I think this is rather instructive with regards to how we're playing in 2021.Ratten has pledged to allow his team to "go out and play" and not to weigh them down with tactics and structures. The Saints have suddenly become a very quick team and Ratten wants his players to embrace their inner flair and creativity.
We're 2-4, playing without structure, instead relying on players to instinctively make good decisions. Which they're absolutely not, because teams are using tactics that force us into making bad decisions (like bombing it long to the F50, where the opponent has numbers back behind the ball).
Watching us get absolutely torn up by a heavily systems-based team (Richmond) was incredibly instructive as it demonstrated to all of us how we want to play (individuals using their flair) as against their style (using teamwork and structures).
It feels as though we've erred so strongly on the side of anti-system that the players themselves are confused about who is doing what, when they should be doing it and who has responsibility - Nick Coffield and Dougal Howard clashing last night seemed to reveal exactly that.
Not every player can afford to be following their instincts, running ahead of the ball and hoping for the "easy one out the back". It feels like we've given a free licence to too many; very few seem committed to contesting, and I can't help but feel that's because too many are playing the way they would like to play, rather than doing what the team requires them to.
I'm no fan of how the players are going about it, but the more I look at it, we've got our tactics massively wrong.
We have over-estimated the capacity of the playing group - who are ultimately no more than workmanlike, and we are now finding out the hard way that this "choose your own adventure" style simply doesn't work for our list.
This will be up to Ratten and his coaching staff to identify and recognise - the longer it goes on, the more our confidence will drop, and the worse it will end up being. This experiment has to be brought to a halt.