Match Report: St. Kilda vs Fremantle
Question: What do Atlantis, Jack the Rippers identity, the Loch Ness monster and the Holy Grail have in common?
Answer: They are all easier to find than a cohesive St. Kilda forward line.
Question: What do Green Day and Saints fans have in common?
Answer: They both want to be woken up when September ends.
Question: Why is this football club so broken?
Answer: I have no idea.
It’s season over, there’s no way around it. A year that promised so much has delivered devastatingly little and we have been quickly flung back into a state of all too familiar perpetual hopelessness. Our young brigade has gone backwards, our senior lads have gone backwards, and our ball movement has gone backwards with them. A near full-strength Euro-Yroke stepped out into the prime-time Saturday night lights of Marvel stadium, in front of a packed house of 19 000 and put on an absolutely abysmal display of football. Truly horrendous. One of the most horrific efforts that we have displayed in the last week. I could say this last year, but that’s not true, as every single week since round two has been a soul-destroying, catastrophic, ropeable, lamentable and insipid effort. The team that played finals last year has withered away and shrunken into a frightened, incredulous tiny naked mole-rat that plays as though their eyes are shut and their boots are made of concrete.
Flagmantle didn’t kick a goal until 24 minutes into the first quarter but somehow still ended up one goal in front at quarter time. We showed up to play in the first fifteen minutes, the pressure was up, Mitchito was kicking snags, and then after that we collapsed like that bridge in Baltimore earlier in the year. We plunged underwater into the depths of darkness where no flickers of light could possibly penetrate, we suffocated ourselves with stagnant, uninspired ball movement, we drowned ourselves with laborious efforts in no pressure situations and we masqueraded as witches’ hats and let Freo treat us like a no-contact 3-man weave drill at under 14’s training.
Paddy Dow kicked an amazing goal which was the highlight of the night, but he only had two disposals in the second half so that sucks. With the game on the line in the last quarter Wilkie had 1 touch, no spoils, no tackles, no marks. Max King kicked zero goals which also sucks, but on four separate occasions last night someone kicked the ball to him and it went out of bounds on the full. Riley Bonner and Brad Hill teamed up for could be the LOL of the year – a dinky 10m kick out of full-back that turned into a Freo goal. Mitch Owens kicked three early goals but touched the ball two times in the second half. two touches in 60 minutes of football is insane. Phillipou had four touches for the game, Collard looked like a fish lost at sea but it’s only his second game so gotta give him time. Liam Henry didn’t do anything and isn’t providing the oomph we all hoped he would and the oomph that Freo fans implored us to believe that he didn’t actually possess. If it wasn’t for Fremantle’s horrible goal kicking accuracy we would have lost by ten goals.
Rowan Marshall played out of his skin and must be so frustrated that no body is following suit. He could miss the rest of the season and still win our best and fairest. 8 clearances, 30 touches, 6 intercepts, give this man a knighthood.
We can’t kick a winning score, we can’t defend totals that are under ten goals, we are getting eaten up and spat out by every team that comes across us and there is no end in sight for the misery. We play Melbourne next week and it would take a very brave or very delusional person to give us even a 1% chance of winning. Dan Gorringe said that if Todd Goldstein played one game for Essendon he would eat a football… and he did. So I’m going to put the same promise out there, if we beat Melbourne next week I will eat a football.
Ross Lyon made six changes to the team this week and the rejuvenation of the list didn’t have any impact, so we can no longer say ‘if we drop these players… if we play this player… etc etc.’ because it has proven to be a false dawn. There is no one smacking down the door at the Zebras, so where does the improvement come from? I have no answers and no explanation. I am simply done.
I didn’t even get angry or sad watching the game, which is the clearest indication that I have given up. I still don’t care that we lost because it doesn’t seem like the player’s care. If they don’t, why should we?
