Feels like there’s something in the air

Round 6, 2022
GWS Giants 3.4, 7.7, 7.9, 8.12 (60)
St Kilda 4.5, 5.8, 9.12, 10.17 (77)
Crowd: 11,207 at Manuka Oval, Friday, April 22nd at 7.50pm

Anything can be a banana peel if you’re the St Kilda Football Club. Going in 4-1 against an opposition whose premiership window is slamming shut, their coach under the pump and all the media hype surrounding the return of a game-changing bad boy? Banana peel. A 19-0 start with three middling-to-poor teams to come in the final three weeks of the year before finals? Banana peel.

This wasn’t quite the same week on media street as the flurry leading up to the Gold Coast the previous Saturday (I neglected to mention Peter Ryan’s “Saints’ King-dom come” on game day), at least, right until AFL.com.au on Friday ran with a headline mentioning the f-word – no, not the M-rated “finals”, and not even the MA-rated “four”, but the XXX-rated “flag”. The last time we were 4-1 and made it to game day The Age called us “the story of the year”. We lost, and Richo was sacked three months later.

Really, all the build-up this week was around Leon Cameron and Toby Greene. Cameron almost gave up the job mid-interview on 360 on the Monday, and Gerard and Robbo spent the next two nights discussing it, with the show giving the story the moody vignette treatment on Wednesday. Summing it all up, should Cameron go, Gerard posed of the Giants, “What was the point of 2022?”. To make St Kilda supporters nervous, I suggested from my couch.

Toby Greene was given a whole 35 minutes one-on-one with Derm in Fox Footy’s new Face to Face program, which was probably both a lazy production decision and also a reflection of 2022 demands for Content All of the Time and broadcasters’ and the media’s thirst for players to become celebrities so they can feel aggrandised themselves. A bog-standard quote becomes a news item or an intense and moody graphic on social media and then a whole Twitter conversation. I don’t know if Jimmy Webster selling his house would have quite been the news item in years past.

Toby’s six-match suspension finished just in time for him to take on the Saints. No conspiracy there, of course, just something that would happen to the Saints, much like the overcorrection from the Match Review Panel and Paddy’s bump. The extended Channel 7 intro to the main broadcast was all about Toby, including a quick mention of his assault suit played as a bad boy character quirk.

A chance for St Kilda redemption in the Friday night slot after Round 1 likely spelled more calamity given our lack of prime-time wins in recent years. Not helping was Jones out with the Health and Safety Protocols, and then Joey during the week decided to give Lachie Whitfield a rocket; he literally said “he’s doing nothing”. Just in time for him to take on the Saints.

***

After four wins on the trot that began with giving up the first two goals (three in the Freo match), we went with the bold move to not only win the centre clearance and kick the wrong way out of the middle via Brad Crouch, but also kick the first goal, through Rowan Marshall drawing a free kick against human-as-mountain Braydon Preuss. It was part of a big opening for Marshall, including a huge leap in a ruck contest and laying a big tackle, picking up where he left off from his season-best game against Gold Coast. Perhaps we’d be ok without Paddy for a second week.

Things started looking a bit dodgy not soon after when Higgins blasted a point from near the top of the square after a deft wobbler from Butler. Up the other end Greene made an instant impact, of course, recovering from a marking contest while Dougal was slipping and sliding behind Idun and his high kick to the goal square somehow ended with Bobby Hill beating all of Webster, Dougal and D-Mac. 

Higgins had a shot at redemption soon after a lucky high-tackle free as he stayed low and decided to kick around the corner. Again, he tried to kick it into Lake Burley Griffin but missed another from close range (10 months later, BT ran with the Missy Higgins gag). Kicking the first goal and Higgins missing easy shots sounded a lot like the Round 1 misadventure. The ball went up the other end for Greene to find space on Wilkie, gather, turn and just miss. He was already looking dangerous.

We didn’t look like a team that warranted any of the f-words until Long’s switch in defence and an excellent kick from Battle hit Paton, who went short to Crouch and passed perfectly to Haye, who took a classic arms-out-in-front strong mark on the lead. He went back and kicked it from decent range.

Preuss himself loomed as a banana peel. Swamp pointed out during the week we have the largest number of Rising Star nominations against in the competition. Preuss doesn’t actually qualify, but in just his 21^st game this would be the perfect chance for him to get his big break. We’re only happy to make anyone else’s dreams come true. A goal and a big mark put him on the radar.

Gresham picked up where he left off from the previous week and snapped through an awesome banana goal that was more at home on The 90s: The Decade that Delivered. We were kicking the harder ones, it seemed, but it was immediately undone as we couldn’t work with our numbers from the bounce Ward punished the clumsiness from outside 50.

The inability to get some fluid consistent movement of the ball meant another lot of Sherrins being bombed from high up onto a double- and triple-teamed Max. Again, he wasn’t losing contests but the ball use going forward was haphazard and not to anyone’s benefit. He finally found the run and jump at the end of the quarter and took a huge mark on 50, but his post-siren kick hit the woodwork. The signs otherwise were good – 24 tackles was our highest in a quarter this year – but we probably should have been up by more than seven points.

***

As soon as “Hayes suspected ACL” was mentioned on the commentary Tom Green cruised through and Matt Flynn took a huge grab in front of goal. Marshall would have to take Preuss on himself, and a forward target that could take some heat off Max was gone, but more importantly after just five-and-a-bit games we’d lost a player who’d earned the club’s respect for his work rate right across the ground, never mind the work he put in to get his career to this position. (Part of me was angry that he did the initial damage to his knee because Haynes’ forearm was being forced into his head with no repercussions). It was great to hear Ratts straight after game say he’ll be getting a new contract. He’s the kind of player that is the yardstick for effort; that you’d think that if everyone tried as hard as he did all the time we’d be nearly unstoppable.

Something was up. King took a great contested mark against Lachie Keeffe but missed again. D-Mac and NWM kicked balls out on the full, Windhager had some sloppy moments, Matt Flynn won a soft free and put GWS in front. Long slammed Bobby Hill into the turf off the ball in frustration. Toby Greene missed a shot but the ball came straight back and he made up for the miss.

The Giants had ramped up the pressure and we were -8 in ground ball gets at half-time. The running game had dried up and like Round 1, we were too often going long down the line hoping Max would bail us out with a big grab. Otherwise, if we tried holding on to the ball we were drawn into the short chip game as seen in the worst of the pre-season.

The GWS momentum was briefly broken when Crouch took it upon himself to banana a goal through from the boundary after a wayward Perryman pass. Again, it was the hard one that went through. GWS quickly got it back on their terms via some D-Mac umpire dissent for saying the ball hit the ground, and Ward cashed in immediately. The rule had been in the spotlight all week so even if the ball did hit the ground (which it didn’t) and regardless what you think of the rule as a player, just shut the fuck up for a second (we’d been lucky earlier when Ben Long was penalised for a blatant arms out). D-Mac’s reaction of controlled mild entertainment to the umpire giving the 50 was very funny.

Max finally got the jump in a one-on-one closer to goal next to Flynn and it was time for him to hit the scoreboard, but he missed with a limp shot that floated left (after putting some alpha bodywork into Flynn after he took the mark). Idun, who was creating problems in his move to the forward line, just missed a snap. The Giants were up and about and we were barely hanging on. At half-time, Hill and Gresham each had only five touches. GWS was winning score from stoppages 4.1 to 2.1 as Marshall was getting worked over (last week we’d won the stat by 40 points). Hill finally found the footy on the wing in an attacking position and went for a long run; he cut in to Max who gathered the ball on 50 and wheeled around and the ball floated wobbled in the air before falling on the wrong side of the post. This was a different type of Max King quarter.

***

It’s at this point we were face-to-face with 149 years of trust issues. During the week I’d dared to trust Max King to receive the ball from the air and to kick goals from all angles; to trust Seb Ross and Dan Butler to get arsey handballs out of traffic, to trust Nasiah to hit targets; to trust Jack Steele to lead all day and night; to trust Jack Sinclair to create, to trust Jade Gresham to both create and finish (also from all angles). But how many times have we seen Saints teams wobble like this interstate? This had all the hallmarks of those late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s losses where we appear to either outright lose the ability to play Australian Rules football on the plane or are overwhelmed by anxiety, and possibly some misfortune. Round 15 in Adelaide in 1997, Fremantle in 1998, Brisbane Lions in the last game of 1998, Sydney a week later in the Qualifying Final, Fremantle in 2002, losses in Tasmania to Port in 2004 in 2005, “Whispers in the Sky” against Freo in 2005, West Coast in the season opener of 2006, Freo twice in 2006, including Sirengate. That’s just some of them.

King opened the second half with another mark and another miss. Five kicks for 0.5 in just over 37 minutes of football. It didn’t help that a lot of the shots were from tough angles, but by the time he’d taken his night to an absurd 1.7 halfway through the last quarter you would have thought a few of them would have gone through given some the shots he’d kicked over the last few weeks (I think he becomes the first Saint to kick seven behinds since Stephen Milne kicked 4.7 in a draw against Richmond early in 2011). We found the ball back from the kick-out and Gresham wheeled around from 50, and Haynes touched the ball on the line. Our magic was running out.

But the moment came soon after. Preuss took the mark on the 50 from a quick GWS rebound, but rather than go long or assess his options, he quickly went for the handball to Green going past and completely missed him. Steele won the ball and got the handball out; he’d been taken high and Hill ran onto the ball and took the advantage along the wing. During the game and in the wash-up he was praised more for his hard running to stretch the field while we looked to move the footy (great interview with Brad Crouch on Saturday discussing it here), but here he had his moment with the ball in hand and deftly cut in to find Higgins by boot. Still inside the centre square and with no one in the forward line, he wheeled around without looking and blasted the ball again. The ball simply had to go through. The bounce wasn’t perfect, but it found its way. The Jack Higgins quarter had been activated.

***

During the replay of the goal, the inset shot showed Marshall was off and into the rooms, with a corkie on top of the corkie he copped last week. This one was worse, and he’d spend most of the rest of the game on the exercise bike. Josh Battle would have to complete the set of positions he’s played on the ground and have to give away centimetres and kilograms against Preuss in playing as the ruck and effectively an extra midfielder. Soon after being thrust into the role he worked off Preuss to charge into defence and chase down Himmelberg as the Giants entered 50 on the rebound.

Higgins followed his goal just over a minute and a half later with a snap from 25 out after a tumbling Gresham kick found Keeffe, and Max pounced on him and forced a wayward handball that Snags was there to immediately deal with, and then gave some to Keeffe as the ball sailed through. A bit of swagger is creeping back. Seb Ross helped engineer Snags’ third in six minutes with some good bodywork on Whitfield who was trying to complete a mark, a steady gather and tidy enough pass on his non-preferred to Higgins on the 50; as he had against the Suns Higgins had read the play expertly and was already running into space. Like a number of important goals that this season has conjured up so far, this one would require an excellent individual effort. Snags turned his back on the play and rocketed the ball through.

Max finally broke through for his first of the match after winning a holding free in front of goal. A 13-point buffer had been opened up – all four goals were from turnover – and we really should have had more by the end of the third. Wood and Paton burned entries, Snags was smothered on the goal line, and Wood missed an easy shot under Taylor’s pressure. But we’d needed to change what we were doing within the game, effectively two men down, and it was happening. By game’s end we’d be 19 to the positive in ground ball gets.

***

GWS hadn’t won a final quarter this year. Really, all we had to do was break even, but that wasn’t going to be as comfortable as it sounds. We spent most of the quarter weathering an orange and charcoal storm. Repeated stoppages, repeated defensive 50 entries. The game finished with a comical hit-out count of 77 to 19, with Josh Battle playing one of the best one hit-out games from a ruckman you’ll ever see in really what could be a career-defining performance as he was repeatedly worked over by bigger bodies but competed and competed at the stoppages.

The Giants would win the stoppage clearance count but good opportunities in the final quarter were few and far between as Steele, Crouch, Ross, Gresham, Battle and even Windhager went to work in close. Preuss was consistently trying to create movement and clear the congested space by thumping the ball and it finally paid off when Whitfield ran onto a knock for a deep entry and Paton got caught holding the ball at the top of the square.

This was going to be a true grind. Marshall tried coming back on and planting himself in the goal square but Hill missed him. Max bobbed up with two more behinds – including a painfully close snap around the corner from another tough angle – and he and Gresham had opportunities to ice the game late. Wilkie dropped an easy mark at centre half-back to keep things interesting, but we also got help from the Giants. Flynn took a contested mark just 20 metres out on an easy angle but unnecessarily gave the ball off the Himmelberg, and his snap was lucky to be called a point. It bought the margin to 11 points, and a reverse Aussie Jones point against the Lions in 2004 ran through my mind. Gresham’s set shot from near 50 was thumped through for behind from an unmarked GWS defender who could have easily taken the mark, and took the margin back to an even two goals.

There was barely time to take a breath. BT and James Brayshaw started talking about the game as if it was a done deal in the final couple of minutes. I impolitely requested them to stop this from the couch, and there was just a little more to play out. Greene broke through a Webster tackle on the boundary line and Coniglio and Taranto worked through Sinclair; Coniglio could have hit up Whitfield or Flynn on a much better angle but he elected to go the banana. It clipped the inside of the post, and instead of a potential 2017 vs Port Adelaide-style finish we got something closer to Round 7, 2013 vs Carlton.

***

Games like this are often sealed when the team that has been weathering the storm find an opening late. Something breaks. Ours came from Butler’s pressure on the wing on Haynes and some quick hands from D-Mac, Max and Crouch that released Ross, and his pass was excellently-weighted to Higgins who again had worked forward to a great spot. Crouch had kept running, overtaking his opponent, and Higgins showed again how much he’d learned from Round 1 and gave off to Crouch for an easy goal. The game was done. Exhausted, victorious. We would be able to listen to The Fable Singers post-siren on the broadcast and watch all the Channel 7 prime time post-match faff about the Saints, including heartfelt questions from Richo to Jack Steele about what he’s liking about this team the most and BT asking Brad Hill about which pizza he wants. We would get through without Greene kicking four and being the story of the week, we would get through without GWS pulling their season out of the fire under all sorts of pressure against a team supposedly on the up. We would avoid the banana peel, we would be able to enjoy another week.

The spotlight shifts a little away from Max this week and onto Snags. Every game this year has been largely about either or both (by game’s end they averaged the most and second-most scoring shots this year respectively); we now have three wins in five weeks that we can largely owe to Higgins. He has now kicked hauls of four in a 10-point win, five in a 26-point win, and four in a 17-point win, each of them with game-turning bursts.

This may well have been the best win of the five. Two weeks ago we played the sexiest football this club has produced in years on a beautiful afternoon at the MCG. On Friday night we won ugly, coming from behind with two men down and no ruck in the freezing dark of Canberra, and it was at least as satisfying. Battle’s game typified the entire team’s performance; he finished the game Hollywood-placed cut under his eye with a blood drip that was happy to walk around with and show off afterwards.

I’d built up beating Gold Coast way too much that in my mind it became the Gateway to Being Good, completely forgetting there’s the weekly grind of a season to get through. As we settle into the colder months and Bob Murphy’s rhythm of the season, another test awaits next weekend. For now, it’s about this team looking like it wants the challenge, and we as fans learning to trust it and enjoy it again, bit by bit.