Stats and article on Saints v Pies Game

[saintsRrising]

Midfield muscle stifles Saints
Mark Robinson | May 17, 2008 12:00am




http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/ ... 42,00.html

LOVE to have been in Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse's quarter-time speech. Don't know if he would've been more angry or instructive, but an 11-goal first quarter on the back of 21 inside 50s from St Kilda, might've made him angry, at a guess.

The Pies were lairs, no doubt, and lair football doesn't do it for Mick. Never has.

The stats were telling: 21 insides 50s to 12, centre clearances 9-1, tackles 14-6, goals 6-5.

At that rate, the Saints were on target for 80 inside 50s, and no matter if the Collingwood line-up had McKenna, Rose, Buckley and Collier, they wouldn't have won this contest.

At game's end, the stats were even more telling: inside 50s 52-50 Saints way, centre clearances 16-6, tackles 55-41 Collingwood and goals 16-14 Collingwood.

The most interesting numbers are the clearances for it is rare a team loses with such domination in the middle.

The most telling numbers are the tackles. From quarter-time, the Pies won 49-27.

They are the numbers, and when it's all said and done, they are always the result of actions.

The Pies were magnificent in that regard.And the Saints weren't far behind.

The nine-point margin was a reflection of an oustanding game of football, played with intensity and attitude, with brilliance and dash.

It was also played without key forwards.

Collingwood pair Anthony Rocca and Travis Cloke and St Kilda's equivalent Justin Koschitzke and Fraser Gehrig were virtually by-standers in the midfidler slug-fest.

Cloke is sadly out of sorts and wanted to mark one-handed most of night, and Gehrig is in even worse shape.

The other two just couldn't get into it.It didn't matter, for the game was won and lost in the midfield.

The Saints erupted from the bounce and after quarter-time, the Magpies rounded them in.

They outmuscled the Saints at the contest, smothered and closed down space, and didn't allow St Kilda's posse of midfielders easy use of the ball.

Scott Burns, Dane Swan, Scott Pendlebury, Shane O'Bree, Rhyce Shaw, Leon Davis, Dale Thomas and Alan Didak combined to a) exert pressure b) win the ball and c) kick goals.Didak is a jet and surely in career-best form, and his three goals were reward for effort.

His third, at the start of the last quarter, when he twice danced around Sean Dempster in the space of six metres was classical stuff.

Malthouse would be pleased on that front, but also by Didak's acceptance that playing midfield demands offensive and defensive actions.

Indeed, Malthouse would've been pleased with all of his midfield.

Didak laid three tackles last night.

Three of the aforementioned midfield group laid six, another two players five.

The Saints had Lenny Hayes (eight) and Luke Ball (eight), Dal Santo (four), Milne (three) no-one else above two.

It's not good enough. It's evidence the Saints don't share the load, that players stand back and watch when body contact needs to be made.

If Hayes and Ball can do it, so can the others.

Coach Ross Lyon has lamented his team's ability to win the contested ball, and even though they matched Collingwood on that front last night, the willingness to consistently commit a body against a team that never will quit, has to be addressed.

Indeed, Ball had a terrific game, but tired as the game continued. He had five clearances in the first quarter, the equal most in a quarter this season with Hawk Sam Mitchell and Eagle Dean Cox, but it in a physcial contest like this, it's hardly questionable that he would tire.

So too, Hayes. That Leigh Montagna, a superb runner and carrier, didn't register one effective tackle in a such physically demanding game is a little bewildering.




So a bit of the reverse of the Tigers match where we were not so good on the ball...but were excellent around the ground.....with Milne on fire up forward.

[sunsaint]

hmmm sort of disagree with the assessment.
We smashed them at stopages, hands down, but I think where they got the upper hand was their on-ballers smashed us on rebound with superior leg speed. Not to mention their kicking for goal.