Once again, two metaphysical entities do battle for our very souls with the Saints taking on the Demons. Well, maybe not souls, but this game was very much about separating the contenders from the pretenders.
The Build-Up
With Collingwood currently the premiership favourite, followed by Port, Brisbane and Geelong (yes, there is still a lot of support for the reigning premiers, and it’s probably a good time to remind people to gamble responsibly) there was more than just four points on offer for two teams that are expected to play finals—there was legitimacy at stake.
With just one game separating 9th from 4th leading into the game (after a GWS win over the Hawks) there were more than a few pundits claiming that this was the match to watch in this round. The winner could make a charge at a top-four finish, while the loser became vulnerable to a hard-charging group of teams desperate to move up the ladder.
When Clarry met Selwyn
Much has also been made of Clayton Oliver’s continued absence. With the early-season Brownlow favourite looking like spending more time than initially anticipated on the sidelines, his frustration seemed to boil over when he was pictured in a very animated discussion with club medico boss Selwin Griffith.
Clarry did the reputation of Gingers being hot-headed no favours when he blew up at the doc, presumably due to the news he would be spending extra time off with his hamstring injury seemingly worsening. Maybe it’s a case of pushing too hard too soon, or maybe just one of those stubborn complaints that flare up unexpectedly. Either way, you can understand Melbourne being cautious with one of their best playmakers.
Ins and outs
St Kilda’s win over West Coast proved costly, with Josh Battle, Jack Higgins and Bradley Hill all out due to injury. Battle’s concussion will keep him off the field for another week or two, while the other two had knee issues from the game.
The space allowed the return of Jack Billings to return from his own hamstring injury, while Zaine Cordy and Zak Jones also came into the side.
Melbourne’s only injury concern from last week was a major one, with Bayley Fritsch requiring surgery on his foot due to a fracture received against GWS, and looks likely to miss a couple of months. Harmes and Chandler were sent back to the twos. Harmes may consider himself a little unlucky, as I thought his game wasn’t too bad, however Chandler did himself no favours, and with Melbourne’s recent form, it’s no surprise that Goodwin swung the axe a little.
To fill the void, the Dees brought back James Jordon, Charlie Spargo and Taj Woewodin, son of Brownlow medallist Shane.
The game
It’s not uncommon for losing teams to say they got unlucky, but few have had as much cause as the Saints in this game. Bad bounces of the footy, posters, and multiple first-quarter injuries made it very hard to compete with a team as good as Melbourne.
While the scoreline will show that Melbourne were never headed after the first quarter due to a surge of five unanswered goals, the match was actually far closer than it appeared. The Saints had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of three injured in the first quarter that upset their whole gameplan. With that in mind, they did a fantastic job of staying competitive for much of the game, despite Melbourne taking advantage of their lack of rotations as well as forward firepower to run the ball through the middle and spot up attacking options with regularity.
Melbourne had been criticised heavily for their wayward goal-kicking recently, with the last five scorelines all featuring less than 50% accuracy in front of goal, and you’d have to go back to the game against North in April for a decent ratio of return. It always looked like more of a hiccup though, as their early matches of 2023 all featured a highly efficient forward line, aided no doubt by forward 50 entries that gave them multiple attacking options in good positions.
After the first quarter surge and response, the game settled into a rhythm of St Kilda pushing forward, only to either miss the goals or have the ball intercepted and rebounded by the Demons’ defence. For much of the game, the Saints had many opportunities to move the ball forward, but without King to tie him down, May wasn’t kept accountable.
The game followed that pattern for the rest of the match, with the Saints controlling the ball well, right up until they should have moved into scoring position, then benign caught on the overlap as Melbourne rebounded.
In the dying minutes of the game, St Kilda were refusing to quit. With the margin just under three goals and with four minutes on the clock, Jack Steele launched a long bomb into the forward 50. The ball wasn’t claimed as Mitch Owens collected it off the hands of Sharman to wheel around on his left and kick the goal that would keep his team in the match.
Unfortunately, the ball bounced just before the goal line, and—as can happen with an oval-shaped ball—bounced back into play without crossing the line. Ed Langdon collected the ball, giving it to McVee, allowing Melbourne to clear the ball.
After some back and forth, Melbourne surged forward in the last minute to give Petracca his fourth goal with a perfect kick from 40, and the brave Saints were put out of the game.
Man of May-hem
With West Coast’s injury woes well-documented, it’s a little concerning that St Kilda have had injuries to six of their best 22 players since they lined up against Simpson’s lads in Perth. If someone was so inclined, they may do well to check if some sort of ritual was undertaken to pass the curse onto the Saints.
The siren had barely finished sounding before a rather innocuous marking contest between Steven May and Max King left the latter nursing an injured shoulder. King has had issues with the shoulder previously, having spent a considerable amount of time rehabbing it in the last year after a dislocation during training. He was quickly subbed out of the match, causing some major concerns for the Saints structure, as well as their immediate future.
The Saints were soon down a rotation when Seb Ross tried to set up a shot on goal with an over-the-head, no-look handpass. The barest touch from Steven May had him pull up short and hobble to the bench with a hamstring complaint. He was soon put on ice and took no further part in the game.
The bad luck continued when a Steven May hanger resulted in a knee to the back of the head of Zaine Cordy, who left the field with a concussion. This will likely result in a lot of discussion about the long-term viability of the knees-up speccy by people publishing click-bait articles and who need to fill column inches and drive advertising revenue.
They will not rule out the speccy in footy. Won’t happen.
So, the question remains; is Steven May some sort of wizard? A kung-fu expert? Able to focus his life force into a deadly energy attack? Well, with no evidence that he’s not any of those things, I’d recommend against shaking his hand if you see him on the street. You may get hit by falling masonry or something.
Ruck battle
I can only imagine Rowan Marshall’s mental state, knowing he’d be coming up against Max Gawn and Brody Grundy over the weekend. While both have had their ups and downs in 2023, it would be a brave pundit who would say they’re not the best ruck duo around at the moment. Plus, if an injury were to happen, Ben Brown has spent plenty of time in the ruck previously.
When Cordy went down, the Saints didn’t even have a secondary option, meaning Marshall had to take on a formidable ruck pairing largely on his own.
And he did pretty well, all things considered.
Marshall attended 65 ruck contests to Gawn’s 44 and Grundy’s 36. Both won the tap more often, but Marshall equalled Gawn’s hitouts to advantage (four) and had eight clearances of his own, while Gawn only managed four and Grundy seven.
Marshall also managed to impact the ball in defence with seven intercepts (neither Melbourne ruck had any, usually resting forward), as well as five score involvements compared to Gawn’s six. Gawn was very damaging with his kicks in this match, exemplified by a low, spearing pass to Petracca in the third quarter that looked like it barely rose above three metres over the forty-metre distance, and hit him hard enough to fold him over a little. Traditional wisdom would usually assume that a ruckman is about as accurate with his boot as your average politician is with their biography, but that kick was elite, and an indicator of why Gawn has been held in such high esteem in recent years.
I really want to give Marshall the nod here, but as with most things footy-related, they don’t ask how, they ask how many, and the number of taps and influence on the contest despite rucking less gives Gawn the chocolates here.
Massive respect to Marshall though, and a brilliant effort against two elite rucks.
Rookie Watch
Debutant Taj Woewodin looked solid in his first outing. He had some deft touches to set up scoring opportunities, while still hunting his own ball. His positioning was a little off, as he would find himself mistiming his run to packs or space, probably due to the speed of the game compared to VFL, but he’s had a taste of it now, and will be the better for it.
His twelve touches and two tackles was a decent effort, and should see him keep his spot for next week.
In the post-match interview, Taj managed to get in a “Great to get the win with the boys” and “The boys got around me”, which bodes well for the kid. He’s already understanding that cliches are what on-ground interviews are all about, and handled his responsibility very well. All he needs to do is add a bit of “one week at a time” and “credit to the boys” and he’ll be looking at at least 200 games in his AFL career.
St Kilda have pinned a lot of hope on Mattaes Phillipou in the future, and he did a lot right in this match, but he was just a little off in his execution. He was unlucky to miss two goals, and may have had a case for a couple more frees in marking contests, but his lack of polish was evident. Had he kicked truly with his shots, his team is right in the game.
Though, the fact a rookie has such influence when his side was suffering in structure and rotation shows just how much belief Lyon has in the young lad, and he’ll only get better from here.
The stats that matter
St Kilda actually won most of the important stats. Total possession, contested possessions, inside 50s, disposal efficiency, clearances, free kicks, marks inside 50, bounces, tackles, and total scoring shots all favoured the Saints. The biggest difference was accuracy in front of goal.
Had Phillipou and Wood returned five goals between them rather than one goal four, the Saints would have won. It may sound harsh to mention them specifically, but without King, and with Membrey still out for a month or so with a knee complaint, Wood will need to be a bigger forward focus for future matches as the Saints try to set up a run into finals.
The other big stat was total rotations, with the Saints using only 52 of their allotted 75, while Melbourne used 69. Melbourne was able to keep a few in reserve, but well within expectations, while the Saints had only two healthy bench slots for a majority of the game, even after subbing out King.
Other bits
Some days, you put on an old jacked and find cash in the pocket, and other days Lady Luck gives you the finger and nothing goes right. The Saints had one of the latter days against the Dees.
Three times they hit the post, including a one-in-a-million shot by Phillipou in the first that landed on top of the post. It’d be a brave umpire to call a point, had it managed to go just 10cm further, and considering the quality of footage we’re always given on replay, there would not have been a high likelihood of the ump being overruled.
And that’s not including Owens’ backspin punt that didn’t cross the goal line.
Next up:
The Saints will head to Queensland to take on a Gold Coast team that is once again fielding questions about the future of their coach Stuart Dew. Granted, a majority of the noise has been made by serial coach-slanderer Caroline Wilson, who seems to derive some sort of vampiric power by applying pressure on coaches careers under the guise of “I’m hearing” or “People are saying” to cover the fact she’s making wild assumptions that seem based on little beyond a desire to fill space on footy programming with all the accountability of a self-licking ice-cream.
Dew has been living with questions like this since he took the role at the Gold Coast, and with his own hand-picked staff and players, some level of accountability is vital for success, however, they did very well to push Premiership contender Port Adelaide this week, after a lacklustre effort against Collingwood.
With the structural injuries they’re dealing with, the Saints and Suns will have their seasons on the line in this match. Only six points separate them on the ladder, so a Gold Coast win will see them in finals contention and Dew celebrating in the manner that will have the owner of Allen’s lollies very happy with a share price bump, while a loss will likely cause an increase in volume about his future in the AFL coaching system.
If the Saints can put in the same effort they did against Melbourne, they’ll win easily, but, backing up a big game, working with a modified forward structure and having to travel may work against them. I wouldn’t begrudge the Saints a win here, but for the sake of keeping the tension high as we enter the final phase of regular season football, and despite walloping them earlier in the year, I’m backing the Suns in a tight one.
Suns by 4 points.
Melbourne will face another test to justify a top-four spot when they host Brisbane at the G. With their only victory against fellow top-four hopefuls coming against Collingwood on the Queen’s Birthday match (I’m still honouring Liz, as I reckon she’d have made a great forward pocket had she been lucky enough to have been born in a place like Ringwood or similar), Melbourne will need to take this opportunity to avenge their earlier loss to Brisbane in round two.
Despite a shorter break, Brisbane seem to have little concern with recover, having barely gotten out of second gear to account for West Coast by 81 points in Queensland, while Melbourne had to put in close to their best effort to see off the Saints.
Another hard game to pick, and the game will likely hinge on the May/Lever match up with Daniher/Gunston, but I think the freshness of Brisbane will carry them home.
Lions by 11.
