Month: May 2022

Round 9, 2022
St Kilda 2.2, 4.4, 11.8, 13.12 (90)
Geelong Cats 4.3, 6.8, 8.10, 11.14 (80)
Crowd: 32,517 at Docklands, Saturday, May 14th at 4.35pm

After pissing away a win in Cairns and then not even giving ourselves a chance against a (superior anyway) Melbourne, the anticipation of watching St Kilda had dried up. Interest was low. The bandwagon emptied. Readership down. We’d gone from Jack Higgins feature articles and David King breaking down Brad Hill’s selfless running patterns to “St Kilda counting the dollars and the cost” and then First Crack breaking down how we went out of our way to not play our game style, and picking on Ben Paton and Jimmy Webster for not tracking Kosi Pickett.

That anticipation had been replaced by trepidation. I was militantly sure we’d lose to Port Adelaide because that’s what St Kilda does when it travels interstate, specifically plays in Cairns, and specifically plays against the Power. Then it was our turn to play mere extras in the Melbourne show starring Petracca, Oliver, Gawn and Langdon. Now, we were facing a team we didn’t know how to beat.

Those expecting a St Kilda 2019 redux after the last fortnight’s stumble would have taken more interest than usual in the week’s events in Sydney. Leon Cameron was out of the job he’d effectively quit live on 360 a few weeks ago, which saw Clarko jump into a PR offensive and put his hand up for just about all 18 clubs. Every coach was put on notice. Consensus was that we were about to slide further to 5-4, another step towards repeating the anti-heroics of the 2019 team that started 4-1 and became The Age’s “story of the year” before the coach was sacked 12 weeks later.

Another St Kilda and Geelong match meant another opportunity to wheel out the 2009 epics. The St Kilda socials brought out Round 14; “A Friday flashback that never gets old”, they called it. “Time to relive the 2009 Toyota AFL Grand Final between both sides on AFL On Demand” chirped the AFL socials. But that Round 14 flashback does get old. When I think of Geelong I don’t think of the Round 14 match; I think of the 2009 Grand Final. And while we beat them twice in 2010 (including a Qualifying Final win that turned the finals series on its head) I then think of them snatching a win in the final 20 seconds of the opening round of 2011 from a totally needless Jason Blake turnover that marked the beginning of the end. Geelong was synonymous with the Riewoldt generation’s early promise in the GT era, and its opportunities lost in the Ross Lyon era. Geelong has been the marker of this club feeling like it has been in a comedown for the years since; our once-rivals won multiple premierships and have been challenging nearly every single year while we’ve never truly recovered from missing out. The Cats are triggering. Since the Riewoldt generation took us to those Grand Finals I’ve aged 12 years and seen only one win over Geelong. There was no chance in hell this week would be comfortable, whatever the result. Philip told us all to believe. I couldn’t bring myself to. It’s Geelong.

***

Both teams ran out onto the field a little earlier than the usual 10 minutes ahead of the start, a large swing from the brief period a few years ago when we started running out just a couple of minutes before the bounce. We’ve made a habit of immediately giving up goals this year and we weren’t about to be thrown off by the early appearance. Geelong took it straight out of the middle courtesy of a dodgy opening bounce free to Rhys Stanley and within a few seconds Tyson Stengle was snapping from the pocket, only to hit the post.

Paddy Ryder (in a St Kilda jumper) kicked the first after drawing a free-kick from a throw-in and going around the corner. Josh Battle had a wobbly start to the game, dropping a ball at the edge of the square that Hawkins swooped on for the Cats’ first, and he almost gave up another with a straight turnover, but the ball hit the post again.

Geelong’s seasoned, bigger bodies were making a difference early and they were a lot more composed. Jones was still rusty in traffic, Ben Long slipped over, and Gresham was zigging and zagging and into trouble. Webster kicked the ball directly to Rhys from the kick-out (prompting rare evidence of strong emotions in Jack Sinclair) and no-one bothered to notice that Tuohy was cruising past and he calmly slotted the goal.

King got our second thanks to Sinclair’s rush to spoil Knevitt as the Cats looked to switch across half-back, and D-Mac’s kick to him just hit his outstretched fingertips. Only Max could have taken it. Rather than go back and test the set shot nerves he played on and goaled from close range. Save for that moment, Geelong simply looked more organised with and without the footy. Long took a nice mark at high half-forward but then sat one on top of Higgins, and Stewart came in and instead of taking a speccy, he both thumped the ball away and concussed Snags, and the Cats went through Dangerfield, Narkle, Duncan, Cameron and Isaac Smith for one of the cleaner coast-to-coast goals you’ll see. Scores were rare in the second half of the quarter bar a modern classic Geelong chain of Selwood, to Dangerfield, to Hawkins finding 1990s skateboarder Gryan Miers on the goal line.

Perhaps it was partly adjustments to the personnel changes (although Billings was among our better players early and throughout) but we’d come out a little slow with the footy again, which you’d think would have been the first thing learned from the week before. We’d played hesitant footy against the Dees almost exclusively to avoid May and Lever; were we trying to avoid Stewart and Atkins and De Koning and Kolodjashnij in the same way?

***

Things didn’t get horribly worse in the second quarter. We were fortunate they kicked 2.5 for the term and to be just 16 points down at the main change. Our better players were getting involved for the wrong reasons. Sinclair – otherwise our best on ground and most creative – had a kick-out turned over. Jones was trying to take everyone on, and while it’s hard to fault the intent (it was a sign of things to come in the second half), the execution was yielding mixed results, but his feigning of two handballs drew Paton who found Marshall for our third. Gresham was busy but still a little too chaotic.

Geelong had picked up where they left off from the week before and were winning the uncontested possession count (they were second for uncontested possession differential in the competition over the past month), and their clean, direct game looked like it could open things up at any moment. We didn’t look like kicking a goal until the moment Steele came off with a shoulder at the same time Higgins was subbed off. Gresh had a too-cute attempted pass inside 50 chopped off but he was good enough to follow it up and wrap up Zac Guthrie. The throw-up was smacked wide and went straight to Gresh; he screwed around a high kick from the boundary that comically fell into King’s arms on the goal line.

Up the other end, Cameron and Battle tangled and then Cameron and Sinclair got involved in some push and shove in front of the members (you can see Cameron yelling, “Hey pussy come here” to Sinclair. Banter). Cameron had been quiet but now loomed as a likely villain. The members became more outraged when a few seconds later Parfitt hit up Stengle and he nailed the set shot goal right in front of us.

We were faced with an opposition that simply looked better than us; an opposition faster and cleaner with the ball, that spread and fanned more smartly than we could keep up with. How do you compete with the Cats controlling the ball like that? What are you going to do about it if you’re rushing kicks forward with no one at ground level to provide any sort of pressure, and you’re not winning the midfield battle? And what had happened to our forward line? We’d gone from the highest scoring team after Round 4, when we’d kicked 22.10 against the Hawks, to kicking 22.42 over the past three weeks, and at half-time we sat at just 4.4. Sharman in the team straightened us up and drew a defender to help out Max to a degree, but the stodgy ball movement and dump kicks weren’t helping.

***

At half-time I finally met Red, White and Black’s number 1 ticketholder Rory, after several years of sitting literally in the same bay as each other. Good thing Rory could hold court with myself, Matt and Rich; I’d had a coffee during the second quarter to perk up and switch on for our chat but it had just agitated my feelings about the game, and I was offering nothing much constructive.

***

In the post-match on-ground interview, Paddy Ryder (who plays for the St Kilda Football Club) said that the half-time changes were “about just taking care of the ball and taking a few steps and using someone that’s turning up”. There were problems to come yet but the shift started with Gresham running off half-back early in the quarter, heading towards the wing, before cutting back inside to change the angle instead of blazing away, and Windhager, Hill and Sinclair had all turned up for him. Sinclair’s had Murmurs McKenzie out wide the movement had created a five-on-four ahead of the ball; D-Mac found Membrey in the pocket for the first of the quarter. But it only took a ricochet off Hill’s shin at half-back – and despite Seb putting in a desperate chase of Close and Tuohy the length of the wing – for the ball to end back up with Tuohy and he slotted a second on the run to get one back for the Cats. From the middle, Selwood sharked Paddy’s tap and Hawkins easily outbodied Dougal, and went back and kicked the goal. All of a sudden it was 21 points. Of all people, Sinclair was the next Saint to turn it over, and from half-back the Cats went neatly through Miers and Smith to Duncan. His shot from 50 would have closed the game, but it drifted just wide. We hadn’t let ourselves off yet; Battle took the easy mark from the short kick-in and then completely missed Wilkie nearby with the handball, and the ball trickled harmlessly out of bounds.

I said last week there was reason to rage about the waste of the Port Adelaide loss. There was also reason to rage about coming into a game against the ladder leaders with your Plan B (not quite as spectacular a failure as when Grant Thomas openly ditched Plan A for the 2004 Qualifying Final against the Lions). Never mind the goodwill and the media hype, 5-1 was about to turn into 5-4. We were on the brink.

But we managed to get the ball up the other end and Jones took the moment that turned things. Marshall grabbed the ball out of the ruck and quickly handballed to Jones, who was running past and curled the ball through. Marshall and Ryder were beginning a period of dominance that saw eight hit-outs to advantage to just two and multiple goals from stoppage. Marshall repeated the dose at the ball-up, with the tap heading straight to Seb Ross who sprinted out of the middle and his deep entry was just touched before reaching Sharman. It was about this time that Matt next to me said, “Something’s about to happen”.

There wasn’t a Max King quarter in the way that we got used to earlier in the season. In fact, he didn’t kick a goal in the second half. But he was at the very least halving every contest and making an impact at the fall of the ball. He helped set up the next goal with bodywork on Atkins and then Stewart at ground level in the pocket; the ball spilled out to Mason Wood whose loose shot fell across the face to Sharman (and was lucky to not be called touched off the boot). Sharman held his nerve under the pressure of three Geelong defenders sprinting in to cover the angle. The crowd was getting into the game.

Jones was finding his rhythm. Off half-back he again feigned a couple of kicks and hit up Murmurs, and then ran past for the handball and the movement drew a holding free on Membrey and another five-on-four ahead of the ball. King almost took the mark from the forward 50 entry but he gathered to Billings who was cruising past, and found Long on his own who blasted it through from the pocket.

The next goal put us in front and was ultimately the product of Paddy Ryder, playing Australian Rules football in a St Kilda jumper, guiding a hit-out behind his head in a manner that perhaps only he can, in a most un-St Kilda-like fashion, directly to Billings; Gresham was guarding the space and Billings didn’t need to break stride before finishing expertly on his left. It’s what we drafted him with pick 3 for.

That ball had initially been won from Long, who was playing another impactful in whichever role the coaches decided to put him in for the week, rushing in to chop off a Geelong kick and Windhager putting his head over the footy to win the free kick from Dangerfield. (He switched the ball, opening up the ground and the ball ultimately ended up with King in the pocket. King’s kick was a lol and tumbled over Knevitt out of bounds for the throw-in). Like Long in Round 3, Windhager had come on as the substitute for a concussed Snags and made a telling impact. He finished with 15 touches in little more than half a game, and he played like a completely different human to the Marcus Windhager that had turned out for the Saints over the past several weeks. This was the strong-bodied, contested bull that we hoped would slip past pick 20 so we could pick him up as a Next Generation Academy pick. He put in an uncompromising shift of repeat efforts, creating contests and winning hard balls, putting himself in the right place at the right time high up the ground and in the forward line and using the ball smartly, and was part of multiple scoring chains. I should mention Long here too; he had a hand in numerous chains himself in similar parts of the ground. Two unheralded guys making these contributions makes the team that much better; it’s been the story this year with guys like D-Mac and Wood and Battle too.

We didn’t find out until Sunday that Steele would be out for up to two months but as of Saturday evening he was admirably still attending centre bounces. He and Ross worked it into possession and Ross – in perhaps the best quarter of his best season to date – again quickly turned a movement into attack and was on the break. Long found himself as the target and was out of position but managed to split the contest with Duncan. King, again, and then Gresham got to the low ball, Windhager fed out to Long, who fed out to Mason Wood, who looked everywhere except the goals before realising he had space to wheel around onto his left. Five goals in nine minutes and 30 seconds. This was the unrelenting team that Ross Lyon had told St Kilda fans to get excited about on Footy Classified all those weeks ago. The team that had earned all those print and online features and glowing reviews on 360 and On the Couch.

It was time for a brief stalemate. Cameron, the most likely villain, put himself in the middle and won the clearance. Both teams wobbled a little. A Geelong forward entry that would have normally hit a target was just out of Cameron’s reach. Gresham dropped an easy ball in the centre in space. Sharman blazed away, Dangerfield was losing his feet, Atkins’ hands became uncertain. Membrey ran into an open goal but was too slow and got caught. It was Ross who provided the breakthrough in the final seconds of the quarter, at a throw-in on centre wing, with a tackle on Selwood; quick hands from Crouch and Windhager – Ratten had bought an extra player up to the stoppages from the forward line and then backed our speed with the ball – found Ross again who was already on the spread, and off his wrong right boot hit Membrey on the lead. He made up for his missed opportunity a few moments earlier and drilled it after the siren.

It was our highest-scoring quarter since Maddie’s Match 2017, when for a brief time on that Saturday night we sat fourth on the ladder; the very brief peak of the Richo era. There was a big celebration on the siren after Membrey’s shot sailed through, but fuck me there was a long way to go. I discovered via the Kayo replay that for anyone watching live at home, Fox Footy had shown highlights of the 2016 win on the broadcast at three-quarter time, just to really mess with any Saints supporter’s heads.

***

I don’t know if a week goes by without me mentioning 2009 or 2010 (I blew this week four paragraphs in), or the GT and Ross eras generally. But, as I said, the Cats are triggering. Holding a not-too-big lead of 58 to 74 – respectively, Geelong’s scores at three-quarter time and on the final siren of the 2009 Grand Final – was one thing, but the Cats were on early in the last. Hawkins hit the post (no reference to 2009 required, but I’ll make one) from a relatively simple set shot which gave us a let-off, but D-Mac had other ideas. He marked the ball from the kick-out and weighed up the options before looking to go for a long switch across the face. The behind-the-goal shot didn’t do justice as to how specifically nowhere near anything St Kilda-related the kick was, and how directly it floated straight back to Hawkins. From a similar spot to where he kicked the first goal of the last quarter in the 2009 Grand Final, he wasn’t going to miss again (although he tried hard to).

Windhager yelled a few quick words of encouragement to D-Mac but no-one physically went to him except for Paddy Ryder, in a St Kilda jumper, who was initially telling him to keep his chin up and then walked over to him and gave him a pat. He was about to have a much more profound influence in-play, although it started with a burned opportunity. We found a way up the other end – King made the contest on the wing and Long reacted fastest, Jones darted through to create and almost got caught, Steele was with him and snapped it forward and Max had worked forward and ran back with the flight into Blicavs. Windhager was yet again in the right spot and gave off to D-Mac, to Paddy, who had time and space and somehow hit the bottom of the post, and I did have the thought that if Paddy couldn’t do it then no-one could. It was one of our best passages of the evening and we should have gone out to a 14-point lead. The Cats went right up the other end, Tuohy stood up too easily in the Ross tackle, and Hawkins marked on the goal line.

Three points. Had we used up all our magic coming back into the game as we did against the Pies?

Gresham and Jones forced the ball out of the middle, out to Hill and then Wood, who in the absence of NWM perfectly weighted a kick to Crouch that broke open the play. Webster was running past and all the while Paddy had been working his way forward and all on his own. Webster found him.

This year has been about learning to trust this team and enjoy what they do. Looking forward to watching the Saints on the weekend again. Daring to trust Max King to kick goals from all angles, which had gotten us to 5-1. Daring to trust Jade Gresham to come up with a match-winning moment. Daring to trust Brad Hill to be in the right part of the ground. Daring to trust Jack Sinclair to provide speed and movement. Daring to trust Brad Crouch to accumulate and feed out. Some of that looked a little bit different this week. This was about daring to trust a team with a wounded captain that its sixth-game substitute would barrel his way through traffic; that Max King, if he wasn’t kicking goals, would be making every contest, whether it be high or low; that Jack Billings would come straight in and be in his right places at his right times; that Ben Long would play his role, wherever it may be. And, of course, to trust Paddy Ryder, playing Australian Rules football in a St Kilda jumper, in his 274^th game, to be the difference. He didn’t miss this time.

Selwood took it straight out of the middle and put the Cats into attack, but we repelled through a rushed kick from Steele and then Sinclair, who put it out to in front of the running Hill, in a sprint with Smith. Windhager, yet again in the right place, joined him in the middle, and quickly switched out to D-Mac, who had enough confidence left to just find Crouch beyond the 50-metre arc. Crouch – with what might have been the best of his 36 disposals -put it up perfectly to the group of players in the forward pocket. King had flown from three deep but Paddy Ryder, in a St Kilda jumper, emerged at the front. Since the 2009 Grand Final – right up to the past few weeks – it’s been hard to trust a St Kilda team to kick straight in any situation. But rarely have I been as confident that a St Kilda player would kick the goal.

There was still just over 12 minutes left, and it would be our last goal. We owned the game for a period. Wood and Hill were busy. Zac Guthrie’s rebound was forced out on the full. A couple of shallower entries were almost pulled in by Max. Billings had a long shot out wide that was never going to be a goal, Crouch was ambitious from the pocket.

The Cats now had to go for it. Stanley out of the middle didn’t find the chest of Close but it did find his run, and his snap hit the top of the post. Some nervous moments in the goal square ended with a long, high Ross get-out kick that went straight through Membrey’s hands, and the Cats immediately hit Cameron on 50. He finally loomed large. He slotted the long goal, and it was back to nine points.

But the momentum shifted again, and we’d have two chances to finish off the game. Billings went took a fantastic mark going back with the flight at half-forward, King flew and halved another contest, but Membrey’s snap missed. Gresham delivered perfectly to Wood who’d worked off Duncan, 25 metres out with little angle. It was the moment to seal it.

His shot squirted to the left.

Paddy Ryder took the intercept mark in the middle as the Cats looked to get things moving again. Long and Windhager were there at the fall, and this time Crouch cut across 50 to Billings. Now, this was definitely the kind of situation we’d drafted him at pick 3 for.

He missed. A groan from the members.

Were we about to face a Port Adelaide 2017 situation? An echo of the Cairns debacle, or, yes, of the 2009 Grand Final? If we weren’t going to finish it ourselves we’d have to defend the last couple of minutes. Sinclair was important at the fall of Tuohy’s torpedo, D-Mac dived for a low ball and won a free-kick, Windhager was involved multiple times in the contest. But just as the Geelong bench put up the “1” sign, the Cats found a break off half-back and Miers sliced across to Narkle, who found Cameron in the exact same spot as his last shot to bring the margin to within a goal.

The kick strayed wide, but there were more moments to weather. Hawkins nearly marked on the goal line but the ball bobbled out and hit the post; he then hacked a kick out of mid-air from the resulting throw-in that went straight up. The Geelong bench put up the “30” sign as we cleared the ball. A throw was paid against Paddy Ryder. Wilkie gave away a high free-kick to Smith that set up what would be Geelong’s final chance of the night. It went left.

The home crowd knew it and started to roar.

***

The ghosts of 2009 were in full howl on the night of May 14^th last year, as we kicked our way out of the game (on the way to kicking our way out of another season) against the Cats. We learned on May 14^th this year that this team is made of sterner stuff than its predecessors. Our best win of the year, and perhaps for some time.

The media bandwagon quickly returned. Max King and Sam De Koning was now being looked forward to as a “10-year battle”, likened to Carey vs Jakovich from Chris Scott through to the guys on On the Couch. Paddy Ryder is now “the best tap ruckman there is”, said Lloydy and Damien Barrett. David King was breaking down footage of Zak Jones putting in bodywork on Sam De Koning off the ball so Max could find a mismatch, and described the win as “brilliant coaching” and that he’d “never seen Geelong picked apart like that”. We were the biggest winners of the weekend, according to Gerard and Robbo.

In his post-match interview on the ground Paddy Ryder (St Kilda player) was asked about what he’d said to Rowan Marshall after the siren. “I just said to him that you’re probably not 100% fit and I can see that. I’ve played through injury before and you’ve just got to keep getting out there. All it takes sometimes is for one of your teammates or coaches to come up and tell you that they appreciate the effort, so that’s what I said. I said, ‘I appreciate your effort. I know you’re hurting a little bit, but you’re still so good for us.’” There is a care to him that elevates his teammates. He was the only one that bothered getting across to D-Mac after he gave up the goal. Amongst fans, he is at the front of St Kilda consciousness, partly perhaps because there is something incredibly un-St Kilda-like about him. No St Kilda player has played like him before. No St Kilda player has offered ruck work as art in the same way. He doesn’t yield to the gravity of the St Kilda Football Club; he is someone who can go forward and take the marks and kick the set shot goals in the last quarter against an opponent we don’t know how to win against, who represents so much of what we lost.

Just a second win over the Cats since the Grand Final years. And you wonder, where did all the time go? We haven’t had a great team since. We’ve been waiting for a new St Kilda team to emerge. Ryder, King, Steele, Ross, Gresham, Crouch, Wilkie, Sinclair. Bit-by-bit, new names are becoming St Kilda names that we look forward to seeing each week in St Kilda jumpers and, yes, that we are learning to trust. I’m not quite sure if we’ve gone through the Gateway to Being Good that it felt we might have in Canberra when we went 5-1. The state of “Being Good” doesn’t mean easy wins every week, it also means a lot of nervous moments against quality opposition in very consequential games (remember those?) over a lot of weeks, and ideally, a lot of years. You don’t know you’re there until you know. This was a necessary challenge that simply had to be met on the way to building something new.

Melbourne 4.2, 9.3, 10.5, (93)
St Kilda 0.3, 3.4, 5.7, 8.7 (55)
Crowd: 35,767 at the MCG, Sunday, May 8th at 1.10pm

One of the most disappointing parts of the Port Adelaide loss – apart from losing the game itself – was that it deprived us of a huge build-up to Sunday. A chance for the players to test themselves on a big stage, at the front of footy consciousness. The undefeated Dees facing a surprise St Kilda team that had won six in a row. For all intents and purposes this should have had match-of-the-round billing, giving more positive vibes and exposure for the club than a short-term cash injection from playing a game in Cairns ever could.

The media hype probably would have made for the biggest build-up to a home and away season game since Round 16 in 2010 against Collingwood at the MCG on a Saturday afternoon, with the winner to take top spot; 81,386 showed up that day in a record home-and-away crowd for St Kilda, and in the days of delayed free-to-air broadcasts on Saturdays Channel 10 decided to show it live. Yes, last Sunday was still first versus fourth, and Mother’s Day fixturing didn’t help, but the air had been completely sucked out of it. All things said, all comparisons made, it would have just been an outright enjoyable week as a Saints fan. But the veil had been lifted just enough. We went from our best win of the season to a loss that brought up the ghosts of five years ago, one year ago, even six weeks ago.

The media hype dried up with every shanked Max King and Jack Higgins shot at goal and Seb Ross’s just-too-short pass to Snags with a minute left and Robbie Gray slipping away from Dougal in the final 40 seconds. Fox Footy’s power rankings declared a race of three – Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle, and the Bizarro Rivalry Cold War took another turn on Friday night as the Dockers temporarily reached the top of the ladder. There were no Max King or Snags features this week, no David King breaking down Brad Hill’s selfless running patterns. All we had was Gerard opening the week saying “St Kilda is counting the dollars and the cost”, and AFL.com.au telling us “It’s time for another meeting, Saints”.

A more under-the-radar build-up suited some. A lot of us thought we were a sneaky chance. It has to happen eventually to Melbourne; after all, VFL/AFL history suggests that at 15 wins in a row you’re closer to the end of the streak than the beginning. I was less convinced we’d lose this week than last week – not confident at all that we’d win, mind you, just not militantly sure we’d be losing. Josh Jenkins reckoned we were as good a chance as any, but he was also very confident GWS would knock us off. Maybe all of their guys who were out with COVID the week before would be underdone. Maybe five changes would unsettle them. Maybe Jake Bowey’s streak would end at the hands of his father’s club. Maybe we are the real deal and maybe we’d learned a lot from Cairns. Maybe that was just a blip in the conditions, and not the beginning of ingrained performance anxiety in front of goal (we’ve kicked 14.35 over two weeks), or even when it just came when it came to executing simple passes and completing simple marks across the ground.

***

We’d all been craving our chance to be tested against the best. Finally, it was here. At the opening bounce, both Paddy Ryder and Jade Gresham slipped over and Petracca took it away to Neal-Bullen on the wing. We left the corridor wide open and for the first of many occasions Brayshaw was the man waiting for the quick switch, Bowey streamed past, Kysaiah Pickett onto the entry and finished with an expert checkside. It took all of 27 seconds before Kosi’s kick was going over the goal umpire’s hat.

That’s ok, we’d been here before. We’d spent a month of footy giving up the first two goals of the game (including at the MCG) and that had turned out ok. We gained some territory – Max King kicked a point off the ground, taking his run to 3.10 – and Gresham missed a shot; a stalemate ensued for 11 minutes, but it wasn’t one of any real thunder. We’d apparently gone in with the game plan to possess the ball and deprive Steven May and Jake Lever the chance to pick off forward entries, but just like Port Adelaide had attempted to change their game style against the Dees, this wasn’t generating any decent looks and Melbourne were just happy to sit around and wait for us to do something silly. It was a lot of short kicks in the back-half, and then eventually a dump kick to no-one in particular. Steele had Max on the break at half-forward and absurdly his left-foot kick missed him completely and the ball…still went straight to May. The ball went up the line to Ben Brown and eventually found Spargo for the second. Punished instantly.

This was more like the stagnant, anxious ball movement of Round 1 and the worst of the pre-season. We tried bringing the ball wide and switching to find a hole in Melbourne’s structure, but we moved the ball too slowly as it was and the Dees just casually rolled across the field as uncontested marks piled up. That’s not to sell the Dees short, by the way – their defensive structures appeared bulletproof. But as far as what we were doing with ball in hand, we were too scared to make a mistake and even then couldn’t work hard enough or fast enough to provide anything that would allow a safe passage through via short easy kicks. We’d effectively let two players in the opposition dictate our game style. There was no chance for our forwards.

Gawn was running Marshall and Paddy across the ground and provided a tall target in the front half on multiple occasions, bringing the ball to ground that ended with stoppages that the Dees scored goals from through a long kick from Rivers and then another delightful snap from Pickett. They were taking their half-chances. We were barely making them.

Pickett’s second goal came from one of the lower moments of the day. Ryder (St Kilda player) committed bravely to a high ball coming off half-back and rushed the kick forward to Membrey leading on the wing. He handballed inside to Gresham, and a moment of class and composure was required on the break. He had more time and space than he thought, as well as the option for a handball forward to Jones, but instead of assessing what was ahead or waiting for something to present he banged the onto his boot. The high ball wobbled in the air towards centre half-forward, to no St Kilda player’s advantage, and fell into the arms of Langdon. From one of the most dangerous spots on the ground to turn over the footy, Melbourne went up the other end, forced a stoppage, and Pickett finished. Four goals to nothing.

The real low point came just a few moments later. Higgins should have been given a too-high free 25 metres from goal, but Steele marked the rebounding ball and steadied on the 50, and delivered an excellent kick to the reach of Membrey at the top of the square just seconds before the quarter-time siren. The vice-captain went back and kicked it into Harrison Petty’s fingertips. The review was inconclusive but Petty, the Dees players and the goal umpire all knew it immediately. Maybe it was the sunshine of the MCG at the Punt Road end against a top team, but this reminded me too much of Heath Shaw’s smother on Nick Riewoldt in the 2010 Grand Final Replay. We weren’t playing our way – both by choice and permittance – and a leader had just been done on the goal line.

***

Melbourne cranked things up in the second quarter, playing some of their most clinical footy of the year. Gawn provided the get-out on the wing with a mismatch on Battle after a disputed ball in our forward line; Oliver coasted past and hit McDonald on the lead, and found Ben Brown running into an open goal.

Changing the angles helped to finally deliver our first a few moments later – Battle provided a running option for the switch out of the middle and Rowan Marshall marked his long kick to the square – but from the centre bounce there was an irresistible Gawn hit out to Oliver, quick hands to Petracca, and the ball was flipped back to Gawn, back to Oliver, and then chipped to Petracca, who off a step launched a 45-metre entry that fell right into McDonald’s hands. It was the best passage of the day. Each player understood exactly what the next move was and the execution was perfect. It’s not a necessity, but I don’t think our players can do that.

On the occasion when we tried changing things up we came unstuck. Jones tried cutting in from the wing to Hill but was chopped off by Neal-Bullen, and the Dees switched across half-forward; Langdon drew the handball to Angus Brayshaw and he goaled on the run from 50. Ben Brown and McDonald then both pounced on loose balls from a marking contest and a throw-in respectively and kicked nearly identical snaps around the corner from 30 metres out. Just like that, the margin was 47 points.

A four-goal patch either side of half-time offered something. Saints players started running for each other. Forward handballs to guys on the move were attempted. Max King got into the game on the eve of half-time, providing the get-out contested mark from Hill’s kick off half-back (Hill was visibly yelling for someone to move as he looked for options) and getting the ball in quick to a Membrey one-on-one for the first. Paddy Ryder was playing Australian Rules football in a St Kilda jumper and caught Brayshaw holding the ball in front of goal for the second. Max then offered half a Max King quarter in the third. Hill, Sinclair and Long all moved for each other off half-back and cut through the middle in a manner that we got used to in the five-game streak, Long found Membrey who passed to Gresham wide inside 50; he had to work off Brayshaw, win the ball back and dance around him, and Max took a contested mark in the goal square on Hunt, with the mismatch created through the faster ball movement. We all deep down considered the prospect of him missing this (or kicking it into the man on the mark), but he managed to poke it through.

NWM offered what might have been the best moment from a St Kilda perspective. Howard’s high rushed kick out of defence fell to him on the boundary and he had to feign a kick around Langdon, turn him inside out, and then step around him again in next to no space. He then delivered a beautifully weighted pass over to Mason Wood; eventually, the ball found Membrey and as the ball went into 50 the free-kick was paid to Max for holding the man. Max went back and kicked the goal.

There was a fleeting few moments at this point at which you started to think about what could be. Max’s confidence might be back. Just one more and we’re within three goals. Just win the quarter from here. Membrey had a shot from just beyond 50 that was always a stretch; he missed, and all Melbourne needed to go up the other end and for Ben Brown to snap another goal – this time on his left – was a Jimmy Webster attempted forward 50 entry in traffic that ricocheted Melbourne’s way. This was basically going to be a Diet Caffeine Free version of the late 2017 meeting between these teams with finals potentially on the line, also at the MCG at 1.10pm on a Sunday afternoon, in which we came back from 39 points during the second quarter to get within four points early in the last before fading out.

Hill was back behind the ball in a bid to keep things moving and we were playing our way that little bit more, but Melbourne weren’t ever going to lose this one. We’d gone away from our game style far too much to accommodate the opposition – largely just two of their players – and we never recovered. Fritsch waltzed into goal for the first of the last and took it out to 34 points. Goals from Windhager, Marshall and Higgins to bring the margin back to within four goals at stages were purely for AFL Tables archival purposes.

AFL.com.au’s weekly “Nine Things We Learnt” took a positive approach, saying “St Kilda’s second half against Melbourne was the real deal”, noting that after trailing by nine goals to one, we restricted Melbourne to just five more goals for the game, while adding seven ourselves, and winning the hit-outs, clearances and stoppage clearances from that point. But the thing is, Melbourne turned it on when they had to and kicked nine of the first 10. Many would suggest that Melbourne’s only been going at about 80% so far this year (if that), and that’s all they had to do for the rest of the game. They have proper stars that played and gathered numbers like proper stars. They have Max Gawn, who is a bigger presence live, despite being kept accountable by two very good ruckmen. They have Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver. We decided to not tag Ed Langdon even though it had just worked out quite well for Hawthorn earlier (he went from nine possessions to 39 in the space of a week). Angus Brayshaw isn’t in the same bracket as the above guys but he played like it on the other wing and across half-back. Of course, both Petracca and Brayshaw – the two guys we passed up in 2014 – were more influential than any of our players. Never mind that we kicked a couple more goals than they did after giving up a 47-point head start and deciding only around the halfway point to try and play the kind of footy that got us to 5-1. The moment had passed.

This was a day of no real highlights; next to no genuine positives. The kind of day when Dougal Howard wins the Sainter of the Round and Callum Wilkie is one of your best because the opposition is so dominant that defenders have to be on their guard at every second. The crowd on Sunday never really got the chance to become engaged because Melbourne blew it out and then just had keep things at arm’s length. Only when Jones cannoned into the back of Langdon and then Oliver took a dive from Jones’s brushing elbow in the last quarter did the crowd arc up a little. (Of course, Jones got fined for that. There’s no conspiracy, but it’s something that would happen to St Kilda. Jones, who showed good moments despite clearly looking like someone who’d missed a chunk of footy, got one back from May a few moments later.) As Harmes, then Viney, then May and then Petracca all went to Jones after the Oliver brush, Nathan Buckley in the commentary said, “Where are the Saints boys? Get there. Doesn’t need to be too much but just get there and support.” Ross and Webster did half-heartedly. A few moments later Windhager kicked his first to a dulled response; the players either didn’t know or didn’t care that it was the first in his career. Only Seb looked like he was trying to get something going.

***

There was reason to rage about the Port Adelaide loss. It stupidly cost us four points and an enjoyable week of anticipation. We’ve sunk to seventh just over a week after David King said we were simply improving our defence to attack transition numbers away from having the strongest Champion Data profile in the league. Now, we’ve posted two losses now that aren’t overly honourable. It’s not an honourable loss when you kick 4.18 and can’t control a Sherrin, it’s not an honourable loss when you give up nine of the first 10 goals and the opposition spends the rest of Mother’s Day in cruise control. We’ve gone from 5-1 to the brink of 5-4 via Robbie Gray (again) and a couple of guys we decided not to pick in the draft a few years ago. In 2019, when we went 4-1 and became The Age’s “story of the year”, we beat the Dees at the MCG 95 to 55. This was a 93 to 55 loss and I’m dreading the prospect of heading for a 2019 repeat.

The Age chose to run with a story about Luke Jackson probably staying put at Melbourne as the lead article for this one, using it more prominently on their site than the match report itself. That MCG Sunday game against Hawthorn just a month ago was a bright, sunny, warm afternoon made for a sexy, high-scoring St Kilda on the up; a team announcing itself to the competition. This was a much colder and ultimately overcast day set for a spluttering team. Many have fancied themselves; we just ended up as another piece of roadkill on Melbourne’s highway to another premiership. We can feel like we took it to them for moments, but in the wash-up Melbourne fans won’t be thinking too much about this one. For them, it was a comfortable four points won from an unmemorable opponent.

Round 7, 2022
St Kilda 2.3, 3.6, 3.13, 4.18 (42)
Port Adelaide 0.2, 1.4, 4.6, 5.13 (43)
Crowd: 6,645 at Cazalys Stadium, Saturday, April 30th at 7.25pm

For St Kilda supporters, the early part of this season has been about learning to trust this team, and about enjoying what that brings.

That probably reached a peak last week with a fighting win against GWS in a cold Canberra in what was arguably our best of the year. But rarely have I been more certain of a St Kilda loss than heading into Saturday night; 149 years of trust issues will trump five weeks of feel-good footy.

GWS in Canberra presented a big enough banana peel. But a 1-5 “Port Adelaide” in “Cairns”? Are you shitting me? That’s a recipe for St Kilda disaster. One win over Port in 11 years, including very tight losses in 2012, 2013, 2017, and last year. We weren’t going to get away from gravity two weeks in a row.

For anyone who was an impressionable child in the early 1990s (or older), interstate games have been fraught with all sorts of danger. Last week I reeled off a list of those late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s losses where we lost the ability to play Australian Rules football and were overwhelmed by anxiety. 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 (and then a win in 2006 courtesy of a shanked Motlop kick after the siren), “Whispers in the Sky” against Freo in 2005, West Coast in the season opener of 2006, Freo twice in 2006, including Sirengate. These were mostly played in years in which we were a much more competitive team. The Richo era was all about dire performances interstate with a hallmark of slow starts; games that were done by quarter- or half-time. Big losses at the Adelaide Oval in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, to go with the heartbreak of the Port loss in the latter year; big losses in Perth in 2015 and 2016, Canberra in 2019 – hell, even Geelong was horrible – but a more nuanced foe emerged in recent years: novelty stadiums, mostly via games (and consequently) premiership points that we sold for cheery dollars. Launceston failed while Hawthorn made it work. Wellington was zero wins from three losses. Gold Coast in Townsville in 2019 barely went OK, Shanghai not so much. Melbourne in Darwin in 2020 was a two-point loss to a (then) lesser opponent as the season spluttered. Adelaide in Cairns last year was a disaster, a 36-0 lead given up as we spent the second half waiting to lose, and St Kilda simply had to keep us in suspense until the final seconds, just to really string us along.

History was going to repeat.

The fantastical St Kilda F.C. Archive posted the entirety of that 2017 loss to Port Adelaide during the week. I had to steel myself for this week. I watched from the stoppage on the wing with about 90 seconds left, as we held a 10-point lead after a stirring comeback that should have made for what would have been the best win of the season. I watched Seb Ross put in a weak inside 50 that went straight to a Port defender, I watched Port rebound, I watched all the weak one-on-one contests that led to Aaron Young’s goal that put the rest in motion. I watched more weak and anxious one-on-ones, and then Paddy Ryder’s wonderful hit from a throw-in to Robbie Gray for a goal with seven seconds left, also made possible by a trailing Seb Ross and a disappearing Blake Acres.

Yes, history was going to repeat.

***

Tonight is absolutely the kind of the game St Kilda loses.

— Red, White and Black (@RWBFooty) April 30, 2022

The journo who opened up Ratts’ press conference after GWS with “6-1, how do you feel?” jinxed this one a week out. I absolutely jinxed it further in a meeting during the week when someone brought up the Saints and I joked “You get sick of winning”. I was obviously, obviously joking – I am a St Kilda supporter for fuck’s sake – but even before I opened my mouth to say it knew I would be tempting fate. The Footy Gods won’t allow you to even indulge in humour at your own expense without punishment. I put money on Port Adelaide out of guilt, but also out of supreme confidence that we wouldn’t be able to dodge a second banana peel in two weeks. Things just don’t work like that at St Kilda.

The media hype this week wasn’t in the same overdrive, but it started to focus on a few specifics. Bitcoin enthusiast Jack Higgins moved into the footy consciousness – one of David King’s top five in-form players in the comp; Nathan Jones was talking about him on Dwayne’s World, and he drew enough attention for Leigh Matthews put a question mark over his work rate. Andrew Wu ran a feature on Snags that described him as “the talk of the football world for his goals”. For the right reasons we were the subject of David King’s analysis; this week it was Brad Hill’s work in the forward line to make space for Max King, after he’d been praised during the broadcast on Friday for working hard to stretch the field as we tried working the ball forward. Even D-Mac got the club website treatment. David King said if we brought our defence to offence transition to mid-table we’d have the best Champion Data profile in the league.

***

The Bureau of Metereology offered typically warm Cairns conditions with a 70% chance of showers. The humidity at night on its own would make for very similar conditions to another Saturday night game against Port a few years ago. Why would the AFL schedule a game for this time of year in Cairns if they want to showcase not just the game to a non-heartland market? Of course, Port had been played into form the week before by West Coast, and they would avoid us at home in front of fans for a ninth straight year. We’ve gone to Tasmania, to Shanghai and to Cairns, and brought on a pandemic to make it all happen. This time, we’d return to the scene of one of last year’s biggest crimes (out of several whoppers).

Signs were good early despite the slippery conditions. After spending most of the year giving up the first few goals we owned the first quarter everywhere but 30 metres within goal and on the scoreboard. Tom Campbell, who for some reason plays for St Kilda now, welcomed himself by kicking the first behind. In hindsight it may have been folly to push for a second ruck to come in given the conditions. Otherwise, the Saints had a good early run with the umpires across the ground, really. Max won a soft pushing free from his most hated part of the ground – 25 metres on next to no angle – but a dissent 50-metre penalty took him to the goal line. It was the perfect chance to get his confidence up early after the 1.7 in Canberra.

Our structures and contested work were looking solid. Port could barely string a couple of possessions together and were forced into going down the line to little or no effect. By the same token, we couldn’t quite get the link up between players and much fluid ball movement happening, and even if we did, a lot of our entries were long hurried kicks that brought Aliir Aliir right into the game. We broke through by slicing through the middle to Hill, who took on Houston and Amon from the handball and delivered to Higgins, delivering exactly what he was brought to the club for. Higgins missed the set shot.

In our quest to stretch the ground, Hill was again finding space on the wings, and added to his physical game with a big hit on Jonas. Long was reprising his reliable role off half-back, and NWM was also offering some speed and run out wide. But nothing was really changing with the entries. Repeated entries, sure, and D-Mac gave us some reward for effort with a nice goal, but even with Max King launching at everything he just wasn’t bringing them down, and there wasn’t enough coming from our guys at the fall. We were too predictable.

We finished the quarter up 24 to 8 in inside 50s, but only for a quarter-time for a 2.3 to 0.1 lead. There was no way we going to have the same amount of space for Higgins to trying blasting the cover off the ball and Max to miss easy set shots on this night.

The second quarter started a little better. Aliir was everywhere still, but we managed to avoid him by cutting through the middle off half-back via Steele and Ross, who found Hill who again provided the perfect pass to a leading Higgins. Snags honoured Hill’s good work this time and a 19-point lead had been opened up.

***

Port got their first just a few moments later when D-Mac let the ball go straight through his hands and Ollie Wines shat out a goal from the spill. They were the opportunities that needed to be taken.

The ball movement dried up again as Port muscled their way into the contested ball. Ratts was starting to look frustrated in the box. Ryder missed a shot out of the ruck with more time than he thought he had. Sinclair and Hill off half-back kicked it straight to Aliir; Aliir lost his feet a few moments later and still won the crumb from Campbell’s kick. Butler and Hill had the break on the broadcast side and the ball slipped out; Gresham twice blazed away and missed. Membrey and Steele dropped sitters around the ground as the ball became almost unusable. Campbell managed to pick out three Port players. Membrey finally found space off Aliir and kicked to two one-on-ones but to no one’s advantage. NWM made a mockery of the conditions with an awesome pick up just inside 50; but he still hasn’t quite settled with ball in hand inside 50 yet. His hurried kick was turned over.

Port were good enough to change things up at half-time. As soon as the Channel 7 graphic showed “St Kilda has outscored their opposition by 146 points in second halves this season”, the Power had found Robbie Gray on the lead. They were moving the ball faster; the quarters began with a much for usable footy and they made the most of it, working into space, kicking short and sharp and fast. Farrell was hit up just a couple of minutes later, and all our inside 50s and domination of the first quarter and parts of the second had just about been wiped.

Again, we were face-to-face with 149 years of trust issues. In the lead up to the GWS game, part of me had started daring to trust. I’d dared to trust that Max King would kick goals from all angles; that Seb Ross and Dan Butler to get arsey handballs out of traffic, that Nasiah would hit targets; that Jack Steele would lead from the front; that Jack Sinclair would be used in the right part of the ground; that Jade Gresham would pop up at the right time. Simply, we have to win these. A tough draw is coming up. Melbourne, Brisbane twice, Sydney twice, Geelong twice, Fremantle again, Carlton to come. The early season honeymoon period is now giving way to games really counting for something. While Luke Dunstan is getting a game with the best team in the league, The Bizarro Rivalry Cold War with Freo took another turn during the afternoon as the Dockers announced themselves as the real deal and Blake Acres got the post-match interview treatment on Fox as one of their best. We want to announce ourselves, too. We’ve been waiting for a long time.

But the leaders weren’t really leading. Steele and Crouch weren’t at their best when we needed some more presence in the contest against Wines and Boak and Rozee. Sinclair was effective but dulled. It felt like the magic was gone. Butler went the banana that has come off in recent weeks through Gresham and Crouch, but it drifted wide. Ryder’s long set shot missed, so did D-Mac’s low percentage kick from the pocket. Butler chose to not pass to Higgins all on his own 40 metres out. Ken was looking smug in the box. Gray was gifted a 50-metre penalty that was incorrectly if it was given for Dougal moving off the mark and incorrectly given if it was for Steele running inside the protected zone. He kicked the goal. Scores were level.

***

There wasn’t a Max or Snags quarter this week, but there were Max and Snags patches.

A long entry finally came off (sort of ) when Max was dumped at the fall by Bonner and won a free kick 20 metres out. Finally, a chance to get one our way. He tossed and turned the ball in his hands repeatedly as he was walking in and fluffed the ball drop, and the weak kick went to the left. We’d gone from 3.3 to 3.11.

A spoil on 50 was forced from Port’s kick-out, and Windhager turned beautifully out of the fall and bulleted a kick to Higgins just on 40 metres out, on little to no angle. Snags missed again. 3.12. Windhager and Hill worked off half-back a couple of minutes later and it was down to a foot race between Gresham who won the free, but the banana missed again. We would go into three-quarter time at 3.13 (we were 3.12 in the 2017 game). Luke Darcy’s mic started cutting out as the game hit a penultimate crescendo, as Motlop ran in and bananaed a miss. A one-point lead at the final change with nothing trustworthy or sustainable about what we were doing. This was a horrifying mash-up of the 2017 game and the 2009 Grand Final.

There’s a magnifying glass on every moment in a loss like this. We have a second loss of this season that we can attribute largely to poor disposal and poor kicking at goal; and yet another game that for better or much worse revolves around Max and Snags. In Round 1 they combined for 1.7 and a lot of dropped marks. On Saturday night they combined for 2.5 with multiple easy shots at goal missed. We’ve had wins this year we can owe to them; we’ve also had multiple losses last year and this year we can owe to them.

Max actually opened the final quarter with a goal – it came from a Brad Hill tackle, and then another Brad Hill another excellent forward entry to Max on the lead, 25 metres out on a slight angle. Max sent it through. The margin was seven points, and we won the ball out of the middle with a Steele tackle on Rozee, Gresham hit up King again in nearly an identical spot. He had the chance to all but bust open the game then and there; to open up a 13-point lead and give the team belief that yet again we would be able to run the opposition off their legs. His shot drifted across the face.

***

Given a reprieve, Port wrestled back the game. An unlucky ricochet out-on-full free-kick led to Todd Marshall converting a very decent set shot, and then it was Port’s turn to miss opportunities. Amon delivered the perfect pass to Farrell who missed from close range, and then the ball came straight back in and Robbie Gray swooped. It was made for him; he turned around the corner but missed. Scores level. But he would have his moment yet. Of course he would.

Has anything been so pathetically inevitable? Perhaps last year, against the other South Australian team at the same ground. This was the same process – a sad, two-and-a-half-hour march knowing exactly what would happen, just waiting for it all to physically happen out so we know how it played out and what it looked like on the footage. A lot of the trust built up in the previous five weeks was being burned with every weak kick off the ground, every harried long kick into the forward line to no one in particular’s advantage, and every missed shot at goal. You keep thinking, ok, maybe someone will bob up. Maybe Gresham. Maybe Higgins. Maybe Max. But apart from that brief moment when Max had the ball in his hands with the chance to open up the game, this felt like a countdown to disaster. Certainly when a string of Port Adelaide behinds put them in front and Bonner looked set to stretch the margin beyond a goal, and even when we found ourselves in front thanks to our own run of behinds. No one was stepping up. Howard in defence tried playing on around Marshall and danced his way into trouble and a smothered kick that fell over the boundary line. Steele spilled another short hit-up, Crouch finally found time and space on the edge of 50 but grubbed the kick to King on the lead. NWM, clearly one of our best and most daring all night, put in a fantastic chase along the wing that gained the best part of the distance between the arcs but Ross fluffed his lines.

There was a turn to attack again. NWM, again, rushed himself with the sticks in sight and tumbled a ball through from just inside 50 when he probably had a little more time than he thought. Ryder followed up his own ruck contest from a forward pocket throw-in and gave off to Higgins whose kick faded to the left and hit the post. Howard and Wood did well as Port came out of defence, as they chose to go shorter from the kick-in after long kicks hadn’t worked all night. Ross’s long ball to the square came off Membrey’s hands; Battle, thrown forward out of desperation, couldn’t get to it and Aliir rushed the behind. Scores level.

There were two moments in which we had control of the ball in the final minutes that in isolation could have gone a long way to us winning the game. Long at ground level, D-Mac and Seb Ross won the ball back on the defensive side of the wing and Ross’s pass fell through Hill’s fingers, but he reacted quickly and kicked the ball off the ground and the ball went straight to Max, by himself just inside 50. Maybe he was gassed from reaching a contest in the same spot a few moments earlier, because he hadn’t moved; he picked up the ball and immediately turned and sliced it high, either unaware of or too tired to take the opportunity to take a few steps and straighten up given all the space he had around him. In the goal square, Burton had Higgins covered and rushed the ball. We were in front; it didn’t feel like it.

Port won the ball from a harried kick from Paton and skirted the broadcast side to go deep into attack. Rozee found the ball in the pocket but was chased out of it, and Butters’ snap just went across the face. Scores level again.

The second moment was actually played out in two parts. Howard went long from the kick-in to a two-on-one (that’s in Port’s favour, mind you), but the ball fell to the front into the hands of Ryder. He found Gresham on the wing, but even with plenty of space he couldn’t manage to kick it to advantage at half-forward (or into space over the top) and the ball came back. Membrey effected a spoil from Duursma’s torp and followed up his own work and we were able to relaunch of the defensive side of the centre square again. Long had time and gave off to Ross running past. Ross, whose weak kick forward in 2017 began the calamitous minute of football, had been arguably our best on this night. He only had to hit Higgins on the lead with a 30-metre kick and we’d have the ball in our hands at the top of the 50-metre arc. But his kick fell short; Higgins was left scrambling on the ground to retrieve it. Burton, Wines and Farrel worked it away and out of the disputed ball Rozee gave off to Butters, and Houston’s kick wide into the 50-metre arc found Robbie Gray, of all people, who just like five years earlier was somehow all by himself in space. The ball sat up for him and he steadied on the boundary line. Any score would probably do with just over 30 seconds on the clock. He kicked the point. Howard’s kick-out into the middle was won back by the Power, and back into Robbie Gray’s hands.

***

They’re the best games to win and the worst games to lose. They’re a lot worse when you kick yourself out of it. There was nothing honourable in this one. Just an awful of anxiety that yielded 4.18, our most inaccurate performance since…well, last year, when we kicked 5.17 against the Cats’ 10.8 in the game where Max dominated but kicked 1.5.

Richo said after the 2017 loss to Port that it was “a bloody costly way to learn your lesson”. Did we actually learn anything? Five years later, we’re still making stupid basic mistakes interstate against Port Adelaide, leaving Robbie Gray free in the dying seconds and giving Ken a licence to look smug.

The five-game winning streak is dead, long live the possibly three-game losing streak that’s heading our way. Our excellent April finishes in ignominy. This was the third of Gerard’s three weeks before he wanted to make a judgement on whether or not we were the real deal. A mini-blockbuster on a Sunday afternoon at the MCG against the Demons on a Sunday afternoon beckoned – what would have been our biggest home and away game in Melbourne perhaps since playing for top spot against Collingwood in Round 16 in 2010. It would have been better for the club than some quick dollars in Cairns could ever make up for. Those dollars certainly wouldn’t make up for finishing in certain parts of the ladder by the end of the season, if that’s what Saturday night costs us (indeed, on Monday morning, Gerard opened his show saying “St Kilda is counting the dollars and the cost”). In the pre-match, Channel 7 had played some upbeat highlights about the Saints guys enjoying themselves on their few days away in Cairns. I hope the two-minute puff piece that this game allowed for was worth it for everyone at the club, the AFL, Cairns Regional Council and the Queensland government. Playing in Cairns wasn’t the reason we lost – the Herald Sun’s expected score was 67 to 54 in our favour; we kicked 1.15 from our last 16 shots, and Port were playing on the same ground – but playing in Cairns is the reason why we played on a neutral ground in conditions that absolutely made this game a 50/50. Even with those odds, you know which side St Kilda will fall on. We’re just left to replay all those last moments in our head hoping they turned out differently.

The ghosts of 2017 remain. I posted on Twitter early on Saturday afternoon “Tonight is absolutely the kind of game St Kilda loses.” Someone replied, “I’m so tired of the whole loser narrative surrounding St Kilda. It’s about time the supporters stopped perpetuating it”. We’re tired of it too. But we’re not the ones out there. We pay for memberships and for tickets and go through the logistical rigmarole to attend and watch games and provide the clicks for the club’s feel-good content. We don’t get hundreds of thousands of dollars each year or media careers out of this. The club’s had 149 years to change our minds and build our trust. Saturday night was another chance. Again, they blew it.