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Round 2, 2022
Fremantle  3.0, 5.1, 6.4, 8.7 (55)
St Kilda 0.4, 2.7, 8.10, 9.11 (65)
Crowd: Halfish of capacity at Optus Stadium, Sunday, 29th March at 6.10pm

All sorts of overreactions are derived from Round 1 results. Six months of anticipation leads to two hours of footy, which leads to a manic declarations of new top four contenders and seasons written off, ripe for a whole year’s worth of 360 vignettes. For St Kilda fans, the 2022 season was facing its own mortality before the weekend of Round 1 had officially started. A whole pre-season to sort out a game plan that will make your team the centre of the universe, and then when that doesn’t work a nine-day break to fix it all. Over nine days you can mostly just hope that maybe Round 1 was a horrible massive mistake and that everyone is sorry.

The only real positive out of the previous week was Jack Hayes. He was Gerard’s Monday Hero, and for a week at least, the ruck in Matthew Richardson’s rolling All-Australian team. We held onto that as hard as we could, otherwise we were pre-emptively mourning a rebuild that had been busted (again). Maybe the Richo era had never really ended; the only change was the semantics – the long-time disconnect between kickers and catchers is now called an inability to complete our plays.

The next test was The Bizarro Rivalry (our in-depth look at the history between these two ridiculous clubs will be restored as part of our Great Server Disaster of 2021 recovery program), in the official debut of the new clash jumper (and new clash socks). Ratts noted on Fox Footy before the game that going interstate after what happened last week might be a good thing. You’d think it shouldn’t matter where we were playing after what happened in Round 1 but I guess from my couch there’s something extra to an “Us vs Them” environment.

There was an obvious increase in pressure and movement around the ground early, but it still felt like former St Kilda supporter Gerard Healy was being way too kind about it all in Fox Footy’s special comments, given the stop-start ball use and whole quarter return of 0.4. For anyone that was bothering to tune into two mediocre teams at 6.10pm on a Sunday, there were a few heated moments that included Blacres nearly taking Max King’s head off in front of goal (no free kick), and then Josh Battle summing up whether or not he should send Blake into the interchange bench horizontally. The first quarter also included Snags missing a set shot, taking his season tally to 0.5. Sinclair and Gresham were providing their “point of difference” through the middle, which is all well and good, but the Dockers had Andrew Brayshaw and Hayden Young providing genuine young midfield talent. Steele wasn’t quite himself last week (he was still quite good) but he opened up this game with a very uncharacteristic skewed pass to Max going forward that went straight to a Dockers defender. (He finished with a massive 13 tackles but maybe still wasn’t quite himself on Sunday either.)

I was at a wedding and then The Shady Lady on Saturday night and a hot topic of multiple conversations with St Kilda-supporting friend Georgia across both venues was that Ratts was maybe being a bit too nice all the time; something that might be reflected in the team’s lack of campaigner on the field (although the club has probably lacked it throughout most of its 149 years). Ratts, who has embraced a new hairstyle, pulled out the quarter-time spray and it worked to an extent. We had a lot of the footy in the second term, repeatedly winning the ball in the middle third of the ground and dominating the inside 50s for the quarter. But the old chestnut of not being able to complete our plays, kickers not connecting with catchers – however you want to describe it – was chewing up a lot of our momentum; something we couldn’t afford to happen for a second week running. The ball movement flitted between tentative and wayward. An extra split second was required for a player in a red-backed hot-cross-bun jumper to consider whether or not they would give off to the player running past, if there was actually one to begin with. Forward handballs have been on-trend in the opening rounds but we weren’t daring enough to use them out of the middle and there were never enough guys around the ball at any given time for them to happen in open play. “Ah, yes, we need more structure. More system.” is the easiest thing on the planet to write but I’m sure an organisation like this doesn’t exist with the endgame of producing unsure footy come the weekend.

It was easy to spread the blame. Butler scuffed an opportunity on the run, Gresham danced away from the mark off one step at half-forward but his kick went straight to a Freo player, Sinclair took two bounces streaming forward and kicked it wide and out on the full, Higgins got space on his opponent just inside 50 on an angle, marked the ball, kept running and kicked it to a Dockers player in the square. There were some frustrating almost-marks from the catchers, namely Wood and Hayes close to goal just moments apart. Max King was anonymous, to the point I thought he might have been concussed by the Acres hit. To kick our first goal we had to cut out the middleman of the forward line – Butler ran all the way from 70 metres after an intelligent Brad Crouch kick into space from a turnover.

It was at some point during the second quarter as we burned another forward 50 entry that I started to consider whether or not we were the worst team in the competition. I would have bet the house (that I’m renting) that in that moment we were at the very least the worst-placed team. But could we be the worst? I’m not sure where the “good” version of generating 16 to five inside 50s for the quarter for a half-time return of 2.7 left us. We might well be the most uninspiring team at the very least. Most anxious? What’s the coaching equivalent of giving your players Prozac?

***

Brad Crouch had a great contested game and was a big reason why we won the centre clearances (14-4) and overall clearances (37-26), but his scuffed set shot kick at the beginning of the third quarter was a low point. We’d watched Carlton go further past us on Thursday, Collingwood too on Saturday, Hawthorn very possibly on Saturday night (and Gold Coast as well, despite their loss), and we’d watched Paddy McCartin start trending amid the #Buddy1000 festivities on Friday. As his wobbly kick from 30 metres didn’t make the distance and trickled over the boundary line we’d gone from simply stuffing things up to trying to find the funniest ways of doing so.

Snags made up for it only a few moments later from the resulting throw-in with his second, with a quick snap around the corner intercepting Will Brodie’s handball. It was the kind of opportunistic goal we’re rare to capitalise on given we waste enough shots of our own accord. Sean Darcy leaving the ground opened the door for Lloyd Meek to become the next unheralded player made to look good by St Kilda and he pinched one back. He and Lobb had moments that made the defence look undersized in Dougal’s absence and presented a potential threat for the second half. Some people take hat-tricks on their birthday, some kick six in a two-point St Kilda win in Perth, some get COVID and are replaced in the line-up by Darragh Joyce.

There were some good things happening without the reward. Crouch was getting the ball, Sinclair and Gresham were working in the middle, Hill was trying to make things happen off half-back, D-Mac was winning one-on-ones and scooting away into space, Battle was playing a break-out game as an intercept defender, and there was a presence at ground level from the small forwards. But it wasn’t being finished off.

The turnaround started in earnest with Crouch getting to the centre bounce tap down and having his head nearly ripped off. Ross took the advantage and Hill was running past, and without breaking stride bulleted a pass to Max on the lead. The newly reinvented Facial Hair Guy had had next to no impact on the game by half-time (just two disposals), but he got a couple of metres on Kevin Parker’s on-field avatar Alex Pearce and Hill was good enough to lower his eyes, hit him up and give him his chance to get into the game. Max kicked truly from just inside the 50-metre arc.

Crouch got the resulting centre bounce clearance with a wide kick and good efforts from Byrnes and Hayes ended with a deft left-foot pass from Byrnes finding Max again about 35 out. Max again was “on the lead”, but not in the way we have known barnstorming leads from full-forwards of years gone by. Max marking on the lead is simply the opening of space between he and his opponent, and the casual receiving of the football from the air. This set shot was tougher than the first but he made it look just as simple. Two goals in two minutes. Back to five points.

Moments later, Gresham – whose pressure had created the wayward handball snapped up by Higgins’ that led the first for the quarter – ran onto a tumbling ball from Ross out of a stoppage just as it reached the boundary line and in one motion screwed a kick around to near the top of the square. Max was there, and held on to the mark despite the direct attention paid to his eyeball from Pearce. Three in four minutes. A one-point lead. And, all of a sudden, a lot of push and shove. Max had got stuck into Pearce as the ball went through and it immediately drew in Griffin Logue, Jordan Clark and premiership player Joel Hamling. Byrnes, Ross and Membrey were active in the spotfires for the red team. Max is the kind of player that looks naturally almost too lackadaisical at all times and it was almost a relief to see him getting stuck into his opponents. We don’t want him to be too nice. Maybe Ratts’ spray had sparked something. (Also very lol to see runner Tony Brown dash all the way to the goal square just give him a small hug and a pat as it was all breaking up; no verbal message relayed).

The next goal was a 47-second journey from a James Aish behind to thrilling Snags goal. The best of the 2020 season is the new reference point for what good Saints Footy looks like – simply too long has passed since the GT and Ross eras to make very easy links – and this was a neat little throwback. A Paton mark at half-back, short kick to Ross, Sinclair running past for the forwards (!) handball, and a long kick to space in attack. The bounce favoured Logue but he was pounced upon by Membrey and Higgins. Membrey found the ball as Higgins peeled off towards goal, and Butler sped past. Membrey in all honesty fluffed the handball; Butler had to correct his grasp on the footy while being tackled by Clark, and it took two attempts to get his hands free. The ball spilled out – it probably should have been paid as incorrect disposal – and Higgins threw a boot at it and it knocked it through. More push and shove came after he may or may not have said something in the celebration to some very irate Dockers defenders. Great for Max get in another shove or two.

Four goals in just over nine minutes.

Sinclair was part of the next goal, too. It probably came from the best non-Paddy Ryder tapwork seen for years from a Saints player. Rowan Marshall thumped the ball laterally with his right arm to the defensive side of a throw-in and the footy went straight to Sinclair. His kick went to the vicinity of Snags, Max and Membrey and Snags was ridden on by Young and received the free-kick. The ball was coming in fast and repeatedly, and the Dockers were frazzled. Snags practiced the deep breathing routine as Jonathan Brown in special comments alluded to Nick Riewoldt saying during the week he should have been dropped after not giving off to Gresham during the third quarter against Collingwood, and sympathetically noted that he’d given the handball off to Gresh early in the last quarter. It must have released something in Higgins; he wound up and the kick looked like missing – until it didn’t. The ball was heading across the face and swung back late. Snags looked relieved and a little chuffed.

Five goals in 12 minutes.

***

Much like the week before, we’d helped ourselves to a nearly irresistible run in the third quarter. Round 1 was 5.6 to 0.0 by the time Gresham put us in front early in the last. This week it was 5.3 to 0.2 in just over 19 minutes of play, and the record will show that those three behinds all came in the last four minutes of the quarter from shots that weren’t impossible. Gresham hit the post on the run in space – really good teams nail those – and then Max and Snags missed shots that were gettable considering what they’d kicked earlier in the quarter. Given the way the game was being played, any of those would have almost shut the door on Fremantle.

But this is St Kilda, and they weren’t going to let us fans get away with a comfortable finish. We hadn’t made nearly enough of our run against the Pies, and we needed to wring every little bit out of this one. Steele missed a set shot early in the last and from that point we appeared to give up on proactive ball movement in favour of seeing what dangerous levels of inside 50s we could absorb. Battle had been clunking marks all game (strangely, he and D-Mac spent the last 10 minutes on the bench) and together with Lienert, Wilkie and Joyce managed to thwart repeated entries for nearly the entire quarter, until first-gamer Nathan O’Driscoll jagged one from a tight angle on the run with six minutes of play left. This is The Bizarro Rivalry and this is where the stranger things do happen. Stress-eating hangover KFC before at the beginning of the game had given way to stress-eating M&Ms by this point (my strict regimen of tuna salads during the week gives way to denser fare on the weekends) and the 380g bag was getting a good working over.

We still needed to attack. The chance came from a free-kick to Hayes that was probably a milder version of the Acres and King collision (that wasn’t paid to Max). Hayes’ kick forward found Pearce, but in a microcosm of the input of the small forwards, Butler and Gresham pressured successive handballs backwards for the Dockers, and Snags ran onto Aish as he tried kicking it out of defence and the kick was dragged short. In his (unofficial, but effectively) first game Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera gracefully, as Huddo described it, rose up and took the mark. He waited patiently for the right movement up forward and delivered a kick that fell directly into the hands of Max, who didn’t flinch backing into more bodies. As he had done a few times that night, Mason Wood was there taking heat off Max in the contest. (Huddo: “Where’s Max King?…THERE HE IS.”)

Max went back and kicked the goal. He had a very similar shot in similar circumstances in the pre-season match against the Bombers. Joey and Bucks in commentary spoke about how important the experience would be for the real thing. They were proven right within a few weeks.

Notwithstanding a second consecutive week that saw a questionable umpiring decision in front of goal involving Jack Hayes with just a few minutes left, the gap at that point was just too much. A Jimmy Webster tackle on Travis Colyer with 30 seconds left in the Dockers’ forward line ultimately sealed it. Our second win in Perth in 11 years, and The Fable Singers played outside of Docklands.

***

OMEN WATCH: In all years* in which St Kilda has won a match 65-55, they've gone on to make the Grand Final.

* 1913#AFLFreoSaints

— Gigs (@AndrewGigacz) March 27, 2022

This wasn’t a huge redemption story for the club after Round 1. We weren’t outrageously good, nor were Fremantle. They were also missing Fyfe, Mundy, and Cox, and had an underdone Sean Darcy (and then no Sean Darcy), although it has to be pointed out we were missing a bunch of our own best 22 also. However, it was a redemption game for two lifelong St Kilda supporters. It was the game we’d been hoping to see from Max and Snags since they were at the centre of two of the most dramatic games of our 2021 – Max dominating against the Cats on a Friday night, taking 10 marks but only to trip over in front of everyone by himself and kick 1.5 in a tough defeat, while three weeks later Snags gathered 23 touches and 12 marks but kicked 1.6 in a nine-point loss to the Swans, including two set shot misses that would have put us in front in the final minutes. Last week, they’d echoed those games kicking 1.7 between them as Max dragged in his most-ever disposals and Higgins was accurate kicking away from breaking the game open. Max was a tease, Higgins, according to some, should have been dropped. Now, we have a win that we can owe to them.

For Max more specifically, it was the kind of game we’d been hoping to see from him since we picked him up at the end of 2018. It was the game he’d always threatened to play. His six goals at the same ground last year against the Eagles were for a team trying to stay in touch. His goals on Sunday ripped the game open, and then closed the deal.

A win in Round 2 doesn’t automatically halve the agonising that came with Round 1’s performance. We do, however, have a lot more positives to enjoy for this week at least.