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perfectionist wrote:St Kilda
B: Raphael Clarke, Max Hudghton, Steven Baker
HB: Sam Fisher, Zac Dawson, Sam Gilbert
C: Brendon Goddard, Lenny Hayes, Nick Dal Santo
HF: Leigh Montagna, Justin Koschitzke, Jason Gram
F: Stephen Milne, Nick Riewoldt, Adam Schneider
Foll: Michael Gardiner, Farren Ray, Luke Ball
I/C: David Armitage, Jason Blake, Sean Dempster, Steven King.
It's round 20, we're 19-zip, and that is a wonderful sight.
Have we ever viewed a better St Kilda team in Round 20?
Thought I would re-visit the analysis I previously put.
No doubt we lost our composure because we could not win the ball cleanly from the stoppages and could not shut down Watson in particular (and the early jump of the Essendon rucks hurt us - and were then shown up for pace as Essendon played their game and we chased and tried to fill holes by zoning.
They split our zone wide open.
We did not have a "pace" option in defence with our only options being Baker and Clarke.
Hence the need to zone and not being able to go man on man.
Baker played a "Baker game" when we needed a quick defender right on the ginger of Essendon's quick players, staying with them, blocking their forward space and negating their instinct to run forward at all costs.
Clarke put in but was caught out by a free un-checked running player outside his opponent or in support of his opponent.
The numbers told against him because he had no support.
The loss of Jones was costly - but one player does not make the difference.
More than once Essendon has 3 attacking players lining up unmarked down the corridor.
And how many times did we have 3 or 4 defenders flying to spoil leaving the ground to Essendon?
So I go back to my analysis that having the inter-change bench named Blake and Dempster in the 22 and omitting Jones (injury) and Steven was fraught with danger.
Particularly with Jones out, there was a need to replace like with like.
We did not.
And we were unbalanced and de-stabilised.
We could not use our tall defenders on the rebound because the chasing pressure on them denied composure.
We needed to put a Gram or Ray back but the inclusion of Blake and Dempster negated that because where then do we put Blake and Dempster in the rotations?
And far too much pressure came on our mid-field accordingly.
We needed one ruck (King) and 3 mid-fielders on the bench, particularly against Essendon.
We did not structure this way and we paid the price.
Perhaps the game was used as a shoot out between Fisher, Dawson, Max and Blake?
