Match Report: St. Kilda vs Hawthorn

Alright folks, jump onto Skyscanner and book your September holidays while the prices are reasonable, because we officially won’t be there. The players, the coaches and the board members have quite clearly preplanned a month-long retreat in Mongolia when the finals are on, and have completely and utterly checked out of the season at hand.

Against Port Adelaide, Ross blamed the free kick count.

Against the Bulldogs, Ross blamed the short turnaround of games

Against the Hawks, Ross blamed the runners being limited in their message delivering capacities.

When is Ross going to be accountable and start blaming the players who don’t give any effort, and the coaches who get out-coached week in week out?

Hawthorn is a bottom three side. They didn’t score a goal in the last quarter. They still won by five points. There is something so unbelievably and categorically wrong and broken with the St Kilda football club that I have given up. Yes, I will watch next week and the week after that, that’s not the point, the point is I no longer have any reason to feel even a tiny slither of hope. The hope is dead and the dread has set in.

In the third quarter we dominated Hawthorn, yet we still lost the quarter by five points. The same issue that has ruined us for years and years and years ruined us again on the weekend – bad goal kicking. Garcia, Wood, King, Wilson, Henry, Membery all missing goals you would expect them to kick. And we lose by less than a goal at the end of the day, go figure.

There were three standout players on the day. Steele, Marshall and Battle. Steele hit 30 touches and had eleven tackles and five clearances. Battle kicked two of our three goals in the second half and played on the wing as well, he literally can go anywhere and he might go to another club after this year. Marshall broke a team record of contested possessions this game and had twelve clearances. Meek was good though, kicking a goal and smashing Ro in the hitouts.

Bonner, Nas, Sinclair racked up a bit of the ball but weren’t very damaging. Windhager looked like a Brownlow medalist in the first half before totally disappearing in the second and rolling with a disposal efficiency of 55% - only slightly worse than Sinclair’s 61% - what has happened to Jack Sinclair by the way?

Henry provided nothing in his comeback game, and his opponent was close to best-on for the Hawks. Henry also had a shot from 30m out that didn’t make the distance.

I can’t be bothered talking about Max King because Max King can’t be bothered.

So many times, the ball entered our forward fifty and then it left in under ten seconds. At one pointed I even counted and it was seven seconds and then six seconds. We have no forward pressure at all. Owens is playing forward but not providing any pressure, it’s pretty much just Garcia laying the tackles out there and he’s playing his fourth game. Is it four? I dunno. It’s not many. We need Higgins and Butler back. Sure, Buts isn’t doing 2020 Buts things, but at least the man can tackle.

Hawks were missing Sicily & Mitch Lewis. We still lost. We had 8 more inside 50’s. We still lost. We won center and stoppage clearances, possessions, marks (by 40) contested marks (by 8) marks inside 50 (by 4), tackles and one percenters… but we still lost. What on earth is going on?

 

 

 

Previous
Previous

Match Report: St. Kilda vs Fremantle

Next
Next

Match Report: St. Kilda vs North Melbourne