

That morning I did get the auto-generated on-this-day notification on Facebook. It was a photo Dad had tagged me in – a shot of Roo and some other players going to the fans after the three-point win against the top-of-the-ladder Cats on a Saturday night that helped take us from 2-6 from a 103-point loss earlier in the year to winning eight of the last 11 and missing finals by percentage.

I wrote after the Gold Coast game about that gut feeling, intuition, whatever you want to call it. We all have it to some degree, positive or negative or anything else. Sometimes it’s easy to trace your expectations to form, or history, or opposition. It happens during the season, during the week, during a match. Matt piped up at three-quarter time of the Gold Coast match that we’d pull it out of the fire. In hindsight I shared the same feeling maybe a little. Not overly formed. On Friday, I think I can claim – certainly in hindsight! – I had something more peripheral. I certainly felt that we’d be competitive, but when Matt pressed me I couldn’t commit to anything greater than that. This was just meant to be the first game of the rest of the season.

***

As Friday night progressed that “feeling” turned into simply expecting and waiting for Richmond to come back. The whole stadium shared it, it seemed, to the point at which the Richmond crowd got up and about during the third quarter for no obvious reason (a throw-in from memory).

As soon as Mason Wood took us to five goals to nothing up (straight out of the middle after the fourth) I said to Matt “if we lose it’s a story” (met with an immediate “I understand.”). How else was this going to end? It was either St Kilda beats Richmond on a Friday night at the MCG, or Richmond beats St Kilda on a Friday night at the MCG (and everything that would go with it from that point). Another week of having to deal with the back pages, BigFooty Saints board ECO and 360 chat about the Saints throwing away a decent lead once things just got that little bit too tough. Within exactly 100 seconds, the players had resumed their positions, the between-goal break had run its course, Richmond took it out of the middle, Dustin Martin marked at full forward and kicked the Tigers’ first.

In the same way that the unconvincing, inaccurate and wobbly game style managed to just get the job done for no apparent reason against the Suns, the Richmond challenge just never came. It just…didn’t happen. Nothing changed during the game. The basic skill errors across the ground, missed kicks, slippery hands, they all kept happening. Dusty missed a shot with more time and space than he usually finds himself in. Jack Riewoldt missed Chol in the pocket with a kick that harmessly dribbled out of bounds. Aarts missed a running goal on the eve of half-time that surely would have triggered something, in the same way that Dunstan’s long miss, or Membrey’s wide set shot were the chances we just couldn’t afford to miss and were leaving the door ajar for the Tigers that they were going to bash down anyway.

But it never happened. That spectre of a Richmond comeback loomed at the same time that I quietly trusted Dougal Howard and Callum Wilkie and Tom Highmore every time the ball went into defence. Ryan Byrnes was always moving to the right spots. Mason Wood was a presence whenever he was near the ball. Luke Dunstan, who had been pantsed by everyone when we came back into the team against this opposition in Round 5, was right at home in the conditions. He played the commanding, grinding role we thought he would when we picked him up as South Australia’s Under 18s captain.

This was quietly comprehensive. The beginning was shaky, for sure. Richmond was dominant and on the occasions that we did go forward Rowan Marshall sprinted from one flank to another twice only to be served some very sad delivery. But soon enough it seemed as though Richmond were the ones working overtime for minimal reward. There were more groans of exasperation – and I’d add stunned gasps from Saints fans – than there were roars from what barely amounted to the interstate side-sized St Kilda crowd. 

Paddy Ryder, who plays for St Kilda, dominated the air on a wet night that simply wasn’t made for talls. Rowan Marshall did everything he could at his size on a wet night. I don’t know how healthy it is, how much we appear to rely on the combination, but at the very least soak up every second we have of Paddy Ryder wearing a St Kilda jumper. King and Higgins nailed their early set shots. Murmurs McKenzie managed to kick the first, and Ben Long made much of a positive physical impact as a small forward and echoed Murmurs’ goal with his own off the deck (nutmegging Wood) in the third as the Saints pulled away. Murmurs all but sealed it heading into half-time with a set shot from just on 50 metres. 

***

Surely even just some junk time goals from Richmond would make the score board all the more respectable? Even they never arrived. The novelty goals number of two would stand, a novelty score line of 2.10. Teams kick three goals rarely but often enough in a heavily professionalised era. Let the records list run: Richmond’s lowest score since kicking 0.8 in 1961 (which, incidentally, was against St Kilda and remains the last time a VFL/AFL side was held goalless). Richmond’s lowest score at the MCG since the 1927 Grand Final. St Kilda’s lowest score conceded since 1971.

A night of novelty indeed. Luke Dunstan best on ground, and featuring in “Who was your player of the round?” social media polls. St Kilda dominating on a Friday night at the MCG, dominating the reigning premiers no less. Leo Connolly, just generally. Dan McKenzie kicking the same number of goals as the opposition.

Maddie’s Match in 2017 inadvertently began the Tigers’ reign, and we might well have ended it in a 14% full MCG. The story since Friday night has been all about Richmond. St Kilda is not really a part of the story of the season, much less the last few years in the way the Tigers have, and if the Saints are their character arc has played out. The expectations, the frustrations, the inconsistency, which felt like it came to a head against the Crows and now this. “Where has that been all year?” This record-setting win against the reigning premiers defines this year and team just as much as the ridiculous loss to the reigning wooden spooners in the previous match.

Sometimes it’s your night, and it’s one of those nights for the opposition. This ended up having a feel of somewhere in between the St Kilda vs Geelong and St Kilda vs Bulldogs matches just a few weeks apart in 2016. Balta and Broad went down with serious injuries. Sinclair had energy for one last dance around an opponent tight on the boundary line in the final moments. Footy has been fickle for all fans since the beginning of last year. St Kilda has certainly been fickle for Saints fans. A contradiction. While another season faces its mortality, we have a few days to enjoy this result.