Month: July 2022

Round 19, 2022
West Coast Eagles 3.3, 7.1, 9.2, 10.2 (62)
St Kilda 2.2, 9.5, 10.5, 14.6 (90)  
Crowd: 35,665 at Optus Stadium, Sunday, July 24th at 2.40pm AWST

St Kilda fell from irrelevancy to Moody Doom Vignette territory this week.

There was an absolute pasting from the footy world, collected and collated and packaged in multiple vignettes across Fox Footy landscape (i.e. On the Couch and multiple nights of 360).

BT said we were “bordering on putrid”. Garry Lyon called us an “all-talk footy club”, and asked if this group cared enough. “Sub-AFL standard” and “fraudulent”, said Kingy.

One team that isn’t going to win the premiership this year is St Kilda, Gerard and Robbo said with amusement. Jason Dunstall said we were “mind-blowingly poor”. “It’s fallen apart” for us, according to Joey. Nick called it a “passive effort”. Mike Sheahan was on 360 Extra and said the first 40 minutes of the previous Friday was “disgraceful” and “an indictment on the entire footy club”. On the same episode, Rooey again bought up “there’s trying and there’s really trying”. He said, “They’re not a dog-hungry group, it’s a nice group”. We’d gone from top four at the halfway mark of the season to “soul-searching”. “You can’t be held captive by talent,” Nick said. “St Kilda have got a lot of players that help you win by more, they don’t necessarily help you win.” Perhaps partly to that end, the club released the video of Brett Ratten’s post-match dressing down of the players as part of the “Uncut” series. Players weren’t telling each other that “that ain’t fucking good enough”. A nice group indeed. It was a massive week for feedback across the group, apparently, and big changes at the selection table were going to be made – or, at least with the caveat that guys would be on their last chance if they kept their spot. Zak Jones was the only one that really copped it – NWM was dropped too, but Ratts appeared to make a distinction during the week between guys really getting dropped and younger guys having natural fluctuations in form.

For a lot of fans we were really back to “just want to see effort” – and maybe Jack Steele giving it to everyone – but for what? So we can commendably finish 10th? Fuck that. It’s amazing how this season end up being so comparable to 2021 (just flip the order of the form). The first half of the season was about showing that we’d learned something from last year. We even had a new clash jumper and clash socks and everything.

It’s hard to really get up for another “defining encounter”, as the club site called it, when the team itself hasn’t really turned up for them for five of the past six weeks (comically so, too).

We were the “Saint Kilda Saints” this week, according to Optus Stadium’s social media team. Maybe a change in identity would help.

***

Bizarrely, we were only some Buddy-esque work from Jamarra on Saturday night from playing for eighth spot on Sunday. Depending on the Dogs as well, obviously, Richmond’s result against the Dockers might be the reason we make it or miss out. The Bizarro Rivalry Cold War rages on.

St Kilda made a statement by releasing the video during the week, according to West Coast and Adam Simpson, which I guess making a note of was a statement in itself. They were gonna be prepared for our guys to be yelling non-stop at each other for any vague blunder or non-committal contest. Maybe saying some really personal shit that would ruin each other’s day.

What we were met with was nothing really of the kind of uncompromising performance that we might expect from a team that’s on its way to doing anything serious at the business end of this year. There was no hammering of a team that might be at its lowest ebb in its 36 seasons. There was no teammates giving (demonstrative) instructive feedback. Within minutes this had the air of a late-season game between two teams with no business in September. After multiple turnovers in the middle last week, Brad Hill kicked it to an opponent in the middle of the ground. We were making a mockery of the model of efficiency we appeared to be in the first half of the season. Butler kicked it straight to a defender. There was no Jeremy McGovern but a lot of Tom Barrass, and repeated high kicks into the forward line allowed him to body up Max and take him out of the game. Edwards was the beneficiary a couple of times early took a couple of intercept marks; Max dropped one anyway when he actually did get into the right position and the delivery was to his advantage. A turnover the other way saw Seb find space in the middle and kick to Membrey who was outnumbered in a two-on-one.

The ground was in a real early-90s state after copping some decent rain and hosting Manchester United and Aston Villa on the Saturday (the ground were markings were still intrusively obvious). Snags ended up with some Moorabbin-esque mud across his jumper after getting a pretty lucky free kick within range, but he didn’t make the distance, and hit the post with another attempt soon after a rare measured kick forward.

Butler was the one who broke through for our first after making up for a bad kick to Gresham in board and snapping around on his left. It came from a good mark to Mason Wood in defence and the ball worked up with short passes in a rare display of cohesion. Our forward has not been OK for several weeks, like your futsal team is short and the entire forward line is just guys who played in the game before yours. Butler and Higgins were the two guys that Nick was prepared to say really needed to lift during the match preview on 360 Extra, while Grant Thomas went harder and said he was “stupefied & dumbfounded” about them having kept their spots. I’m not sure exactly how much Butler and Higgins and their positioning have to do with our forward structure – I’d say more than a bit – but they would be making (and mostly taking) their opportunities throughout this game. When Tim Membrey did it all himself out of a ruck contest in the forward pocket, Derm in special comments started talking about how this is a danger moment for the Eagles and that it could be five goals to nothing pretty soon. Perhaps that would be the kind of thing you’d expect from a team who had just had a soul-searching week and its season on the line, but those next three goals all went to the Eagles. The Eagles started working through the middle and goaled through uniquely haired Jake Waterman and with some assistance from the noise of affirmation working for Kennedy, and then Rotham, who of course had never kicked a goal in his career. It seemed to happen quickly; for all our possession domination – plus-30 for possession, 13 to seven inside 50s – we were behind.

The Barrass and King battle became all the more intriguing when they both claimed a mark that the umpire couldn’t pay to either and balled it up instead. Clark saved us up the other end with a contest in the air on Darling and then a contest down low on Ryan, but then gave away a free kick to Darling moments later only for Darling to casually miss from close range.

***

In the opening minutes of the second Max finally broke free of the Barrass brace and in one motion gathered the ball off the ground and snapped around the corner, followed by Snags kicking a goal, threatening a Max and Snags quarter as they had multiple times this season, beginning with the first Perth game. Max likes Optus Stadium, his last couple of appearances there have showed. But is Max too nice? (Do we have enough energy left for this season to care in the here and now?) Kennedy bobbed up as he always does against us and Rotham got a lucky free and, somehow, a second career goal for a Jimmy Webster retaliation, with the umpire conveniently missing Rotham’s high shove immediately before it. No noise of affirmation required.

Ball movement took a turn for the better around the time that Sharman (in defence) almost took mark of the year (as he’d almost done against the Swans). It was the kind of moment that qualified as a “highlight” in a game like this. Even as we started cutting through the middle and finding space going into 50 Gresham persisted with the screw kicks around his body and hit the post on the run; we got lucky ourselves when the umpire missed Membrey’s throw out of a tackle to Higgins who found Butler coasting past within close range. Byrnes did a 360 outside the arc and hit up King but he missed. We’d finally looked like players from the same team were out there in the forward line but had 1.2 from three good looks. As we’d done for Rotham, it was time to roll out the red carpet for unproven guys to make their mark. This time, Sharman spilled an entry in defence and second-gamer Jai Culley threw it on his boot and went over his head, and Liam Ryan took the mark and goaled. Bailey J. Williams took a great mark in the six-yard box too on his way to goaling and doubling his possession average for the season.

It was at about this point it became apparent something was going on with Marcus Windhager and Tim Kelly. The commentators started noting that Tim Kelly – who a few weeks earlier had amassed 40 touches against the Tigers – had hardly touched the ball. Windhager, who had the role on him, was on his way to finishing with a career-high 23 disposals and 570 metres gained, the most on the ground in a game in which fluid forward movement was at a premium. He bullocked his way through traffic on multiple occasions but the highlight might have been his centre bounce takeaway from Marshall’s ruckwork in the last moments of the quarter that brought Butler’s third goal on the half-time siren, closing out three goals in the last four minutes of play.

Max and Snags had just for into the game and we did end up with a Diet Lite Caffeine-Free Max and Snags quarter. Max took a great two-on-one mark at high half-forward and was on the move immediately; his awkward handball sat up in the turf nicely for Hunter and through Butler the ball found Snags close to goal. Rather than trying to kick the cover off it as he has done a few times this year, a went around the corner a neatly slotted it.

Jack Billings’ contribution had been to spend most of the first quarter trying to make up his mind whether or not he was injured. Ben Long came on and brought the forward pressure that had been missing in the previous few weeks and ran down Edwards, and from a tough shot just inside the boundary near 50 also went around the corner and kicked the goal. Marshall had channelled the sadly absent Paddy Ryder (who was perhaps at least wearing a St Kilda polo somewhere but he might have just been at home in casual clothes) with a tap over the shoulder to Steele, who worked off the tackler to tumble the ball forward. Max was first to it and gave off and the ball finished with Crouch adding a goal to his fantastic game in the clinches.

***

Jack Steele minted himself as captain (all over again) with a career-best 40 touches, to go with 11 clearances and eight tackles. Fifteen of those touches came in the third quarter when we really needed someone to stand up. That was a player who took everything that was said in the post-match and during the week really fucking seriously, willing himself to doing things – at least on paper – that he hadn’t done before. To draw from Garry Lyon’s comments, he’s one that can’t be described as an all-talk player. Crouch went with him and finished with 31 touches and 11 tackles. Seb was doing a little more 2022 Seb stuff, and Sinclair put forward another case for All Australian (for whatever you think that’s worth; either way it meant he played very well again). Of course, Windhager missed out on the Rising Star nomination because Jamarra happened to pull out five goals against the premiership favourites the night before. Marshall – named perhaps or perhaps not pointedly in Ratten’s video of examples of what he wanted from the players – won 49 hit-outs and did some very nice work as the extra midfielder. No one was “bad”, really; I’m just not sure if this was the whole-team response you get from a side that will recapture top-four form.

***

A good part of that second quarter was the work without the ball. We pushed hard across the ground to shut down the Eagles’ space when they had the ball at half-back. We needed that kind of effort in the back half during the third because our forward structure broke down again and the Eagles had it their way. Things were looking shakey again. Shuey had looked like he was with a shoulder in the first half but then appeared to finish Webster’s day with his shoulder. The Eagles dominated possession and territory and finally broke through with a goal 13 minutes in. Webster had saved one with a tackle on Kennedy in the pocket while Darling was waiting on his own in the goal square, but Sinclair’s rushed kick came back immediately and found Darling, who hadn’t moved. Another kick came into full forward to Darling on the lead a couple of minutes later and we looked like were about to crack. They finished with 20 inside 50s for the quarter but only scored 2.1. We cut through the other way with just over five minutes left in the quarter thanks to Max marking and playing on again at half forward, but he poked it to 15 out where Higgins played for the free and then immediately decided to stop playing for the free, grab the ball on the ground and dish off to Membrey, who was good enough around the corner. We’d seemed to have halted the momentum but the lead was only nine points, and we’d only scraped together all of 1.0.

***

So what happens if we really fucking shat it from here? Dropping another game to a lowly team with all of two wins. After all the talk this week, what happens then? What else can Ratten say and what other video can the club release? Who goes out? Who comes in? This season’s drop-off in form happened at the same time at Sandringham too, and they’d been pantsed by Eli Templeton’s struggling standalone Port Melbourne earlier on Sunday. Not sure what’s going on there, but the rot’s been happening across the whole club. It appears it’s time to Break the Dan Hannebery Glass In Case of Heading Towards Middle of the Ladder Late-in-Season Emergency for a fourth consecutive year.

There were some “almost” moments in the final term on the way to grinding out a win that similar to the third quarter saw no team score a goal for a long time. Gresham had a mid-air shot in the square in a move that was 20 hours too late; Wilkie – the one player who came out of that mid-week video better than anyone else – looked to go through the middle for a counterattack but got chopped off, and then finally Higgins didn’t get enough of it in the forward line, but Membrey found it, kicked to the top of square and Max finally worked off Barrass and finished the play.

That passage had started with Sinclair falling over at half-back on the sloppy turf and ended with Barrass on his backside, and players slipping onto their arse was a feature in all of St Kilda’s goals that ultimately finished the game. Mason Wood has had some good and bad moments in his time as a Saint, but I feel like this year there’s been some really good ones. He combining both in the game breaker with just over five minutes left that again saw Snags and Max both involved; Snags worked up to the defensive side of the wing as we came off half-back after Cooper Sharman played goal keeper on the line (the line of the traditional Australian Rules type; also I didn’t think I’d be typing “Cooper Sharman played goal keeper” this year), and Hill – involved on the wing in several chains – hit up Max. The 50 was open and he went long to the goal side of Wood who ran onto the ball, tried wheeling around Bazzo and slipped over, but got back up quickly enough to get a snap kick in before Witherden came across his boot. The ball bounced kindly.

Steele and Windhager won the ball from a centre wing throw-in and the Eagles defenders were forced to move quickly with the clock against them. A few Eagles traded handballs looking for a clean exit and this time it was Redden who hit the deck; Windhager had kept running and intercepted his handball and delivered to Butler on his own on the goal line for the sealer. Somehow, the score line was the same as Dogs disaster the week before.

There was an intermission for a Jai Culley goal before Barrass became the last to go down (again), caught out by arguably our slickest chain of possession (albeit through a very tired Eagles defence), which started from a rushed Steele kick off half-back for number 40 for the first time in his career (Lienert has won the hit-out, of course), before Ross ran and handballed to Sinclair, who ran and handballed to Byrnes, to Hill, and his tumbling kick sent Barrass the wrong way and Butler strolled in for his fifth goal – also for the first time in his career. By day’s end a big chunk of the goals had echoed the Saints of 2020 – a lot from close range, a lot featuring Butler.

***

So there it was, our first win over the Eagles in Perth since a grinding Nick Riewoldt-less win in 2010 that set off a winning streak of seven that set up our tilt at September (which ran into October), and our first dual wins in Perth since that same year – we also outlasted Freo in that streak at Subiaco just a few weeks later.

No vignettes this week. We’re not good, we’re not bad. We’ve just taken a small step back up and slightly sideways from the moody doom vignette editors’ suite into mid-ladder irrelevancy. The final minutes of the Carlton win were gripping as they were the difference between a (brief) re-entry into Maybe We’re Good territory and a season plunging into freefall. The season hit freefall over the next couple of weeks anyway, and the final minutes of Sunday were not gripping. “Mason Wood produces a bit of brilliance!” Adam Papalia exclaimed when the game-breaker bounced through. It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t quite relief. It looks like for another year they’re going to drag us all the way. Not many ladder predictions will have us near September. Sunday was a warm late July day in Melbourne. Perhaps the first sign that changes in the weather are ahead, that we’ve been through the absolute depths of winter, and that the end is in sight.

One month to go.

Round 18, 2022
Western Bulldogs 5.2, 8.4, 12.5, 13.6 (84)
St Kilda 0.2, 2.4, 3.9, 7.14 (56)
Crowd: 25,981 at Docklands, Friday, July 15th at 7.50pm
By Tom Briglia

The footy world in 2022 is going past St Kilda, quickly. Thanks to the quirks of the foolproof *checks notes* floating fixture we again dished up a Friday night special to remind everyone on the big stage that no, this team is not necessarily here to play, nor will they necessarily give everything for four quarters.

I say it most weeks, but 149 years of trust issues are again sounding off. The effort is negotiable, the ability to run out winners now looks flimsy. A bit like the Sydney game, we tried against Freo, and we both a) disappeared and b) weren’t good enough anyway. As supporters, we’ve regressed again to simply wanting to see effort…but for what? Time is running out for that effort to build into something bigger.

The footy media has definitely gone past us. The fallout last week was all about Nat Fyfe and what he could mean to the Dockers going forward; he was Robbo’s Monday Hero, while AFL.com.au said “Nat Fyfe reminds us of his greatness, Paddy McCartin has gone from VFL to VIP”, just to add a bit more salt. Kane Cornes suggested Freo’s performance was a template for how to win a premiership. Stewart Dew had his contract renewed and the Suns came back from 40 points down to beat Richmond. We had Ratts’ contract renewed and turned in a 2021-style performance of disappearing when things got really tough. We’re not really relevant to the season anymore. This year is for others. There’s no real interest in what are most likely also-rans in a relatively even season, only the Crunch Time analysis on Saturday morning because the Friday night game is the only one to talk about. David King said we’ve returned to the “fraudulent” 2021 form.

Max King’s Coleman chances are long gone, talk of Sinclair being All-Australian quelled, although he did enhance his claims on Friday night with 36 touches and a very nice goal. But really, the ceiling for this season has been getting lower and lower. The Carlton win was an aberration – Crunch Time’s six losses in a row didn’t quite happen, but we did manage five losses out of six. Our form line is back to poor and the context of the Carlton win perhaps looks that while it was a better Saints team out there, the result had a lot do with Carlton kicking themselves out of it.

Meanwhile, SEN was asking “Where has it gone wrong for the Bulldogs this season?” despite the fact there was every chance the Bulldogs would only be out of the eight on percentage by round’s end. Beveridge said something to his players about Cape buffaloes and it all worked. They weren’t world-beaters on Friday night, but they came out at least playing like a team with its season on the line. Bontempelli, Smith, Liberatore, Macrae, Dunkley, Treloar, Naughton (albeit out on Friday) et al. – it still is curious the team is where it is at the moment. I confidently chirped in the off-season that this year’s Grand Final would be Melbourne and the Dogs again. Knowing the Dogs, they’re close to their favourite part of the ladder for a tilt. They’ve been utterly curious since Luke Beveridge took over ahead of 2015. Every one of their seasons has been varyingly intriguing.

There were small claims on this one; for us it was a night of sitting in eighth spot before Richmond inevitably pushed us back out (it turns out they wouldn’t have, and we blew a chance to jump back into the eight for the week). Three premierships have wiped away all the jokes about Richmond and “Ninthmond”, and we’ve got claims to be the heir apparent. Ninth in 2007, ninth in 2012, ninth in 2016, and then one game and percentage out in 2017, one game and percentage out in 2021. That’s five finals series we’ve barely missed out on, and all the memories and experiences that go with them. This year’s looking very similar.

***

I tipped the Dogs but foolishly tweeted about being concerned over having to endure a close finish. My actions probably didn’t match that; I went to Nando’s on King Street and ate my over-expensive and not large enough meal by myself in the saddest part of the “restaurant” without going near “stress-eating” mode. Even with Naughton out under Health and Safety Protocols. Ross and Windhager were out too; everyone was wearing masks at Moorabbin the week the club sent out a gentle reminder about the fact the pandemic is still a thing, and about to get worse (again).

Sometimes (often) I get sucked into writing near blow-by-blow descriptions in these match reviews. No need to quite do that this week; there was no real storyline to this one other than we have a new contender for the most disappointing game of the season. No apparent “effort” – I think it was Nick Riewoldt who made the distinction between “trying” and really “trying” – we were wiped out by that mystical element of being “outworked”. No pressure, which apparently was a focus during the week.

We made more than enough mistakes on our part when we did find the footy. Like we’d seen multiple times over the past several weeks, multiple kicks into the corridor from half-back went straight to opposition players and turned into scoring opportunities, if not goals. That had happened twice against the Blues; a game we left thinking we might have rediscovered our first-half-of-the-season form and a template for the rest of the year. Sinclair and Hill had given up goals cutting into the middle that night, but those skill errors were harder to fault because they were part of a broader intent that had put us in a position to win the game. On Friday night they seemed to pop up out of desperation amid halted movement. Marshall got away with one but Battle’s kick into the middle to Jones was easily picked off by Bontempelli, who gave off to Bailey Dale and he slotted the goal on the run from 50. Ratten appeared to make a distinction after the game that these were 40-metre kicks into the corridor and that they’re not part of our game plan. Weightman went to ground and won the free he played for we had the right to be frustrated about the umpiring after last week but boy oh boy, we weren’t doing ourselves any favours to begin with. A bit like the Melbourne game, it felt like we barely gave ourselves a chance to be in the game.

Sharman starting in defence and Paton up forward felt a little like it was dangerously straddling the line of “desperate” and “late season exploration”, rather than “stroke of genius”. Sharman actually wasn’t bad; he probably showed more intent in a couple of contests than he had all year in his appearances at AFL level, charging to a contest and spoiling a high ball in the centre and then wrapping up an opponent immediately, and he did move to hunt down Treloar after his rebounding kick was chopped off by Williams, but the Dogs were away through Williams, Dunkley, Garcia, Bontempelli and Macrae and a perfect pass to Rhylee West on the lead.

Problems in attack started with slow ball movement once we got to the wing or half-forward (multiple times through Max pushing up and taking a grab). Paton wasn’t the reason a lot of guys chipped around in the back half (uncontested marks was 148 to 91 our way) and then waited for the Bulldogs defenders to set up and to kick to an outnumbered teammate, or were just hoping that Max, when he was deep, would vaguely run onto a long ball in foot race against an opponent, but there definitely wasn’t much presence at ground level from he nor Butler nor Higgins. Wood finally got a decent look and went around the corner in the same way he’d failed to do so the previous week, but this time comically hit the wrong side of the ball and instantly became a funny Instagram post.

The Dogs were well on the way to midfield dominance, winning the clearances 41 to 21. Their forward 50 entries were much more dangerous and we have Callum Wilkie to thank for the margin not being 2021-esque. There was no real burst; the Dogs just consistently kept kicking goals as part of a blanketing. Bayley Smith set up their fifth through a quick slice on the wing to Johannisen who was running harder than anyone else, and delivered a great kick to Dunkley, who went back and kicked the goal. We invite either young or unproven players to demonstrate their best; Jamarra was already on his way to three goals, running off Sharman.

I wasn’t sure if the 32 to 2 scoreline at quarter time was unbelievable or perfectly believable. Rory had last year’s review of the 111-point demolition ready to go for me at quarter-time. This ended up being 83 points better by the time we shat out some junk time goals (and a lot of junk time points), but the lack of intent around the ball when it really counted still felt so, so disappointing. This was the kind of game you don’t actually get emotionally involved in, you’re just in the standing room on the members’ win in a dumbfounded silence. Things, somehow, were about to get worse. They didn’t get “blown out of the water” worse until the third quarter, just (“just”) more demoralising. Steele was the least of our problems but he had Smith cold on the Dogs’ half-forward line and fluffed the tackle. By half-time, we’d only managed 12 tackles (the tackle count in the next day’s Adelaide-Collingwood game was 107-126). Another borderline holding the ball free in the middle that could have gone our way wasn’t given and Jamarra kicked the goal, but then Smith combined with Liberatore at half-forward and Hannan was cruising past unchecked for one that was a lot more sapping.

It’s about this point – all of 10 or so minutes into the second quarter – that you start wondering if you’ll see any positives. Either on the night or for the rest of the year. This season is turning into a mash-up of 1998, 1999 and 2019. Our first goal came 17 minutes into the second quarter thanks to a free off the ball to Max, but moments later Bontempelli furthered his way to a near-perfect game with the highlight of Bulldogs’ match-winning charging, a goal off a step or two from just inside 50.

We’ve really forgotten what a genuine superstar looks like. Gresham and his curated eyebrows threatened in the first half of this year to be our Dusty/De Goey/Petracca-type. He nearly got one back immediately but was it touched on the line. Gresh has been a different player since the bye. It’s been a different team. Steele has been seen as something of a borderline elite mid in the past two years but isn’t quite on the same plane as Petracca and Bontempelli. Funnily enough, apart from Steele, in several moments over the past few years the one player that looks like someone who knows what it takes is Dan Hannebery. I don’t mean to put him in the same category as Bont et al., but rather that he is slick, unflinching, and doesn’t need a second thought to execute something good. He knows what to do in the moment. But watching the Bont and his big frame motor through traffic, deliver the footy around the ground, take grabs and kick goals with big celebrations shows the gap between the best of the competition and the best of our list. If our entire team isn’t bringing uncomprising effort – the team that Ross Lyon told Saints fans to get excited about earlier in the year – then the lack of talent and class is shown up in a big way. Right now, guys are drifting in and out of games. Friday was perhaps another night to rue drafting errors of the past – Billings over Bont comparisons, Paddy over Petracca. Billings was actually alright on Friday, but you compare him in real time to the Bont and he just doesn’t have the killer competitive instinct, nor the presence, nor the class. And that’s…kind of ok in the grander scheme of things, in a world of Putins and pandemics. He’s a human being. The problem was an AFL club in a historically dire state drafted him at number 3, and another club in a historically dire state drafted Marcus Bontempelli at number 4, and within three years Bontempelli was the best and fairest winner of a premiership team. Billings’ 150^th passed without any fanfare. I still feel like the club’s development had as much to do with this as anything else. Would Bontempelli be the player he is if the Saints drafted him? I doubt it.

***

Our second goal came just before the 27-minute mark of the second quarter from another questionable free; one that was barely more there than Rory Lobb’s the week before. (The problem was, the game was well and truly gone.) It’s probably too much to expect for the team to come out firing in the second half being six goals down when they couldn’t come out firing in the second half with a slender lead and the season on the line the week before, and the season even more on the line at the beginning of the night, only to dish up indifferent footy. We were back to the flimsy 2021 Saints of giving in when things got a little bit two tough. The second game within a few weeks in which we went into half-time with two goals on the board. The Dogs had another two goals on the board three and a half minutes into the third quarter through Jamarra and Garcia. Most of the rest of the third term deserves a “Scene Missing” slide. Treloar took it to 52 points and we were just over two minutes of play from making it the second time in a few weeks we’d gone into three-quarter time with two goals. We got the moody doom vignette On the Couch. BT said we were “bordering on putrid”. Garry Lyon called us an “all-talk footy club”, and asked if the players cared enough. “Sub-AFL standard” and “fraudulent”, said Kingy.

Bizarrely, we’d finish the game with more scoring shots, owing mostly to a faux-fightback in the last quarter that landed with 4.5 before Bont capped off his and the Dogs’ night with a mark and goal, and a big celebration. Max, Snags, Roma and Butler all missed gettable chances and the Herald Sun’s expected score actually had us winning the game from the shots the two teams should have kicked. But by this stage Dogs had taken the foot off the accelerator because they could; we’d come back from 55 points early in the third quarter against the Dogs in 2015, this team absolutely wasn’t coming back from 50 down at the final change. There was little to keep caring abou-OH MY GOD PADDY RYDER, IN A ST KILDA JUMPER, HAS HURT HISACHILLES.

***

It’s about this time of year we become a little retrospective. This might still be the season that will be, but given our form line over the last six weeks and our draw ahead we’re closer to that was the season that was, and we’re just playing out the final few weeks to make sure it’s all recorded on AFL Tables for future procrastination reference.

That means players start to announce their retirements. Jarryn Geary – drafted with rookie pick 57 in 2007 and who went on to be St Kilda captain for five seasons – became one of the first in this late-year stretch to do so on Thursday.

The first time I saw him was from my couch; the first round of the 2008 NAB Cup against Richmond and I had with ice packs on my cheeks nestled in a headnet because I’d just had all four wisdom teeth out. Riewoldt and a few others were rested on that night, and in a team that was looking to take a big step forward in Ross Lyon’s second year young guys weren’t likely to figure too much. This game served as a novelty chance to see what draftees Geary, Jack Steven and Robert Eddy may or may not have to offer if we needed to break glass in case of emergency, as well as new recruit Charlie Gardiner.

Geary would be in and out of that bottom six of the Ross Lyon era that we painfully could never get right when it really counted. Most of his early career highlights are goals that can be found in the hastily-produced 2009 Season Highlights DVD; indeed, the club’s highlights package during the week was dominated by goals and forward line moments from the front and back ends of his career. Perhaps we never really found the best position for him. He was an unassuming footballer, not blessed with a spearing pass or quick hands or incredible agility, and he and toiled away in relative anonymity, in the shadows of the Riewoldt generation in his early career and then having played just three games last year and none this year for a team that’s hardly been relevant. However, you could count on him to be unrelenting in a game that relies heavily on pressure at either ends of the ground, but given he the kind of player that was maligned for the occasional ability to completely miss targets, he might have been better kicking at goal than at teammates. He’d still come up in selection chats with Matt and Richie and I even up until the last few weeks. Just put him in the forward pocket and let him chase and harass. You know he’s not going to take a backward step.

My favourite Geary moment might be his diving fist in 2016 late against the Bombers in front of a leading Essendon forward, getting to a ball that he had no business getting near as the Bombers looked to go ahead, and the ball went up straight up the other end for a Mav Weller goal to help our 2016 second-half rampage along. Rich and I were in the medallion club that game perpendicular to him, able to see the full extension he willed his body to. “That’s play of the year” Rich said after Weller’s snap went through. Unfortunately, AFL.com.au cut out Geary’s moment in the passage in its highlights package for the game.

His uncompromising approach allowed him to carve out a 15-year career but it didn’t always favour him. A brave effort in the peak win of 2019 in front of Melbourne’s goal was rewarded with emergency compartment syndrome surgery (that’s the link if you want to see the surgery photo) and a giant fuck-off scar down his thigh. He returned for the China game against Port and broke his leg.

Geary was the last direct link to the Ross Lyon era. His war stories aren’t quite the same as many in the Riewoldt generation; he wasn’t out there on the biggest days, named as an emergency for all three of the 2009 and 2010 Grand Finals, and came on as the sub in the bleak 2011 Elimination Final. His lot was playing a role in trying to guide a heartbroken club back to relevancy and vitality. He had the difficult task of having to be the club’s first captain following on from Nick Riewoldt, arguably our greatest ever, while carrying the title alongside the likes of his good friend and triple premiership player and finals mainstay Joel Selwood. He played that role to some success; for now he remains the answer to the trivia question “Who was the last player to captain St Kilda to a finals win?

He was one of the few guys over the past decade – an awful decade, really – whose effort you couldn’t ever question. The best thing we can do is seek out ways to be the best versions of ourselves, and that’s what he did. “I just wanted to be someone that was trusted,” he said in his retirement speech to the club during the week. The current team – the entire club – could take a lot from that.

Round 16, 2022
Carlton 2.4, 6.7, 7.13, 10.18 (78)
St Kilda 3.6, 7.6, 10.7, 14.9 (93)
Crowd: 43,194 at Docklands, Friday, July 1st at 7.50pm
By Tom Briglia

The best case you could mount for St Kilda coming into this one was “we probably can’t be that bad four weeks in row”. Since the bye, the template had been guys getting knocked out and running out of players or bad, boring footy. Mostly the latter.

We were hoping this was just a Melbourne-style three-week lapse (albeit without the 10-game head start, and sevens win from the previous season that included a Grand Final). You could make some sort of case that the Lions game wasn’t that bad and if only Max and Snags had taken those shots on half-time and in the last quarter it might have been different, but the same would have to apply to Brisbane kicking 7.12 in the second half. The last two weeks, however, had been genuinely poor.

We’d had two goals on the board 11 seconds before time-on in the last quarter against Sydney. We were “comprehensively out of form”, according to Gerard. “Predictable, bland and boring”, according to Joey. Our form elicited Robbo’s elevated voice on 360. Grant Thomas was on a roll. The six losses in a row as discussed by Crunch Time the morning after the Essendon loss were in play. We thought after GWS we’d cleared the hurdle of the The Age’s “story of the year” headline three years ago that preceded unfortunate events, but now we looked like we could be heading towards another 2019. The president had erred in not quite announcing a new deal for the coach but borderline locking the club into one. How the hell do you get out of that? Never mind, apparently; Jon Ralph said that a deal would be concluded within a week and that it would be until at least 2024. The club put out a tweet of emojis in anticipation and glee of a signing, but it ended up being Rowan Marshall, and the club put out a feel-good video of Ratts and Ro announcing it to the playing group to try and lift the mood, and remind us that there is some sort of future (good, bad or Tasmania) beyond our 2022 fortunes, even if it is just turning up to play (something we can’t take for granted after the last couple of years).

I said the other week we all thought it was funny (and slightly outrageous) that lowly Essendon were gifted three Friday night games in a row after the AFL and US major league sport fetishist journos repeatedly telling us the floating fixture was a good thing. Now it was us feeling a sense of guilt, of letting the competition down, that we’re the ones sucking up the spotlight on a Friday night against the “it” team of the competition. A few weeks ago this had blockbuster (of sorts) written all over it, perhaps the rumblings of a new rivalry. Now it was set to be a victory lap for Carlton going past us.

The results didn’t matter so much suddenly. For some, they’d be thankful if the players just looked like they were trying, and trying to play a vaguely effective brand of footy. That’s how far we’d sunk. My anticipation for this one was reduced solely to seeing the delightful contrast between Carlton’s navy and our new mostly red and white clash uniform (For those of you playing at home, I do believe it needs a white number panel with black numbers to make it if not more effective then wearable to begin with against Brisbane, Essendon, GWS, and Melbourne).

***

Remember when the returns of Billings and Clark were built up as massive ins? (Billings kicked the ground while having a shot at goal in the warm up; he did think it was funny but was torn between wanting to know if anyone saw it or not.) The Unpluggered guys talked in their live Thursday night podcast about Clark and Billings’s returns – two guys whose best positions we haven’t quite figured out – messing with the team’s cohesion. The ins this week – Hill, Ryder, Higgins and Wood – should have been a bit more exciting than they really were. That was the indifference to our season’s fortunes created by the last few weeks (Zak Jones getting suspended or not for his shoulder-hit on Parker the previous weekend didn’t really seem to matter). This week, the changes in personnel, as well as a psychological change, were instantly notable to the positive. This was a different team with their heads in a different place. Hill and Sinclair’s impacts were immediate; Hill back in the team after a week out and Sinclair a different player after being tagged out of the game in Sydney. Ball movement was obviously made a focus. Daring kicks and good movement ahead of the play made for a fast start. Both played a huge part in that; Sinclair had 13 touches at quarter time and Hill had nine (there’s some good analysis of their roles on The Shinboner).

The pressure was up, too. Membrey got the first from marking a rushed Ploughman kick out of a forward line stoppage, and he took the absolute most of the space around the man on the mark and kicked a goal from 50 that he very rarely kicks. Hill and Sinclair provided the outlet out on the defensive side of a centre-wing throw in and from the work of Steele and Billings the switch was on; a perfect Sinclair kick across the ground hit Higgins and he found Paddy Ryder, wearing a St Kilda jumper. The next – after seven behinds between the two teams – came from NWM pressure in the middle creating a turnover, and Sinclair coming through again to find Butler and then Membrey in the goal square. It was 3.5 to 0.3.

This was a chance for Max King to take advantage of a severely undermanned defence (footy media had teased Jacob Weitering perhaps coming back in early for this one), but that might be the kind of thinking reserved for the way we were playing for the past three weeks, i.e. “Max will kick all the goals if we just keep bombing it to him”. While he had the unfancied Lewis Young for company, the forward line did look much better for the movement of the half-forwards and use of multiple targets. Nine scoring shots through multiple avenues that weren’t Max King in the first quarter caught the Blues off guard, brought undone only by poor accuracy. A talking point out of this game would be Carlton’s missed opportunities in front of goal, but the 3.6 we ended up with at quarter-time could easily have been 6.3 given the types of shots we had. Marshall, Butler, Ryder (St Kilda FC) and Higgins were all guilty parties. That was a little bit OK until the final few minutes when fifth-gamer Motlop put through Carlton’s first from a high Cerra ball that no Saint could read, and then the Sinclair, in the quest to keep the ball moving, attempted a 45-degree kick in-board that went straight to Saad who hit up Curnow. The turnover was very much like Sinclair’s against the Bombers across goal a fortnight earlier, and I did hope that this turnover wouldn’t discourage him or his teammates out of moving the ball quickly and being daring. That was why we’d had all those shots at goal in the first place.

***

Those missed opportunities looked like they might be costly early on in the second quarter. The game reverted to what we probably thought it would be from the start – Carlton winning the contested ball, and our movement reverting to unsure and anxious. The Blues went coast-to-coast from Marshall trying to keep it alive on our goal line through Docherty, McKay provided the link – although I didn’t mind Dougal forcing him to get touches high up the ground – and then Cripps and Silvagni on the spread and Cottrell was at the fall. McKay finally made his impact deep in a one-on-one in the pocket, fighting off Dougal to get to a dribbling ball in the pocket (McKay’s aggression is something that we don’t have in our own big key forward just yet). He kept it alive and despite a strong Sinclair smother Kennedy found the footy and his high snap went through. Carlton was in front, and for the first time, the Carlton crowd was starting to come into the game. In the third row of the St Kilda end, it felt the stadium was bearing down on us.

It was all on the Blues’ terms. Crouch rushed a kick out of defence after Silvagni was fortunately not paid a mark, and the kick came straight back to Fisher. It was 11 points; Carlton had kicked five goals in about nine minutes of play either side of the quarter-time break. Brad Johnson in the post-match pointed out we’re not as talented as Carlton’s midfield. He’s right; Patrick Cripps together with Sam Walsh and Adam Cerra and George Hewett and Matthew Kennedy is a better midfield than ours. How do you halt Cripps? He’s bigger and faster than any of our guys. Can you stop Walsh from getting the footy? We needed to be the unrelenting team that Ross Lyon had told St Kilda fans to get excited about on Footy Classified all those weeks ago. For the first of multiple times on Friday, this team would have to again prove it was made of sterner stuff than the 2021 outfit.

We had to get something back against the flow. At our half-forward, Wood forced Newnes to retreat to O’Brien, Wood and Higgins smothered his attempted kick, and all the forwards were in right spot to spread and turn a defensive movement into attack. King gave off to Gresham, who danced around a little, enticing a couple of opponents, before Higgins provided the option and kicked the goal around the corner. Straight out of the middle, Steele was reprising his close-checking role on Cripps of previous years, Crouch put on a huge tackle on Cerra, and the ball flung out our way and Butler barely had to break stride and kicked from 45 on the run, an echo of his best of 2020. The game had flipped, again, in 30 seconds of football.

A long Webster entry saw King – who had so far had hardly anything to do with it – rip the ball out of the sky over Newman and Young in front of goal, made sure by a soft 50. The next was an opportunistic goal from Paddy Ryder of the St Kilda Football Club; the Blues were chipping it around the back and Cerra didn’t see Paddy closing in on Newman, and he grabbed the footy and casually placed it on his boot and dribbled it through. A 13-point lead had been opened up. Paddy had 2.1 in the first half. His game would be a key reason why we would win the clearances against a much more fancied midfield – 31 hit-outs, 10 to advantage – and he also had six score involvements. His week off proved handy.

But the invitation St Kilda rolls out for rising star nominations again was opened up again and Carlton hit up Motlop near goal; he spilled the pass but beat Battle at ground level, got up, slipped through Clark, and bananaed a goal that brought the crowd back into the game. Misses from Cottrell and Durdin from close by were fortunate.

***

It’s about time for my weekly “How can I bring up anything from the Ross and GT eras?” section, and this week is extra superfluous. On Friday, sitting with Matt and Lewis, I was secretly getting 2009 Grand Final echoes. We were sitting in an almost identical position on the ground in the forward pocket at the St Kilda end, it felt like we were surrounded by 40,000 opposition supporters (this time with only a few thousand of our own); the half-time score was 48-43 instead of 49-43 (and we’d burned a few early opportunities), and this had heartbreaking loss written all over it. This was supposed to be Carlton’s night. Kennedy’s goal was a mix of Paul Chapman’s second quarter and winning goals. I remember the people in front of me – a dad and his daughter, probably my age at the time (21) getting up and clapping and saying “yes” with relief on the three-quarter time siren, as if we’d broken the game open for our lead of seven behinds. (On Friday night we ended up kicking 14.9, the inverse of the 9.14 we kicked on that day in 2009, and probably what we should have kicked on that day. Also, the team we were playing was navy and white? I could go on.)

***

Howard had looked like he’d done something to his knee late in the second and was hardly able to move. McKay finally got some separation on him. Dougal looked like he was about to come off, then he didn’t, then it was so accepted he was about to come off for good while he was still on the ground that the sub Highmore was already getting in some camera time with his shirt off.

The Blues were racking up points but one was bound to go through. Just like Sinclair had in the first quarter, Brad Hill attempted a 45-degree kick off half-back that straight went straight to Docherty, Cripps cruised and past hit McKay. It was McKay’s first goal but we was starting to get the ball in dangerous spots and now had the mismatch on Battle with Dougal off. Carlton was in front, and we’d kicked one point in 16 and a half minutes of play.

Highmore (shirt on) had to plug himself into a system that had been mostly humming for 11 weeks and then fallen apart over three weeks, so it was going to be a difficult task for him either way, but he showed why he shouldn’t be out of the team for the rest of the season after stellar VFL form and now a quality AFL game (less than half of one, really, but he made his impact in the are). One of his better moments actually came in the centre circle. Traffic that saw the hot footy worked from a centre wing throw-in into the middle of the ground had in turns the Saints almost away, then the Blues almost away. Highmore had pushed up to put pressure on Honey in the centre circle; he won the ball at ground level and gave off quick neat hands to Clark, who worked through to Ross and again our players were already working the other way. A string of possessions through Gresham, Butler and then Higgins, with a lot of should-I-shoudn’t-I hesitation moments ultimately ended with Higgins goaling. More good linking up by the half forwards after weeks of a dysfunctional attack, more good turning defence into attack with movement and field positioning.

That would prove to be the exception for most of the quarter. The Blues had it locked in their half again but Curnow missed a couple, Hewett missed, and then a high Seb Ross kick out of full-back with 17 Saints in the defensive 50 ended up with De Koning taking on Walsh to claim it. De Koning missed the set shot. Scores level.

But again, this team hit back. O’Brien’s innocuous kick into the middle from a free kick was spoiled by Butler and the break was on. Again, the Saints players had already flipped defensive structure into forward running and there were numbers. Crouch’s tumbling kick wasn’t great – Membrey had to try to knock on to advantage from the high bounce against two opponents – but Paddy Ryder (of the Saints) forced De Koning off the ball and Max charged through. A feign to the left around Newman, a step to the right, and he wheeled around onto his left and snapped; it initially didn’t look like he’d got enough on it but the ball just kept carrying and carrying, and he’d finally kicked the type of snap goal he’s been threatening to throughout his short career to date.

At the centre bounce, Cripps was there for the hit-out from De Koning but Steele pounced on him and the ball fell out. Crouch tumbled another ball forward that was spilled by Ploughman. Windhager, whose frame belies his status as a first-year player, had been good almost every time he’d had been near the ball and in one motion picked the ball up through his legs and turned and handballed neatly to Membrey. Steele was running past and did what a captain had to do in that moment. We had two goals in the last 70 seconds of play.

***

How often do we see a team break open the game on the eve of three-quarter time before running away with the game? While Membrey’s celebration for King’s goal was a bit too “mission accomplished” for my liking, Lewis and Matt and I were a maybe a bit too up and about. (Like the dad and his daughter in front me of me in 2009, I think I bit too up and about on the three-quarter time siren.) I think we were all daring to believe the game had swung our way.

A lot of the supporter base had downgraded expectations to simply just putting in a good effort. But standing around at three-quarter time at the St Kilda end after cheering through Max and Steele’s goals you think, well, no. I want more than just effort. I want the win from here. You get a taste of it. Effort wasn’t going to be enough, really, after that.

***

Within three minutes of play in the final quarter the lead had turned into a deficit. Matt Kennedy raced into congestion for the first of the term and then McKay bananaed from the pocket. They were in front. I remember the penultimate round of 2019. A beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon at the MCG, our last game in Melbourne pre-COVID. Finals weren’t in the picture, but Carlton fans were on the Teague train and turned up to make a crowd of nearly 52,000. When Harry McKay bent through the sealer the roar was one of a big club waking up from a slumber. In hindsight, that was a premature – the Teague era was a false start – but this Blues team was pushing for a top-four spot and was about to become to latest team to pass us in real time.

Again, we’d have to find something well and truly against the flow. We went all out with the talls; Billings was getting involved and his long kick to the forward pocket literally went to all of King, Marshall and Ryder. The ball came off King’s hands and Butler was again in the perfect spot, snapped from the top of the square and the ball squeezed in. The lead had been wrestled back but this was the kind of game in which you felt the Blues would overwhelm us in front of their crowd. Marshall went up for a mark in defence, lost his way in the air and completed a Luke Ball 2008 Port Adelaide-style landing in the pocket, landing on his back and head while almost tearing both hamstrings. We were about to face at least 15 minutes without him. Carlton had the chance to go ahead again when Motlop squeezed out a pass to McKay who was ahead of Battle in the opposite pocket to his last kick, but his run-around snap went out on the full. We were again simply holding on.

Tim Membrey was the one who rose above the cacophony. A Docherty kick off half-back just missed Newnes and Mason Wood slammed the ball high on the boot, and Membrey drew the over-the-shoulder free-kick. He went back at kicked the goal at the Carlton end. A 10-point lead with 10 minutes left. The Blues had to take risks now. They cut through the middle and Clark charged in for the Newman kick to Kennedy and went the spoil instead of the mark – it was the ideal spot for a turnover – and at the fall Clark and Butler ran into each other, leaving Butler with blood all over his face and Clark with blood all over his face and neck and shoulders because his cartilage had opened up his nose. For a few minutes we would be down to one available change on the bench. While Butler and Clark were on the ground, the Blues had gone forward through Hewett and Cerra to the pocket and McKay threw his head back and took a blatant dive right in front of us in the pocket (“right in front of me” ) and the umpire got sucked completely in. The players all got together while trainers attended to Hunter’s new face and we had to sit and stew while McKay waited to take the kick close to where he’d goaled earlier in the quarter. It was a night of single-digit free kicks for us, as we retained second-last place in the league in the free-kick differential ladder, and Carlton retained second. This was at about the 26-minute mark and it was going to be a long quarter. Lewis said he still expected to lose. Matt said this game had heartbreaker written all over it. We were just waiting to see how it would physically play out; what the footage would look like when used in Blues highlights packages for the next week and maybe the next few years. Perhaps we would succumb 2009 Grand Final style, perhaps it would be Port Adelaide 2017 and/or 2022-style.

Marshall was off still, Howard was off, Butler was off, Hunter was out. Marshall was actually helped by the delay in terms of missing less game time, although he had no idea what the hell had just happened in the middle of the ground as he came out from the rooms and gave a small fist pump when he saw we were 10 points up.

McKay finally took his kick and missed to the narrow side. Steele had a rushed shot from just inside 50 that came close to icing the game, and then we had to weather a Durdin free from a Webster knock as the Blues’ rebounded. McKay – who had loomed as the villain all night – marked just outside 50 in front of Battle again; he went long and it was Mason Wood who came across the pack and punched the ball through. He had some underrated moments in a few different of parts of the ground on Friday.

Marshall was back out there, and we managed to work the ball from one end to half-forward. Gresham, to King, who had come up, to Higgins, back to Gresham, to Crouch, who spotted Windhager out wide on the 50-metre arc and hit him with a deft kick. Matt said this would be a boy becomes a man moment for him. His high kick dropped into the goal square.

I think of the almost-but-not-quite-Herculean performance Tim Membrey put in in that 2017 Port Adelaide game, seeming to ice it when he put us in front by 10 points late, only to be the one to have Robbie Gray’s winner go over his head on the goal line with seven seconds remaining. On Friday night, he earned the title of matchwinner. He got his hands to Windhager’s kick and was perhaps unlucky to not be paid the mark in the first place when he grabbed it on the second bite, but instead of stopping to claim it he wildly threw the ball on the boot to kick it over his shoulder. The ball avoided De Koning’s afterthought smother attempt and Paddy Ryder (St Kilda Football Club)’s pointed finger that was already claiming the mark, and the ball shot through for a goal. At the St Kilda end the whole passage looked like mayhem – the ball popping up in a mass of bodies, disappearing for a brief moment, and suddenly flying through the goals at an odd angle with a sudden celebration of bodies in mostly red and white with a black cross.

Steele was still all over Cripps; the ball fell out in his tackle at the centre bounce and went straight to Marshall. King had a shot from a tough angle that served mostly to chew up another 30 seconds. The cheer squad was singing the song as the quarter length dragged into the mid-30s. Membrey dropped into defence and marked in front of McKay. Motlop missed a shot, and the Blues had gone from 6.5 to 9.18. (The Herald Sun’s expected score offered a comfortable Carlton victory.) Marshall was the target from the kick out, Sinclair’s long kick came off hands to Billings and then Gresham kicked forward. A fortunate bounce and some good bodywork by Windhager on Docherty allowed for Higgins to come through and band the ball deep into attack. A Mason Wood falcon left the ball dancing in front of Max. He kicked it off the ground and it spun through.

The game was over.

***

The immediate return on what is probably our best win of the season is quite small: it only brought us up from 10^th on the ladder to ninth after the rest of the round was played out. But the win otherwise had much, much more riding on it. This may count for something big later on in 2022. If you viewed the rest of the season through the lens of the previous three weeks then we were absolutely done; Crunch Time’s six losses in a row was odds-on and Brett Ratten’s contract was either already signed and a mistake, or talks would be precariously on hold. Now we have a new reference point. If Friday night is indeed the default after the black hole we’ve hopefully just emerged from, then we will win more games than we lose. That’s opposition goal kicking permitting, perhaps, but we did miss shots of our own early; we also had more possessions, won the clearances and had more inside 50s. Kicking 45 points from forward half turnovers also showed Friday was much closer to the first half of the season iteration of this team.

The new clash jumper has been minted; its first appearance in free-to-air prime time and now worn in a great win. The pandemic-era clash jumper is dead, long live the new clash jumper. That kind of win is all the more pleasurable being the away team, but it’s a hell of a route to go through. There’s knee injuries, cut faces, compound fractures, missed goals, bad umpiring, a whole stadium bearing down on you, and a lot of thinking too hard about dark days past and pre-empting the absolute worst.

The last time we played a game like this with the stakes so high? Well, it was each of the last three weeks, with a grasp on a top-four spot ours to lose. This season does have a bit of scar tissue now, and I’m not sure if we’ll get back to playing for those kinds of stakes in 2022. But for a few days, this season has a future again.