Is it you or is it me?

Round 15, 2022
Sydney Swans 3.1, 4.6, 9.10, 12.11 (83)
St Kilda 1.2, 2.2, 2.6, 4.8 (32)
Crowd: 31,513 at the SCG, Saturday, June 27th at 7.25pm
By Tom Briglia

Is this it? If the end for 2022 is what I think it is, then we’re somewhere towards the end of the beginning of the end.

A few weeks ago we sat in the top four and the competition was beginning to open up. An A+ on Fox Footy’s mid-year grades. Maybe we were in with a shot of playing off for a Grand Final. Brett Ratten’s contract extension was a fait accompli on Footy Classified, tempting the Footy Gods damned. Mid-March thoughts of #Clarko2023 were a distant memory. Simon Lethlean came out on Monday and told us they still are.

We’d all lashed out at the AFL for trying to push the floating fixture on us and then going ahead and giving lowly Essendon three consecutive Friday night games, especially two against top four challengers Carlton and St Kilda.

The slide has been fast. After Mitchito and D-Mac were knocked out against the Lions and we spluttered to a 21-point loss, Kane said we could be the “vulnerable” team in the eight. Eddie floated us as a candidate for Tasmania. Max King was downgraded a little from a matchwinner to “what Max King needs to do to terrify defenders”. Some bad misses between he and Snags against the Lions had them both back in 2021 calamity territory, and now Snags has been dropped altogether, playing in a game with no scoreboard and filmed by one camera and partially obscured by a tree (thank you Rory and Michael for updates) It’s been a bad few days for the cyptocurrency enthusiast.

Bad few days for Jack Higgins. https://t.co/uSya6gZ4ZF

— Red, White and Black (@RWBFooty) June 25, 2022

Of course, it was against the Bombers that things really came undone; the club that will always dick us no matter where the two teams are on the ladder (and we’re facing them in the VFLW Grand Final this Sunday). Last year was never going to be the same with the Round 3’s 75-point hammering in the back of our minds, and 2022 isn’t going to be the same either now after what we dished up against the 16th-placed team with two wins. Instantly the season turned from a top four challenge to missing out on the finals. This team was supposed to be more resilient than 2021. We thumped through five goals to roar back to level terms against the Bombers before they ended up outscoring us for the quarter and the half anyway. So disappointing was the loss that the club’s communications team got Tim Membrey to address the fans directly on the club website post-match rather than have him interviewed. There was no Uncut video for the first time this season. The peripheral buzz of anticipation for what this season and this team might become was just…gone. Crunch Time raised the prospect of losing six in a row. We were the “‘Broken’ Saints”, according to the Fox Sports clickbait headline. “Ratten revealed the football department delivered some home truths to the playing group during a brutal review at the start of the week” after a performance the club “didn’t see coming”, apparently. Luke Hodge for some reason gave us a chance and said we should back in Brett Ratten, but by Sunday night Mark Robinson declared we should be putting those talks on hold. 

Talk about 2022 ambitions had shifted to maybe scraping into finals this year and then to beyond 2022 entirely in the form of picking up Jordan de Goey, which Ratten opened the door right open for during the week. As if – as if – there is any sort of universe or dimension or worldline in which Jordan de Goey going to St Kilda works out well. As if.

***

Absolutely no one was feeling any better about the Saints by the time the weekend had officially even started. On Friday, Essendon had lost to the hapless Eagles, and the Dogs had beaten Hawthorn, knocking us out of the eight. But here we were, an excellent chance to bounce back and show everyone we’d learned something from by far our worst performance of the season with a game against a tough opposition on their home deck to keep in touch with the raft of teams in equal second.

The frantic opening few minutes was a good enough start, but as everyone settled into the game, Hamish in the Channel 7 commentary box called “McCartin to get the Saints going”, and in that moment it made sense our number one draft pick was going to be a big presence in our forward line. What else is there to say that hasn’t already been said about Paddy McCartin and St Kilda?

Really, the Swans had the game on their terms from the start. They dominated territory and their ball movement had some fluidity. Bad signs again for our own ball movement were there, on the occasion we got our hands on the ball. Players were stopping and propping. Marshall caught former Saint and Hard Quiz answer Tom Hickey holding the ball at centre-half-back and hit up Long forward of the wing but then play ground to a halt. We didn’t know what the hell to do with it even when we had clean possession. On the occasion we did get some looks up forward we weren’t making the most of it. Max dropped an easy Brad Crouch hit-up that would have been a shot at goal 30 metres out. He then found it on the lead for a longer shot that went directly out of bounds on the full.

It was looking like one of those nights where we make every one of the opposition look that little bit better. Not that he needs the extra boost but Buddy was playing some of his best footy. On the 50-metre arc he outdid both Wilkie and Dougal, working off both and reacting fastest to the popped-up ball, wheeled around and nailed a precise kick to Heeney for the Swans’ second. Ryan Clarke by the second quarter had two goals for just the second time in this career; the last time was when he was playing with North against – you guessed it – the Saints. Nick Blakey ended up with a career-high disposal count. It’s a service we provide, from gifting yet another player a Rising Star nomination to continue our best-in-the-business record the previous week, to opening things up for the guy who’s hardly played for two years, to the all-time great. Meanwhile, we had our best player this year Sinclair reading the ball beautifully in defence before slipping onto his arse when he kicked it.

Sharman was at least trying to make something happen and flying for everything; but in Ryder’s absence he was taking occasional forward line ruck duties and being thrown around by Hickey. Steele missed after a great contest by Windhager at ground level (one of the few in the forward 50 on the night) and the ball went straight down the other end, with Buddy again in the pocket grabbing it from the fall and snapping a goal. Buddy helped set up two more entries and another pinpoint hit-up of Heeney, dragging Dougal right across our defensive half of the ground. When Howard got it he did his now customary dance to get himself in trouble (it wouldn’t be the only time on the night). Cuts to the Swans bench showed a calm interchange. I’m not sure what the Qatar Airways billboards behind the players and the Swans “Mark of the Week – presented by Qatar Airways” would have thought about the Pride Match concept.

The ball movement wasn’t improving as the quarter wore on. It was either stilted movement, long down the line, iffy entries to no one in particular’s advantage with not many at the fall.  Gresham off half-back blazed away with a rushed high ball to an outpointed Membrey on McCartin, instead of running it through the middle with the three teammates immediately around him.

***

The second quarter was an arm wrestle, but there weren’t any signs we would be the ones to break things open. Buddy was prominent again; he spoiled Marshall and the Swans were away, handballing in numbers. He had another shot at goal on the 50-metre arc that was wayward, but a five-metre kick at the resulting scramble landed with Ryan Clarke in front of goal and was paid a mark. Clarke had been tagging Sinclair to good effect, and when he kicked the goal the Swans went to Sinclair and there was some push and shove. Nice to see NWM getting involved in it all, but we were borderline getting bullied.

That was the Swans’ only goal for the quarter, but going forward we were still mostly lifeless, or just making bad mistakes. Sharman had a few almost-moments, NWM missed him by himself 40 metres out directly in front, and then Sinclair finally worked off Clarke, intercepted a ball forward of the wing, ran with the footy and then delivered a perfect kick to Cooper 30 metres out but he let go of it under only a slight bit of heat. A few moments later we managed to put together a decent foray forward along the wing that elicited “One of the few times the Saints have been able to execute basic skills” from Wayne Carey, and the ball ended up with Sharman on a relatively difficult angle. Sharman’s kick squirted comically out on the full.

We were barely hanging in. Seb Ross had 17 touches with 11.39 still to play, Steele was settling in nicely and Rowan Marshall was doing OK, but that was mostly it. Missed opportunities from the Swans were the only thing really keeping us in it. Twice sharp kicks going forward hit Webster instead of a Swan, one hit NWM, and Sam Reid had a shot at goal touched on the line, and McDonald missed from the pocket.

A breakthrough of sorts came courtesy a very, very soft 50-metre penalty, with Membrey brought up into the 50-metre arc after Errol Gulden vaguely ran sort of near the edge of the protected zone. The umpire gave a short 50 – possibly the same umpire who paid the full 15 metres for the kick that ended with Clarke’s second goal – but Membrey kicked it anyway. Wayne Carey tried jinxing things by saying with six and a half minutes left the Saints players would be looking at the scoreboard thinking how lucky we were to be just 14 points down, and then Luke Darcy did similar with two minutes to go, and just as he did Logan McDonald had another shot and hit the post.

After kicking 3.3 in the first half last week we went in to the main change this week at 2.2 (as we did in the infamous 2002 draw against the Swans). We were in a much worse position on this night but still in touch on the scoreboard. Max was absolutely nowhere near it, but according to Swamp he does lead the competition for points in the third quarter, so we did have that up our sleeve. Nice try trotting all this out after Geelong and Richmond.

***

There was the briefest of flashes at the very beginning of the third that maybe we’d have a hot start to the second half as we did against the Bombers. But Sharman was outpointed from the opening bounce centre clearance, Hunter Clark gave away a terrible 50, and Papley kicked a goal from 50.

A lot of our contested work wasn’t terrible. We just didn’t know what to do with the footy, and the Swans were set up beautifully behind the ball. We didn’t want to take a half-risk. No movement ahead of the ball, no changing of angles, no forward handballs, just long kicks down the line. Max had moved a little higher up and finally got his hands on the footy a couple of times on the wing. Sharman almost took mark of the year, but those seemed to be only semblance of game plan we had. Sinclair looked like he’d been moved from half-back, and there genuinely was a few minutes in which the pressure was up; ten tackles in the first six minutes of play after just eight in the second quarter. But the margin for error was slim, and we didn’t look like scoring. What we probably feared deep down coming into this was happening – Paddy McCartin (together with his brother Tom) was mopping up. Brett Ratten said in the post-match press conference that he felt for Max because of the delivery into the forward, which probably said a lot about what the coaching staff thought about what went wrong. GT absolutely hated that approach and said so on Twitter as he unloaded on the club in the aftermath, and then he went ahead and had a crack at Max on 3AW.

Marshall and Sharman spoiled each other on the wing and not long after it looked like Sharman was moved behind the ball. Byrnes found Billings just inside 50 on a 45-degree angle. It was time for him to step up and be the pick three we made him. He didn’t get anywhere near it. The Swans finally broke the game open when a Ross handball (one of the few times we actually tried working in numbers) on the wing went straight to the Swans, Buddy drew a front-on contact from the Warner entry and Heeney kicked an easy goal from the advantage call. The pressure on the defenders had reached breaking point and the dose was repeated with McDonald drawing a free for too high and Papley kicked another from the goal square. Another anxiety-riddled interstate performance. Add it to the list.

Saints players were starting to get frustrated. Ben Long went the torpedo from a kick-out that went straight to Gulden, drawing the ire of Steele, and seconds later Max gave away a free-kick dumping Hickey well after he’d handballed. The Swans were off and Florent kicked an excellent running goal. They went straight out of the middle for a bullet pass to Hayward and another major. The game had broken open. Wilkie got dumped in a Heeney tackle and copped a massive one in the balls.

It was about this time that morbid curiosity took over. If there’s anything I like as much as footy jumper designs (there probably isn’t), then it’s novelty score lines. In modern footy, anything two goals or below qualifies as a novelty scoreline. Teams often shit out third, fourth or fifth goals late when the sting has well and truly left the game. Max finally got some space on his opponent and found a set shot and missed. Butler missed a snap and we went into the final change at 2.6, our lowest three-quarter time score against the Swans since 1920 (funnily enough, the final score ended up being the exact same as that Lakeside Oval game 102 years ago).

We’d responded to our worst performance of the year with our worst performance of the year.

***

I’d tell you to ignore everything about the last quarter if we played well; I’d also use a poor last quarter for some more whinging material in this review, so they weren’t going to get much from me from that point. What if I just…turned it off? Can I do that? Heeney on his own drew level with the Saints early on in the last quarter. There was still time for Zak Jones to earn a free and kick it straight to Paddy McCartin, and then get it back immediately from the rebound kick that went out on the full and kick it directly to Tom McCartin, before Paddy plucked a third McCartin intercept mark in a row moments after. Elsewhere, Dougal almost did his own knee and groin in one movement trying to again get around an opponent.

Billings and Windhager (from a Gresham throw) disappointingly kicked goals in the last few minutes. Until then, we were set to post our lowest score since Round 16 of 1957 when we could only muster 1.5 (11) against that year’s premiers Melbourne, and we were also set to kick just two goals in a game since a 140-point loss to Carlton at Moorabbin early in 1985. There were records out there to be taken off the shoulders of people who weren’t getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to dish this sort of stuff up. Certainly not under the pretence of top four challengers, and certainly not under the pretence of everyone being so shocked about what happened the week before against a team with two wins to its name. There were some smaller feats claimed. It was Brett Ratten’s lowest score as a head coach, taking in two clubs across 10 different seasons. Max was goalless for the first time since May 29^th last year – 392 days earlier.

Last year after the Sydney game we supposedly had a meeting that was acknowledged as a turning point in the season. It’s less acknowledged that we put in a stunning choke in Cairns against the Crows the week after, and then took some time away in the mid-season bye. Is this a reverse 2021? This time, apparently in the bye week we all got together and had a really good earnest chat about how we can turf the season in just a few weeks. Twitter and BigFooty are giving up. And why the hell not? We spent the best part of three months learning to trust the club again, and it’s been wiped in three weeks.

We’re now sitting 10^th with a very difficult draw, but as the week before showed it doesn’t matter where the opposition sits if we’re going to play boring, anxious footy. At half-time of Round 2, when we sat at 2.7, if we weren’t the worst team in the competition, we were the worst-placed team in the competition. We might be somewhere back around there if our form doesn’t change any time soon.