2 – Jack Sinclair
2 – Brad Hill
2 – Zak Jones
2 – Jack Higgins
1 – Dougal Howard
1 – Brad Crouch
12 – Jack Steele
9 – Dougal Howard
8 – Tim Membrey
5 – Hunter Clark
4 – Jack Higgins
4 – Seb Ross
4 – Jack Sinclair
3 – Nick Coffield
3 – Jade Gresham
2 – Brad Crouch
2 – Zak Jones
2 – Max King
2 – Rowan Marshall
1 – Jack Billings
1 – Jack Bytel
1 – Tom Highmore
3 – Brad Hill
1 – Jack Lonie
1 – Daniel Mackenzie
1 – Callum Wilkie
St Kilda 5.4, 10.9, 14.11, 19.14 (128)
Hawthorn 0.0, 4.2, 6.3, 9.5 (59)
Crowd: 26,433 at Marvel Stadium, Saturday, May 1st at 4.35pm
The Saints seemed to disappear over the past few weeks. Memories of the faltering 2017 campaign, the 2018 cliff and then 2019 temporary revival and then, uh, cliff are still very fresh. For most supporters and members, the way we interact with the club and our relationship with the club on a weekly basis – that is, experiencing the journey of a season by going to the games, the car, tram and train trips to and from – was indeed that 2019 season. The 2020 season was an inflection point for the club’s (very) modern history, and we landed back with them just after it. We’re still getting our heads around a few things. Saturday was the first time we’d seen Paddy Ryder in a St Kilda jumper in person.
The loss to the Bombers in Round 3 bought back memories of the Good Friday red flag of 2018, and after the stirring West Coast win we’d lost games by 86 and 54 points. Between those, we’d been given a Friday night game against the Cats in Round 9 and a Round 10 Saturday night match against the Bulldogs, drawing the ire of the Prime Time/Major League Sports Fetishists in the footy media. We had become the Carlton of a few years ago, and the Sunday night Richo-era style interstate loss to Port confirmed it.
The anticipation of the footy was already gone, just as it disappeared in 2018 and then from the midway point of 2019. The question hovered around the periphery of my mind all week: are we bad again?
***
The reintroduction of Paddy Ryder, who plays for St Kilda, helped almost immediately; his early high centre bounce leaps brought out the same involuntary gasps of excitement as Jason Holmes’ did one night late in winter of 2015 (fortunately the result was a little better). Said gasps were probably melodramatic, but I get it, we’ve been starved of a competent ruckman (and ruckmen) for a very long time.
Novelty Stats Enjoyers would have bene superbly pleased with the 0.0 score line against at quarter time. It really did end up being an afternoon of party tricks, so who were the guys who put us in that position in the first place? Straight away it was Crouch and Jones and Hill, all the high-profile recruits that suggested the club thought we might be in some sort of contention this year. Jones finished the first quarter with 15 touches, Crouch brought his fast hands and Hill was prominent across half-back.
The movement was fluid. For once, the balance between attack and defence seemed right, but for all of the work of Hill, Crouch and Jones et al. we weren’t quite getting any entries deep and central, in the manner that created so many of our goals in the better times of 2020 (which is a strange sentence at face value, but you know what I mean). Remember long goals from set shots? Marshall and Coffield aren’t any of Gehrig, Riewoldt or Koschitzke but they made the most of the early opportunities, while Sinclair curled a snap on the run from a tight angle.
Hawthorn weren’t at their best. They didn’t offer much. We have to take all of this into account before we make the post-West Coast win mistake of thinking we’re back (With the beauty of hindsight, i.e. lived trauma of supporting St Kilda, there is no way the team of 2017 should have claimed a bigger gulf over the Hawks than the respective teams of 2021). But you know you’re on when Nick Coffield is flushing long-range set shots.
***
We were in the position in which a win is non-negotiable, which is kind of nice – you’re not so outright shit you can warrant that much on occasion – but really, wins are non-negotiable because this team should be ahead of where it is, not because we need one to entrench our hypothetical position in the top four. We’re far more concerned about watching helplessly from afar as Melbourne joins the Swans, Geelong, the Bulldogs and Richmond going past us in breaking generational droughts.
A pair of late Hawthorn goals in the second quarter dulled the applause poised for half-time. Some of the crowd seemed to still be stoked, but the quarter had only been won by nine points. Hawthorn supporters would have been very aware that their two wins this year had been comebacks from deficits of 39 and 31 points, and over the last few weeks this St Kilda team appeared to have all the confidence of a tub of butter. Those few moments feel trivial now. We had the luxury of kicking 19.14 without a care in the world.
Typically the quarters would start very well; we had four goals on the board in 16 minutes in each of the second and third quarters, first to take complete control of the game and then to quell any nerves we might have had employing default mechanisms to put those numbers together and think about how we could lose this. Either side of that, Butler had the quiet confidence to kick a banana goal from the flank, pairing with his former Richmond teammate and St Kilda supporter-turned-player Snags for the goal and celebration. Jones kicked a couple and was loud about it, and Hunter Clark kicked the first of his two Most Hunter Clark Goals of the Year, bringing his smooth moves to a smother, collect, feign, turn of direction and neat finish.
Hill was working his way into Robbo’s Monday Hero territory all the way through. The pace of stats being racked up across the team in the first quarter slowed down (Jones bodylined the ball constantly to “only” 37 touches) and Hill’s 27 isn’t wild, particularly in the back-to-full-length quarters era. After several weeks of being bashed from Robbo and On the Couch all the very long way down to Red, White and Black, his best moment might have been in the second quarter: the one-on-one win against Mitch Lewis on the defensive 50 and a quick clearance, and then when the ball returned moments later his diving smother across the boot of Finn Maginness. Of course, he provided all the run and carry and link-up and pace between the arcs we wanted him to. He set up Snags on multiple occasions with his running through the middle and inside 50s. It was his most complete game in a St Kilda jumper to date.
While any terrific team would expect that much, those things don’t always happen, let alone do they come from an outside player who’s been publicly smacked around. He wasn’t the only one adding parts to his bread and butter game; Sinclair competed in the air (and won) several times, Clark played through the middle and up forward and kicked two goals, Jones kicked two himself, Coffield nailed his set shot, Max King took big marks up on the wing, Howard played a great version of his usual game but got the crowd saying his name loudly as a replacement for “BrUuuce”.
On his way to kicking a frustrating 2.4, Max again threatened to blow off the roof again with a deft move out of traffic and a curling snap (unlike his third quarter effort against the Eagles, this one curled too much). He missed shots and dropped a couple of marks up forward that he should have taken, but as well as the contested grabs on the wing he was a threat at ground level even off his own contests. The combination of the running , weaving Clark to King to the running-back-into-play-and-squeezing-in-a-snap-from-next-to-the-post Clark for Hunter’s second in the final minutes of the game was the perfect finish.
***
We all thought Saints Footy (how was that phrase stuck around?) was back for all of the five days we had to appreciate the West Coast win. I’m not sure if Saturday confirmed if we’re “very” or “far too” reliant on a) Paddy Ryder, who plays for St Kilda, or b) both Paddy Ryder (who plays for St Kilda) and Rowan Marshall being out there.
What a beautiful day to go the footy and soak up the last sunshine of-OH NO WAIT, we’re being ushered into the Concrete Disney Store to watch another game in artificial lighting. This game took place in the middle of a few days that certainly are the last of decent weather before we plunge into another Melbourne winter. Nearly every St Kilda game now takes place in artificial lighting (and that’s forever). Of course, it remains an incredible privilege to be able to go and see your team play live right now, let alone worry about if they’re any good, or why the ground insists on playing the shit new version of the song after The Fable Singers version post-match. Going to the footy really does still feel strange, like I’m doing something a little too luxurious, or self-indulgent.
I wasn’t really expecting the most comfortable experience at a Saints match for some time. None of Ryder, Hill, Jones, Crouch, Howard, King, Butler, Higgins, Bytel and Byrnes were playing for the Saints when Victorian fans left the MCG after a loss to Carlton on a beautiful August Saturday afternoon in 2019. It’s certainly an experience going to the footy and getting used to trusting these guys, and it was nice to have an evening to relax and get used to them run around in a St Kilda jumper.
2 – Hunter Clark
2 – Dougal Howard
2 – Seb Ross
2 – Rohan Marshall
1 – Jack Steele
1 – Callum Wilkie
Progressive totals
12 – Jack Steele
8 – Dougal Howard
8 – Tim Membrey
5 – Hunter Clark
4 – Seb Ross
3 – Nick Coffield
3 – Jade Gresham
2 – Brad Crouch
2 – Jack Higgins
2 – Max King
2 – Rowan Marshall
2 – Jack Sinclair
1 – Jack Billings
1 – Jack Bytel
1 – Tom Highmore
1 – Brad Hill
1 – Jack Lonie
1 – Daniel Mackenzie
1 – Callum Wilkie
3 – Hunter Clark
3 – Nick Coffield
2 – Jack Steele
2 – Jack Sinclair
Progressive totals
11 – Jack Steele
8 – Tim Membrey
6 – Dougal Howard
3 – Jade Gresham
3 – Hunter Clark
2 – Jack Sinclair
2 – Seb Ross
2 – Max King
2 – Jack Higgins
2 – Nick Coffield
2 – Brad Crouch
1 – Jack Billings
1 – Jack Bytel
1 – Tom Highmore
1 – Brad Hill
1 – Jack Lonie
1 – Daniel Mackenzie
Round 5, 2021
St Kilda 3.4, 4.5, 6.6, 7.6 (48)
Richmond 3.3, 8.6, 15.12, 20.14 (134)
Crowd: 32,056 at Marvel Stadium, Thursday, April 15th at 7.30pm
It’s my girlfriend’s birthday this weekend. She’s having people over at my place on Saturday, and then we’re doing a whole bunch of stuff on the Sunday, which is her actual birthday. A lack of sleep discipline over the past couple of weeks, sprinkled with some pocked general life anxieties, had driven me to the state of “very rundown”; that feeling that you’re a mediocre sleep away from a full-blown cold. I needed the earliest night possible. I couldn’t be sick for this. Something had to give.
I sent out the warning to our Messenger group with Matt and Dad and Richie and Evan that I was probably going to be a late withdrawal. I was about to miss my first St Kilda game in Melbourne since the season opener of 2015.
In a last-ditch effort I turbocharged my tuna salad with chilli and garlic and jalapenos and stuffed some Nurofen into my face, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Defeated, I put on the Fox Footy pre-match and lodged the paperwork at 6.30pm.
But something started writhing around in me. No. This can’t be. A Thursday (???) night home game against the reigning premiers, coming off a win that we’d hope to look back on as a turning point for this era. What if something incredible happened?
Thursday night TV is made for neutrals. It’s made for MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS fetishists and the executives and the journos who feel they’re owed the PRIME TIME experience by their association with the game; even just the ability to say “prime time”. The concept has no understanding, let alone care, for the rhythm of the week and the weekend that footy offers us, not the rhythm of the season that frames the year.
Television coverage be damned, the Fox Footy theme music be damned, the bass-heavy Channel 7 sponsor announcements (are they still narrated by Craig Willis?) be damned, my twitching eye be damned. It didn’t feel right. I had to be there. Sure, we got used to watching it all on TV last year, but this was different. Our tickets were for the second row on level two. I put my better elastic cuff chinos on. I changed my jumper. I grabbed my Maddie’s Match scarf. How did this feel? It felt like yes, I can do this. I watched via the Tramtracker app as the next Route 58 tram into the city was held up. That’s ok, I’ll only miss the first few minutes. Something had happened up on Melville Road and the tram was crawling. That’s ok, this headache isn’t too bad. Time to dump some more Nurofen into the system. Tram’s really crawling here. That’s ok, I’ll only miss the first 10 or 15 minutes. That’s ok, the pains in my legs were from my run yesterday. I’m about to fall asleep but the adrenaline and atmosphere will keep me going.
Once the tram did turn up I got the SEN app going and listened to Dwayne and Huddo and Dal Santo – Skilful call the Tigers out to the first couple of goals. It already sounded ominous. I got off the tram and hurriedly stomped down Bourke Street. Past the Gresham Street sign. Higgins opened our account, and the game seemed to have turned a little. Crossed King Street. I nervously calmed myself down; after all that, wasn’t going to be facing a five goals to zip opening once I got to my seat.
***
I left at three-quarter time.
I hate leaving games early. I very, very, very rarely do. The caveat here is that I had an external reason to, otherwise, yes I would have stayed for that last quarter of added humiliation. There was a solemn duty in staying to the end of the Essendon game; that it needed to be seen and experienced and understood. This wasn’t quite the CBF Showcase that Round 3 was, although it was uglier in some ways. This left St Kilda all on its own, as it has historically been – beaten up a supposed bottom-four team, completely dismantled (and then beaten up) by a top four team on a night that showed it up for being completely lost for intentions, never mind answers. Losses of 75 points and 86 points in the space of 12 days.
Footy moves fast. By the time I’d made it to the ground Rioli had made it three goals to one, but I got inside to see Paul Hunter’s goal and Max King’s set shot. His high mark soon after drew a roar that reminded us of a what playing for something at the Concrete Disney Store was like. The miss was forgivable, but Lonie’s skewed shot on the eve of quarter-time left a bitter feeling. We could have been up five goals to three. There was a vitality to the members’ wing; the relatively full (certainly by COVID standards) stadium had the competitive air of a game between two teams who are worth something to this season. Because for five days that’s what we were.
Max had chances enough to replicate last week’s three early goals that were a huge reason we were in touch in that game at all. The crowd was back on his side as he plucked a wildly casual one-handed mark early in the second, but the anticipation of the crowd was a short-circuited again by his miss. The Tigers were beginning to hunt together and those opportunities couldn’t keep being burned. While the stats at half-time last week suggested a more competitive than the scoreboard reflected, cracks were becoming fissures and they were about to become canyons.
There are all sorts of directions to point fingers at, but there are some moments that really stick in the thrashing. Brad Hill’s footsteps effort of dropping an easy chest mark was rightfully and immediately punished with a no-fuss goal from Marlion Pickett on the 50-metre arc. It became the singularity for what was about to transpire. Never mind that Higgins kicked his second soon after; we’d go nearly 36 minutes without scoring from that point, and in less than two-and-a-half quarters the Tigers would kick 15.11 to 3.1.
The yellow and blue opponent of Saturday was now a nastier and uncompromising yellow and black, and it wasn’t going to let anything past. The Saints crowd noticeably picked up when Butler and Lonie kicked quick goals in the middle of the third quarter to bring the margin back to that magic (???) 33 points – the inflexion point of the previous week – but Richmond immediately responded to add back those two goals through some brutal midfield work, and then some. By the final change the margin was an even 60 points.
This was clinical. It wasn’t vicious or messy. Saints players weren’t getting slammed into the turf or smacked around. The Richmond machine almost glides; it is always in contraction and expansion around the ball and across all parts of the ground. Constantly in motion. It is something to behold. It’s not soulless, however. Add to that the individual efforts: Dusty brushing off Lonie at will, and his piercing running goal in the third quarter, and the skills awareness required from Castagna, Edwards and Graham to make the most of the work that went into creating constant opportunities from in front of goal.
Richmond don’t usually destroy teams like this. In the way that West Coast were our unwitting victims after the club spent the whole week getting themselves up to make a statement, it was our turn to be in the way of Richmond making theirs. We looked clueless, sure. We also looked completely bewildered. When the ball was in motion, without the same team cohesion – at clearance or across the ground – any split-second thought of what to do with the ball was interrupted by the abrupt disappearance of time and space.
Even when the game was stationary and the ball in our hands did Richmond’s set-up expose a dark lack of answers, and perhaps a few other things.
Dunstan was thrown back into the team at arguably its most vulnerable moment (although we didn’t know it at the time). He played with the rust of someone who hadn’t made a senior appearance for nearly 13 months, poking it out on the full for no real reason, and on the other wing kicking to outnumbered teammates that had the ball coming back the other way. Hunter was the other inclusion and also struggled. He started OK but the undersized Nankervis spent most of the night doing as he please in the ruck and at contests around the ground. Even when he had a clear opportunity he couldn’t meet the moment, deciding to kick shallow into attack to a Richmond defender in the second quarter, ignoring a screaming and jumper Seb Ross by himself on the other side of the centre square.
Of course, the two late changes weren’t the reason for the margin, but if we’re relying on Rowan Marshall (and Paddy Ryder, and Zak Jones) then we have a lot of problems. Billings was blew a forward 50 entry from his own moment with the footy, spearing to Nathan Broad at a time when the game was still live (if you remember that fleeting sensation). This went all the way up to our top line. How many times in the third quarter did we look to come off half back and vaguely kick it to a contest? What were we expecting was going to happen? The game became embarrassingly predictable. Richmond’s midfield willed their way to a stretch of 21-1 clearances over a period spanning the second and third quarters.
***
There would have been a lot of St Kilda supporters that came into Thursday night believing there was some real substance to what transpired at the same ground five days earlier; just 72 hours earlier we remained heroes in the Monday wash-up.
The anticipation becomes all-consuming. Could the playing group replicate that after a whole week of tough talk about accountability and responsibility? Maybe we had Richmond at the right time. They’d just played a genuine finals-type game and had to travel back to Melbourne. The Saints players now had the hard evidence of what they needed to do, and that they could do it. They could face down a decent challenge even within the game. But Richmond had lost a couple in a row, surely they wouldn’t lose another? Perhaps their dynasty was over. All of those thoughts and permutations become dust over the course of two hours.
Note: I will update with accumulative totals later.
2 – Jack Steele
2 – Max King
2 – Brad Crouch
1 – Brad Hill
1 – Jack Billings
1 – Jack Bytel
1 – Daniel McKenzie
Round 4, 2021
St Kilda 4.2, 5.5, 10.11, 15.12 (102)
West Coast Eagles 6.2, 10.3, 13.3, 13.4 (82)
Crowd: Some very loud humans at Marvel Stadium, Saturday, April 10th at 4.35pm
There aren’t many bleaker places than the Concrete Disney Store when St Kilda’s season is falling apart. If the stunned silence from the small home crowd after Oscar Allen kicked West Coast’s third opening goal didn’t say it, then maybe it was the frustrated silence peppered with the usual angry cold Saturday expletives as Jack Petrucelle bulleted through his fourth goal. At that point, we were a wayward centring kick or Nic Nat-to-Kelly combination from a stoppage away. Or Liam Ryan’s shot at goal soon afterwards directed a few metres to the right.
Wayne Carey said we were both cooked and done. Roo teed off on the couch on On the Couch. Gerard almost wistfully opined about a 2-4 + ??? = 7-6 scenario for the Saints, with all of the sympathy he could muster. For a few lonely moments in the Concrete Disney Store, we’d have to be jagging that win to go 2-4 from one of the teams who’d just played a genuine finals-intensity game the night before. At best we’d have to load up for a second-half of the season assault; the type we’d seen in in 1997, 2005, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08, ‘10, ‘11 and ‘16, with all sorts of varying degrees of success and heartbreak.
***
It was about the 21-minute mark of the third quarter that Matt pulled out the uselessly optimistic, “We just need to kick two goals from here and we can be in touch at three-quarter time”. Maybe it was several beers talking. Yes, all the numbers aside from the scoreboard said we were in it, but there was no real clear reason why anything might change at that point. The Eagles players spread across the ground defensively at a pace our wayward kicking and predictable movement couldn’t contend with, and we simply didn’t have the numbers around the contest to get the ball to advantage and force things forward on our terms. They always had the extra gear. We’d worked incredibly hard over the first six and a half minutes of that third term before the ball fell into Jack Billings’ lap in front of goal. The quick reply from the Eagles was disheartening because it was so expected. Max King slotted his fourth soon after, smashing the Paddy McCartin Three-Goal-Maximum for a young St Kilda tall forward ceiling, but Kennedy and Petruccelle added majors each within a few minutes (and then Liam Ryan kicked the ball on the full).
“Momentum is a funny thing”, so the idiom goes. There isn’t really another game in the world that can express it so intoxicatingly. We also saw an excellent example of the journey a single game can take us on when played at its proper length. These were particularly long quarters too; the nearly 35 minutes of the third quarter allowed for one of the more teasing runs from a Saints team in recent years. Dan Butler reappeared in earnest after nearly six months to break a six-minute deadlock, finishing off some fast hands before hitting the post straight out of the middle seconds later. After D-Mac’s hunting tackle and goal he snapped a shot wide again from his wrong side, and then kicked another goal after a reaching mark next the behind post. Lonie missed a snap that he should have kicked while burning a couple of guys, and then Max King missed a set shot, and then almost blew that tacky roof off once and for all with a winding dash through three opponents and a running, curling snap that didn’t curl enough.
There was no real significant moment, or play, or factor that clearly turned the game on its own. The momentum probably felt like it had turned when D-Mac caught McGovern in front of goal holding the ball. It was emblematic of the pressure the Eagles were suddenly under, but also of a St Kilda team shaking off the revised expectations and labels that had been thrown at them during the week. D-Mac played his best game in a career that has somehow meandered into its seventh year. Not only did he get an equal career-best 21 disposals, they were his most telling. A deep breath in the goal mouth suggested he knew exactly what the very loud murmuring throughout the crowd as he was lining up meant (you can hear it on the broadcast). No one was backing him, but he was the one with the moment in his hands.
All of the things we saw on TV and the promises over the off-season were here, right in front of us, in real life. Max King kicked 5.2 from strong marks and crumbing his own contest, and had an immediate hand in a few more. His three goals in the first quarter breathed life into the game before it was snuffed out entirely. The midfield was different unit; Jack Steele bullocked his way to 33 touches and a vital late goal, and Crouch had 12 tackles and was helped around the ball by an aggressive Zak Jones. Hill breezed up and down the ground – yes, in a good way – in the final quarter gliding across the turf while we held the ball, constantly providing a new option, making his opponents work, changing the space around him and whoever had the ball. The returning Marshall was able to limp his way to an effective performance, combining with Carlisle to nullify Nic Nat and help wrestle the midfield battle our way (and also joining Robert Harvey in St Kilda’s Completely Snapped Plantar Fascia Tissue club, although not by choice). Higgins brought snags, pressure and smothers, whether it was diving across a boot or having the ball kicked into his face. Billings collected his 25-plus possessions across the ground and appeared when it mattered most close to goal. Butler kicked 3.2 in a performance that not just kept us in it but helped turn the game when anything short of that would have likely meant an impossible road to salvage 2021.
On top of all of that, there were pleasant surprises. Carlisle’s presence in the ruck and around stoppages overall. Jack Bytel put on seven tackles and gathered 19 touches of fast hands, neat use and composure with a maturity that belied his baby face (never mind him staying out there after a head clash that had him lying down in front of the members late in the game). D-Mac played the best game of his career. His first half was busy and his second was considered, involved in several chains of St Kilda’s last eight goals. A quick turn and duck to avoid an oncoming tackle and a tidy handball that helped set up the Butler goal that started the streak before his own tackle and goal; and in the final term a side-step through the middle to put the ball to runners out wide instead of blazing away as the team had done ineffectually so often, a low pick-up from a marking contest and quick handball over the shoulder to help set up Steele, and the intercept and collect through the middle from the resulting centre bounce after Nic Nat won the hit-out, which ultimately ended with Higgins’ sealer – with the celebration of someone who grew up as a Saints fan – and completed a run of 8.6 to 0.1 in the final 45 minutes.
***
This team – 2021’s version of it, at least – appeared to be relegated to the realm of Gallant Losses At Best during the week. A decent-case (and perhaps likely) scenario for Saturday was a dogged effort, with some occasional flourishes that bring a raucous echo throughout the Concrete Disney Store, before the West Coast US College Jocks kicked away. Despite having the momentum and the loudest small home crowd you could hear, three quarter-time felt a little bittersweet. There was a turnaround, but surely it couldn’t keep going. All those wasted opportunities, we were still 10 points behind.
The result was never a fait accompli. We still had to keep doing the hard stuff around the ball and that good work still needed to be finished off. For all of the wasted opportunities and the fast West Coast replies, the pressure stayed up (with just a hint of swagger and mischief), ball use remained wise, and accuracy was back. Whereas Coffield and Carlisle had blundered into each other on the eve of half-time, it was now the Eagles making mistakes. Darling dropped the ball in the goal square, Ryan was forced into running too far in defence, Nic Nat and Jones collided into each other as the Eagles looked set to stream through the middle on the rebound. Higgins got in the face of Nelson after he was caught with the ball from a short kick. The previous week’s tackle count of 32 more than double to 69, and whatever metrics that go into Fox Footy’s vague pressure gauge thing were off the charts. Importantly, the 3.5 kicked in third quarter run became 5.1 in the last. The came from set shots, a slick Billings gather and snap, in a goalmouth rush, on the run.
***
“And the last bit – I’ve definitely got it, I know a lot of you blokes have it – it’s ‘fuck you’. So fuck them.”
– Adam Simpson, pre-Round 17, 2020, Making Their Mark
Who else but Essendon to leave us in an early-season crisis, triggering all sorts of existential crises? Who else but the bunch of US college jocks from the MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS team, getting it all from the umpires on the way, to give us the answers? Two Saturday twilight slots at the Concrete Disney Store; 32 degrees one week, 17 degrees the next. Anything you like. This was going to be textbook St Kilda.
Many of us who watched the Amazon documentary would have taken note of Adam Simpson giving St Kilda the “fuck them” before they pulled out an excellent late-season win, undermanned and faltering late, to seal a finals spot. It’s an attitude the Saints have lacked over the 148-year journey. The record books reflect that. Saturday wasn’t really revenge for last year’s loss (we’d be here for at least another 148 years if we tried that route), or for the retrospective knowledge that Adam Simpson said “fuck them” referring to the Saints. This was simple a time to take the evening for ourselves; whoever might be in the way, so be it. Even at 33 points down in time-on of the third quarter, it just had to happen. It’s the simple pleasures, mostly. You want to be at a packed Platform 28 with Saints fans singing the song over and over again. What’s better than being at the footy on a Saturday watching the Saints have a crack? (Well, maybe if the roof was open. And if Marvel stopped playing music after goals, and if the club didn’t curiously sneak in the shitty cover version of the song after the game.)
There are new guys, there are inexperienced guys, there are young guys, there’s a new captain in this team. For the first time in a very long time, any whistle when the ball was in defence didn’t inevitably going to mean a shot at goal for the opposition. Steele plays like and has the presence of a captain. Jones bodylines the ball. The excitement of King and Butler near goal. This was an evening of supporters getting attached to this team, right here, in the same space we are in.
The [YET TO BE PROPERLY TITLED] 2021 B&F voting is here for round 3. See below for the votes for the first two rounds as well.
***And yes, Round 3’s match review will be up later today***
Round 3 votes (10 to use in total)
6 – Jack Steele
3 – Tim Membrey
1 – Jack Higgins
Round 2 votes
5 – Dougal Howard
3 – Jade Gresham
1 – Seb Ross
1 – Jack Steele
Round 1 votes
5 – Tim Membrey
1 – Jack Higgins
1 – Jack Lonie
1 – Dougal Howard
1 – Tom Highmore
Progressive Totals after Round 3
8 – Tim Membrey
7 – Jack Steele
6 – Dougal Howard
3 – Jade Gresham
2 – Jack Higgins
1 – Seb Ross
1 – Jack Lonie
1 – Tom Highmore
Round 2, 2021
St Kilda 3.2, 6.3, 8.4, 11.7 (73)
Melbourne 3.4, 6.7, 9.13, 12.19 (91)
Crowd: 25,903 at Marvel Stadium, Saturday, March 28th at 7.25pm
The dessert trolley of life is back for Victorian fans, as part of the weekly ritual. Footy is back, albeit not quite as we knew it. There’s been a glitch in the system. There are sponsors above the numbers. The ticket boxes at the ground don’t sell tickets but offer directions. There are DHHS messages and QR codes plastered up every few metres. Moving around the ground felt just that little bit naughty, and it was the fans who had to be cautioned about staying inside their zones. Going through foreign gates to get to foreign seats for a St Kilda home game. The Legends Bar was untenanted. The ground looked different from these one-off seats compared to our membership seats close by, but not quite the same. The usual Saints fans surrounding us were replaced, on this night, by others’ usual surrounding Saints. Are there people that aren’t able to be here tonight, or aren’t able to spend money on going to the footy, because of the pandemic?
***
Saints fans have been waiting to see Max King, Dan Butler, Dougal Howard, Brad Hill, Paddy Ryder, Jack Higgins and Zak Jones in the flesh at a home game. They’ve been waiting to see the 2020s version of Jack Steele and Jack Billings and Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield. Rich and Matt and I discussed how we’d missed the Rise to Competency of 2020.
Max King enthusiasts would not have been disappointed early, although much of the pleasure was born of adversity. OIiver, Gawn, Petracca, Tomlinson and Langdon all feasted on a St Kilda midfield that looked just a little too undersized and we needed to get our moments right. King set up the first two with handy forward 50 passes to Membrey and Steele from a higher position reminiscent of the early career of another number 12, and he kicked one on the siren with a celebration to the crowd that really brought this home crowd into the game for the first time. When he kicked the first of the second term, crumbing contest at the top of the goal square, he’d set up two and kicked the other pair of our first four goals.
Sometimes the occasion just feels a little too much for the Saints, despite the sentiment, and things seem a bit off. The 2005 1st Preliminary Final. Harvey’s club-record breaking game against the Cats in 2006, and a season-defining night against West Coast later that year. Grand Final Day 2009. This time it was the Homecoming. It’s that intangible quality. Everyone can see it, they can feel it, and everyone understands it with the simply interchange of the words “off” and “flat”. The reasoning isn’t always apparent, but can be attributable to some things. A hangover from the massive win last week, perhaps the weight of Spud’s Match and all that surrounds it. Perhaps the team is overwhelmed, likely they will be underwhelming. The better moments still feel a little too delicate.
Steele made up for embarrassing himself against the point post early, stepping back with the flight of a high Melbourne ball and letting it go, leaving it to thud into the turf just inside the boundary line. King put it on the lead for him and he took a tough mark that Plugger himself might have enjoyed seeing. It was a captain’s moment – of atonement, as well as chance to get things moving for the team – but there wasn’t much enthusiasm around him after it. It was left to Max King on the quarter time siren to create a connection between the team and the fans and the atmosphere around the stadium. A roar and a pumped fist to the fans who only a few years ago he was sitting with.
There was hangover from the Richo era. Playing on just a little too hurriedly can look great for the short periods when it comes off, but we’ve learned that it simply isn’t sustainable. It did put us to a threatening lead during the second quarter, and it had the home crowd taking ownership of this St Kilda team. Zak Jones and Billings combined to finish a fast-paced passage, and Josh Battle’s goal soon after provided the slick mid-game Butler/Ratten moment that we now know will probably be met with a challenge. The body language was up momentarily, forward 50 entires were plentiful and Melbourne defenders were being harassed. Battle won a free kick for deliberate next to the behind post and guys were presenting into space immediately. Battle instead casually improved the angle and slotted it. Maybe it felt a bit too easy. That the perfect moment was never too far away. Ratts had mentioned in the past that at times we’ve been trying to be too perfect. Last night this presented itself as a team-oriented complacency. Anyone would have given licence to Higgins taking advantage on his own in the forward line to head straight towards goal, but instead we ended up with multiple disposals in the opposite pocket, and then back on the flank, that was really the beginning of the error-riddled end. And just as soon as we were feeling that attachment to the players wearing St Kilda jumpers in front of us, we were reacquainted with the straining frustrated voices and the irate comments and the temperament quirks of other people around us at the footy, not just those who happened to be in our lounge room over the past 12 months.
To a man, the team was too cute going forward. Hill just wanted the home fans to enjoy him providing the slick and silky skills we’d been seeking for over a decade. He had 21 of the worst, quickly becoming a poster boy the kicks inbound that were sliced or cut off by Demons, for the Saints players streaming throughout the front half of the centre square only to miss a target and put it to no clear advantage. The precedent was set when he found open space running into attack in the second quarter and kicked it out on the full. An indifferent long shot at goal on the run in the third quarter added up to some vague Bronx cheers in the final term when he did hit a target.
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It was only a matter of time before the game swung back hard in Melbourne’s favour. Pickett provided the X-factor that no-one else could. The Dees were well set-up around every contest, which allowed Oliver another zillion possessions and Petracca to remind us of choices made in November 2014. Perhaps we were too predictable, but Melbourne did the right thing and could pre-empt every move across the ground. Salem picked off the footy at half back at will and just had to use it cleanly coming the other way – it sounds simple, but we certainly couldn’t pull it off – and May, Lever and Gawn (when he wasn’t ruling ruck contests) shut down anything that went higher or deeper.
Whereas the previous week was a victory for contribution across the ground, this week was uneven. The small brigade of Lonie, Butler and Higgins were unsighted individually and collectively, their running patterns railroaded by unimaginative, reactive or wayward ball movement.
Steele played a captain’s game. He muscled his way into contests around the ground during the third quarter as the game demanded something be done before it was put out of reach, and his two goals in that term made it official that the game was still alive on the scoreboard. Ross looked effective being allowed to use his burst speed around the ground. Gresham was busy and agile, but again his finesse in getting past opponents was undone by his slicing kicking action that is slowly turning him into a metres-gained player before anything else. Dougal Howard may well have been our best player. High numbers feel a little more impressive the way the game has been played over the opening two rounds, but there has to be a critical mass of possessions Dougal Howard has before it reads that the opposition dominated play.
Melbourne could quite easily have put this beyond reach during the third quarter. The final margin was 18 points. A couple of mid-last quarter St Kilda goals flattered an already flattering margin. Melbourne kicked only one more goal, but the full scoreline shows 31 scoring shots to 18.
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The last St Kilda game I had been to was at the MCG against the Blues on a beautiful August Saturday afternoon. A late-year inconsequential fixture; a day to relax, to sit out in the sun, and watch two young teams representing foundation clubs on a Saturday afternoon at the MCG. Away from the TV production studio noise and roof of the Concrete Disney Store. To enjoy the footy.
How much can I complain about the Concrete Disney Store being…a, you know, Concrete Disney Store? About the hundreds of millions of dollars burned by individuals and companies in creating what is just another office building amongst office buildings? The AFL has done its best, then and now, to eradicate the experience of going to the footy in favour of creating an of award-winning whatever-the-fuck, but what simply remains a monotonous grey bowl with seats. An “experience” rather than going to the footy, to see footy, to be in a space at the footy. An “experience” rather than an experience.
It’s times like these, we tell ourselves, to just be thankful for what we have. Rightfully, the AFL brought back the Saturday afternoon Grand Final, and acknowledging the importance of traditions and rituals in this period. An olive branch, but perhaps also a distraction or a bargaining tool. While we’re busy trying to remind ourselves “How good’s this?”, people in power will take the opportunity to make self-satisfying, self-fulfilling changes. Thus, music after goals is back at the request of no one, to the excitement of no one. Not to the addition of excitement after a goal and to what it might mean for a team, but to the short-circuiting of atmosphere that had specifically been created by what is happening in the game and in the crowd, not by the ego of the marketing team. I can tell you that there were zero Saints fans concerned about fighting for their right to party after a meaningless goal was kicked in the second half with the game out of reach.
And still, yes, how good it was to be at the footy. There is hardly a point to a St Kilda premiership if I’m not there with Matt or Dad or Evan or Rich. There is certainly no purpose for the journey – to that promised land, or elsewhere – if I can’t share that journey with them. This was a pertinent night to remember Spud and what we can learn, and to be reminded of what we hold dear.
The anticipation of driving into the ground on the AM dial with the tram line interference cutting in and out. Hell, driving from the ground, after a loss, listening to the post-match on the AM dial with the tram line interference cutting in and out. Getting annoyed at poor umpiring decisions, getting annoyed at Brad Hill skill errors. The rush of a forward line entry with Max King nearby. Watching the Saints with my brother and my dad and my cousin and my friend.
Round 1, 2021
GWS Giants 2.3, 4.5, 8.9, 11.12 (78)
St Kilda 1.2, 5.6, 9.6, 13.8 (86)
Crowd: 5,014 at Giants Stadium, Sunday, 21st March at 3.20pm
Maybe the pandemic and the seeming disintegration of the United States has been enough to upend the norms of the western world. Perhaps this was what we needed to shake up the natural order that has dealt St Kilda the cards of Bob Keddie, Shane Ellen, Darren Jarman, Gavin Wanganeen, the Bloods, Sudden Inaccuracy and the Toe Poke, and the Bounce of the Ball. Perhaps making the finals in 2020 signalled a cosmic shift. But then Max King got hit in the head by a golf ball.
Footy is about rituals. Sharing the supporter’s journey with the people around us. The rhythm of the season. We were stripped of these in 2020, never mind everything else. St Kilda didn’t get the home game first up in 2021, so we welcomed the return of (COVID normal) footy and the new season with the other side of the supporter’s life – the nervousness of being dumped into a stadium via TV broadcast just a few minutes before the bounce, most probably as the Saints run out in foreign territory, with the neutral commentary of Channel 7 or Fox Footy broadcasters. This weekend included a car trip in the rain from Brunswick West to Elsternwick, a little closer to St Kilda heartland. This year, we are able to watch the Saints with the people close to us at the game and in the home.
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A couple hundred millimetres of rain was forecast to be dumped on Sydney over a few days that included match day. St Kilda had pre-season matches canned in 2012 and 2016 for wild conditions, but the small patch that this game took place on appeared to be spared the most dramatic of the fall. Maybe Jack Bell’s shank at Brighton wouldn’t hurt so much. Toby Greene put forward a high-rise case that the weather wouldn’t completely dictate terms, and while it did turn out that key forwards would be particularly prominent in the goals columns by the end, this wasn’t a day to echo the slicker reasons the Saints rose up the ladder in 2020. There was going to be grittier stuff needed, too.
Some players didn’t play their “best” in the way we came to know them in a finals team. Butler wasn’t his “best” but was there when it mattered, Steele’s impact was quelled by Coniglio and was more isolated to the tackles column (where he was assisted by Bytel). Billings was busy, Seb Ross kicked his two on-the-run goals from the year, Membrey kicked three from varying methods (burning a couple of teammates in the process) and was rewarded for a brave performance, Hunter Clark retained his disarming calmness, and Gresham’s agility was more than useful, particularly late, but scrambled kicks forward were the order of the day. On a day not designed for him, Brad Hill did deliver one of the game’s smoothest moments with a skidding goal on the run late in the second to take the margin to 14 points. It was the only act really straight out of the 2020 playbook – a moment usually around this point in the game that gave the Saints the appearance of a youthful, boisterous team on the up (see: BUTLER BUTLER BUTLER) before an inevitable challenge.
We were probably right to be expecting a close game in the weather, although perhaps a little lower scoring. Wet weather usually puts the emphasis on the ability to win the contested ball and gain ground. Rather than metres gained, telling moments came down to a few inches to the left or right. Ward and Coniglio had more than kept GWS well in the game with some sneaky snaps, and Himmelberg’s set shot on goal in the final quarter would have shut the gate but hit the post instead (Higgins hadn’t hit it hard enough in the second quarter). Lonie wobbled a high snap though from just inside the boundary a few minutes later to break the Giants’ momentum and begin what would ultimately be the deciding run.
A curious decision to leave Flynn unopposed at a throw-in on the forward flank – allowing the debutant to belt the ball to the Giants’ advantage and ultimately to within two points – blew the result wide open again. Membrey capped off game with a timely mark in defensive 50. Deft touches, by boot from Gresham and by hand from Sinclair, helped keep the ball in the front half. Within moments a pair of probably-not-quite-right umpiring decisions first gave a charging Callan Ward the ball at half-back with 80 seconds left, and then Butler a shot at goal to seal the game – or to miss and give the Giants the footy (and a few extra metres) to go up the other end within little more than 30 seconds. For dramatic effect, Butler exhausted his allowed time and had to kick over the man on the mark rushing him.
One captain was held, the other captain was missing. There was no King (this wasn’t quite Jack Bell’s revenge), no Marshall, no Ryder, no Paton, no Zak Jones, no Crouch, no Hannebery. Five named in the 23 (not a typo) that hadn’t played for us before, plus two that didn’t play at all last year. This is still a young team, and that can be fickle at the best of times. The tension of watching from the couch and hoping that whatever appears in the next wide shot is kind – that never really leaves. Nor does the relief and ease of the aftermath of a win on the road. Perhaps the relief was a little stronger this time. After another pre-season of promise, for this week at least, we were justified in being optimistic about 2021 and beyond for this club. Maybe the magnitude of this win isn’t immediately apparent. Those are only confirmed in hindsight.
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This was a short pre-season. It felt it, so some of those supporter sensations were close at hand (including dismay of the not-really-the-clash-jumper-they-said-they-would-have, and the not The Fable Singers version of the song being used: Mention These Every Week Challenge). Some things weren’t a break of stride. Clark, Billings, Battle, Gresham, and Steele, of course are now recognised as reliable, regular fixtures. We enjoyed getting used to new guys making an impact last year – Howard, Butler, Ryder et al; yesterday it was the turn of Higgins, Highmore and (Paul) Hunter.
Plenty was made about Jack Higgins’ childhood as a St Kilda supporter in the off-season, including Fox Footy occasionally editing the original footage of the 2009 Preliminary Final to show a much, much younger Jack Higgins on TV celebrating in the MCC section post-Nick Riewoldt’s sealer (he was actually shown a few minutes earlier; attempts to rewrite history are in vogue). Higgins’ attack on the ball and any contest in the postcode is something that has been consistent throughout his time at Richmond up until Sunday’s game, and his mark in front of goal outnumbered by GWS defenders for his second goal was a thrill. But the St Kilda supporter in Jack Higgins re-emerged in front of Tim Membrey when Skunk held on to a high reaching mark in front of goal just a few moments after Seb had put us in front. He raised his hands in the air. The rush of a St Kilda team on the charge late in a tight game. Of a team maturing in real time to push past an onslaught interstate.
Yes, footy – now, more than ever, the dessert trolley of life – is back.
