Match Report: St. Kilda vs Gold Coast
The earth floats through space at a distance of roughly 146 million kilometers from the sun. If the earth were to catch fire and catastrophically burn up and explode it is said that we would need to be roughly 30% closer to the sun (the same approximate distance of Venus to the sun.) On Saturday night, in the effulgent gleam of standalone prime time coverage, the best team in the world, the mighty St. Kilda Football Club, not only got closer to the sun than is recommended, but we made physical contact with 23 suns and still walked away unscathed. Except for Dougal. Dougal forgot his sunscreen and did an ouchy. The rest of them though, sun-proof.
In a grand final like atmosphere, seventeen-thousand tragics heaved on in to Marvel Stadium, packing the stadiums capacity to the brim and sending a pulsating electrical current reverberating through the stands. For those that entered this weekend thinking Essendon v Carlton or Collingwood v Mellbourne were going to be the big boy games – how wrong you were. The St. Kilda Saints and the Ben Long Football Club put on an absolute clinic of clean-skills, insatiable tenacity and straight up footy that supporters of every other club were forced to watch. Sorry about that.
In what may go down as the most boring game in the history of the AFL we walked away with a win and for the first time this year, back-to-back wins. It’s not as good as back-to-back premierships, but it feels good nonetheless. I am starting to regret not paying the extra $70 for ticket cancellation insurance on my September holiday to Equatorial Guinea, because as Billy Joe would say – The Saints Are Coming. The first quarter was dominated by us in every facet except the scoreboard, which is unfortunately a very common theme for our year. Until the final minutes of the first half, the Suns had only kicked one goal – yet were only a couple goals behind. In what world can a team score only one goal but not be ten goals down? In a world where Ross Lyon is the coach and the two teams playing are just very bad at scoring. We had triple the inside 50’s and double the inside 50 disposals but couldn’t score. Dan ‘danger danger danger’ Butler got down on one knee and prayed to the spirits of the six-pointer before slotting home his second of the quarter.
The second quarter started with three straight points, followed by a King goal, and then followed once again by three straight points. 1.4 to 1.2 was the total for the second quarter and the words of the oracle Dan Gorringe ‘I would rather stick chopsticks in my eyeballs than watch St. Kilda play’ were echoing through the chambers of the Reddit match-thread.
The second half was not one for the DVD collection, we only added 22 more points to our total across sixty minutes of play. Our scoring woes are reaching levels of pure lunacy and there is no end in sight. When Gold Coast hit the front, it was as though the Essendon game was repeating in front of our eyes, but Max King, off the back of a free-kick that wasn’t a free kick, calmly went back and showed his brother Ben that having less pronounced facial hair makes him the better King. Game won, thanks for coming.
Marcus Windhager is starting to collect superstar midfielders like they’re Pokemon cards. Miller had three touches at half time and finished with fourteen. Paddy Dow is proving himself to be a solid addition with 20 touches and seven inside 50’s. Hunter Clark is very good. Josh Battle should be paid whatever the hell he wants to be paid because you can imagine already that if he leaves, he will absolutely destroy us when we play against him. we won a game of football with only three goal-kickers and that’s gotta be some kind of record, I dunno.
Also, for anyone out there that plays Ultimate Footy or Supercoach – always load up on opposition backmen. Flanders – 41 touches. Jeffery – career high across the board. Ballard – 10 marks, 23 touches – Uwland, 23 touches 13 marks – Collins, 12 marks. Gold everywhere!
We cooked up an Eagle stew last week, this week we put out the sun, can we tame the Lion next week? I dunno, but how good was Cooper Sharman for the zebs?
