The story will be the Saints from this game, and rightfully so. Their second-half was a dominant display, as they ran the Tigers into the ground, and capitalised on a team with too many players with too few pre-seasons under their belt. However, it was not their way for the entire game.
If you read the script coming into this game, then checked the score at the end, you may be forgiven for thinking it went exactly to plan.
And my guess is that if you read the various reports around the traps that copy/paste from each other, you’ll take that, conclude that the Tigers are crap, the Saints whacked them, and you can happily move on to next week.
But not all things went St Kilda’s way, and not all was doom and gloom for the Tigers in this clash, despite the lopsided scoreline.
The first half was an absolute arm wrestle, with the young Tigers taking it up to the Saints.
For me, it raised the question of how much attitude impacts a team from week-to-week.
It was clear that the Saints had the players with the experience and skill to put the Tigers to the sword, but it was the continued effort of the Richmond youngsters that prevented that from playing out… for a while. Their minds were willing, right up until the point their bodies could no longer cooperate. And once that occurred, the floodgates opened, and St Kilda started to flow through the middle of Marvel Stadium like a torrent.
It was a crushing win by the Saints, who ran over, through, and around the Tiger cubs, and turned the last quarter into a red, white, and black party.
Let’s jump into The Mongrel’s Big Questions from this one – plenty of them to be asked.
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