That’s me in the distance

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.