Saintsational Fan Forum - A passionate community of St Kilda Football Club fans discussing news, history, players, trade rumours, results, AFL stats and more.
Their intensity was lacking.
Their skills were lacking.
If they play like that next week we will destroy them.
Both Collingwood or Adelaide would be tougher opponents.
We are definitely on the right side of the draw !
Hope you a much better football judge than a cricket one. Very unfair to pick up on skills tonight. The wind was a joke and as for intensity they were first to the ball all night so I reckon that shows some intensity.
Agreed.
Pretty resounding victory in what were terrible conditions.
The confidence on this site is leaving me uneasy I have to say.
Bulldogs can beat any side on their day.
If the game is close at 3/4 time, they have footballers that can put together 20 minutes of brilliance to blow us out of the water.
Well, we will just have to ensure it's not close at 3/4 time then
Their intensity was lacking.
Their skills were lacking.
If they play like that next week we will destroy them.
Both Collingwood or Adelaide would be tougher opponents.
We are definitely on the right side of the draw !
Hope you a much better football judge than a cricket one. Very unfair to pick up on skills tonight. The wind was a joke and as for intensity they were first to the ball all night so I reckon that shows some intensity.
Agreed.
Pretty resounding victory in what were terrible conditions.
The confidence on this site is leaving me uneasy I have to say.
Bulldogs can beat any side on their day.
If the game is close at 3/4 time, they have footballers that can put together 20 minutes of brilliance to blow us out of the water.
Well, we will just have to ensure it's not close at 3/4 time then
I'm pretty sure they would be worried about 20 minuts of brilliance from Milne, Kosi, BJ, ROO or NDS as well.
We have beaten them comfortably twice this season, because, ike Collingwood, their lack of forward targets require them to make precision entries into their forward 50.
When Brisbane and Geelong last week, put pressure on them forcing them to kick long into their forward line, their defenders took easy marks and repelled them.
Also our bodies are bigger and stronger than Brisbane's and many of the Bullfogs as well.
Our best will beat them easily, but we need to bring our best, because they can beat us if we don't.
I am hopeful, I know we can win next week, we've just got to do it and surely the fact that this is our 4th prelim in 6 years must give us an advantage and it's time we won one.
Imperative we win the contested ball and get first hands on the ball or cause at least a draw as they are the best side at rolling the dice, Eagleton is always on his own forward of the ball and the likes of Aker, Johnson and Murphy are excellent at leading up then ducking back under their man.
No doubt we need the intensity, effort and pressure our season's been built on, without that the Doggie Globetrotters will do as they please. I don't want to be their Washington Saints!!!
Cross will go to Hayes, excellent job on Black last night.
Picken will go to Joey although I'd like to see Joey try to pick up Eagleton and pressure him and hurt him the other way.
CJ onto Cooney or Griffen, hopefully Griffen and let BJ go head to head with Cooney.
Boyd probably on Dal
Hopefully Gilbo on Johnson, Bakes on Aker, Fish on Murphy, Zac on Hahn, Blake on Welsh.
These are all only my opinions of course but who knows what tricks Ross and Eade have planned?
Are you ever anything other than depressingly pessimistic?
Aside from being predictable it is also really annoying.
Same drivel before the QF...
"The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break in the game. Every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that's gonna make the f***in' difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!'
I wouldn't read too much into the skill level last night nor the intensity level after 3/4 time.
A few observations.
Hard to see them matching up Riewoldt. They really struggled to stop Brown who got to a lot of marks on the lead (albeit up the ground). Brown is known as more of a strong contested mark rather than the get away from ur opponent mark yet he did that time and time again.
Insert Riewoldt, a player that thrives on that. They'll be really worried about him.
What this equates to IMO is that they'll put a lot of players around him and Kosi could well be left man on man. He's the X-factor.
One thing I noticed is that the Doggies love to get numbers around the ball. They like to handball themselves out of packs and run and carry through the lines. As some1 pointed out, harrass them and zone well, they'll spray their kicks going forward and we'll smash them on the rebound.
Put a little scoreboard pressure on them and that creativity in the midfield will disappear and force them to chase us.
Danger players for them:
-Akermanis, keep the ball away from him and watch him transform from a selfless lethal team playing individual to the kick that has to kick the goal himself no matter what the angle.
-Johnson. No Johnson, no Doggies. Wonder who'll get him, could see Max come in but I doubt it. Gilbert or Fisher would be my bet, they could both run with him and hurt him the other way.
Jones might get Higgins and hurt him the other way whilst I'd say most likely that Hayes and Cooney will play off each other
Player for player, I think our midfielders are better.
Are you ever anything other than depressingly pessimistic?
Aside from being predictable it is also really annoying.
Same drivel before the QF...
My comments were in relation to OP ...re the rubbish
How is 50/50.......... depressingly pessimistic?????
line ball.
Maybe I am not completely blinded (one eyed in the extent of some who make ridiculous comments) .....some of the comments in relation to cakewalk...just have to turn up blah blah is also really annoying
I honestly think the Dogs will be very hard to beat.
I agree Chook. The bullies are a good running team with a very good midfield. We bring our pressure skills and we should be fine though.
Does anyone recall the prelim in 05. After watching the swannies a*se the 1st semi against the cats the weeks before I was supremely confident against them. We had also accounted for them comfortably during the year. I guess what I'm saying is that any team that makes a prelim are no mugs.
WE need to smash em with intensity so that they can't spot up their fwd targets.
I've been looking at the last time we played the Dogs purely from a St. Kilda perspective.
Presuming we don't have any changes to the team this week we have:
Out from Rd 17 - James Gwilt, Max Hudghton, Ben McEvoy and Sean Dempster who according to Championship Data all ranked in the bottom 8 for that match.
So that makes our Ins - Luke Ball, Justin Koschitzke, Michael Gardiner and Zac Dawson.
Like the look of that In's list particular as 3 of the 4 of them played there role very well last week and showed great attack on the footy. The last two times we've played Brendan Goddard has been key in the midfield along with Riewoldt up front. These two will cause considerable trouble for the Dogs I would imagine.
I don't think the dogs small forward line will pose to much of a problem as it seemed against a similar forward structure against the Pies last week were pretty much only explosed by the one on one of Rocca on Dawson. And the Dogs don't have anyone near the build and size of Rocca although Minson or Lake may pinch hit up forward.
The Dogs don't start all to well which makes it even more imperative that we stamp our authority on the game as early as possible. Both in contested ball and pressure through tackles, which hopefully in turn equates to score board pressure.
Even allowing for the strong wind last night, Brisbanes were awful. Doggies are the masters of hurting you from turnovers, running forward of the ball with defenders caught out of position and being able to have a unhurried shot from 40 or spotting up an unmarked fwd target
Agree they will get numbers around Roo so we CANNOT go to him at all times, as we tended to do early last week. Mids must back themselves to have a shot if Roo and Kosi are covered. Given we apply the best fwd pressure in the comp, a point is better than a silly little dinky kick into the corridor trying to find Kosi with 4 blokes hanging off him
Saints Back Line:
Dawson v Minson/Welsh/Hudson/Everitt/Lake
Gilbert v Johnson
Baker v Akermanis
S Fisher v Murphy
Blake v Welsh/Hahn
R Clarke v Higgins/Eagleton
It really doesn't look that bad here when you break it down. I reckon all those Saints players can beat their men. Maybe the biggest worries here are Blake on Hahn and R Clarke on Eagleton, because this is where their pace starts to hurt us. No doubt if the ball comes down on quick counter-attacks the Dogs will get goals from runners - but if the midfield does their job and minimises this, it should be hard for the Dogs to kick a winning score.
Saints Forward Line:
Lake v Koschitzke
Morris v Riewoldt
Picken v Milne
Harbrow v Schneider
McQualter v Hargrave
Eddy v Gilbee
Riewoldt should be too good for Morris or Hargrave - they're quick enough to go with him but can't match him in the air. Lake beats Kosi if that's all he's doing, but his responsibility is to zone off and provide rebound, so we need to be smart in using Kosi. McQualter and Eddy have important jobs on clever rebounders, and Milne and Schneider will have to be smart to beat a couple of quick, hard-working kids.
Saints Midfield:
Gardiner
King
v
Hudson
Minson
Jones v Cooney
Gram v Griffen
Hayes
Dal Santo
Montagna
Ball
Goddard
Ray
v
Boyd
Cross
Higgins
Giansiracusa
Eagleton
Ward
Callan
The Saints should have the edge in the ruck stakes - they're both tough enough to hurt the Dogs' big men. We'd rather Hudson didn't have a 20 possession game like last week.
Jones goes to Cooney because he's a Brownlow Medallist and consistently their best midfielder. Gram runs with Griffen because he'll be able to hurt him often going the other way, and Griffen doesn't need the tightest of tags. Still plenty of worries in the rest of the midfield, but the worries are more about sustained running and receives - the Saints are a tougher unit and should be able to make that count.
saintluke wrote:So that makes our Ins - Luke Ball, Justin Koschitzke, Michael Gardiner and Zac Dawson.
Like the look of that In's list particular as 3 of the 4 of them played there role very well last week and showed great attack on the footy.
Out of interest saintluke, who do you think didn't play their role last week?
Ball - 16 possessions and 3 tackles from less than 50% game time
Gardiner - 11 possessions and 18 hitouts, 1 less than the Pies total
Kosi - 12 possessions, 8 marks, 2 goals and hit packs hard again
Zac - 18 possessions, 11 marks and had just 2 goals kicked on him.
Personally I think our ins look very strong at the moment compared to when we played them last.
Can you elaborate....what puts both sides on a par at the minute?
Im as worried as the next person, but just interested in your thoughts.
Reference to Rubbish ....OP......re preference (talk that Bulldogs/Coll played that game to avoid us)
Whilst we will start fav. next week I have seen (our prelims) and many others that have not gone the way of the fav.
I rate the bulldogs very highly
I rate the saints very highly
dare/run v defensive pressure/excellent counterpunch
When we played earlier in year epecially ..Cats.. we had the dare and run early and the defensive pressure last few games not as much dare/run
PRELIM FINAL
50/50
Of course hope we smash them.
i bet the defensive pressure and dare and un was better last week though! it appears that essendon, north and melb hawe had nothing to play for. intensity dropped. didn't win!
now we are back to playing for something! the saints are playing much better!
