Waiting on the light

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That anticipation had been replaced by trepidation.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.