Dempster on Franklin

[BigMart]

Good Idea????

He had 11 shots on goal!

Reminded me of Dempster on Cloke a few weeks ago, surely (hopefully) Scotty realizes Sean is not strong overhead and has never played tall.

Other point

They spent a week planning..... Surely not allowing rioli to get goal side would have been a given... 5 of his 6 goals were due to this.... Woeful defending

[andrewg]

Who else plays on him? Funny enough Dawson used to play well on him

[noob]

To be fair we don't have a proper full-back which needs to be seriously addressed at the end of the year

[andrewg]

Silvani at Freo? Can't get a game??

[The Redeemer]

To be fair we don't have a proper full-back which needs to be seriously addressed at the end of the year

We have a first round pick probably around 10 so that could help.

[WinnersOnly]

Both Dempster & Geary played scared and were that worried about their opponents they forgot about the ball. As soon as you do that the forward has won! Gees I hope Fisher isn't too bad as I don't think Gwilt is ready yet.

[BigMart]

Can't see why Sam fisher, an actual key defender couldnt play on him, has beaten him before....more important we address buddy, than have someone loose getting cheap kicks.....

Dempster has flogged rioli last two times we have played them....

[jays]

Need James back ASAP

[Sobraz]

I incorrectly thought this match up would work... Hoped for it before the match, and it eventuated...

I was wrong... I wasn't alone... A few things did go Buddy's way, but they often do when given so many opportunity to do as he wants... Franklin is comparatively weak overhead for a 6'6" player, yet looked like our Stewie when the high ball came in tonight... Just had that confidence that Dempster was no hope...

Poor match-up.. Should have been changed at 1/4 time...

Geary and Gilbo on Rioli couldnt do much tonight... Just one of those nights, he was hot...

[8856brother]

I guess Dempster was Dempstered.

[bergsone]

Gwilt to replace Fisher next week,get one back lose one.Not too sure who else we could have put on Buddy,maybe Gilbert,losing Fisher really seemed to open up our back half

[mad saint guy]

At the game I thought Denpster did an admirable job with very little support from other defenders. No one in the competition can stop Franklin when he is on fire and no one at St Kilda would have restricted him more.

Geary on Rioli is the matchup that really didn't work out and Watters should have made the switch earlier.

[therabbitinthehat]

Franklin was always going to be an issue, and I assume the plan was to have fisher double team him while playing the lose back - that fell apart when fish went off and the matchups should have been redone, probably gilbo to buddy and dempster onto rioli. Another option would have been to pull blake from ruck to go to buddy and rotate stanley and kosi in the ruck and use gilbo as a forward option. I just don't think Scotty reacted well enough tbh

[bergholt]

Silvani at Freo? Can't get a game??

he's pretty much exactly the same size as simpkin - which is to say, a bit too small for key defence.

[saintsRrising]

Agree we could have had other match-ups.

But what lost us the game were all the soft-turnovers by our players, with the Hawks often rebounding for goal.

ie Game live...Blake takes a good mark...but then handballs straight to a Hawk...rebound fora goal...and then another within a minute. It was crap play like that that let Hawks into the game and then played them on the ball. Crap play like that also meant that Buddy and Rioli were in the clear.

Way too many such incidents from just inexcusably sloppy ball use.

[SainterK]

Wasn't much that could be done.

Both players had the heat on them this week, they were always going to come out like they did at some point, you could tell especially how the Hawks boys got around Cyril that he must of been feeling it.

[maverick]

At the game I thought Denpster did an admirable job with very little support from other defenders. No one in the competition can stop Franklin when he is on fire and no one at St Kilda would have restricted him more.

Geary on Rioli is the matchup that really didn't work out and Watters should have made the switch earlier.

Me too on buddy, it wasn't the reason we lost.
Fisher cant run with him.

Geary on Cyril was a poor matchup.

[BigMart]

Other teams strategised well lately.... We allowed the to be one out....

Dempster..... A better match for Cyril

Fisher ...... With buddy, with assistance from Goddard/Gilbert as third up when possible

[maverick]

Dempster on Cyril is probably a good match up, a younger Blake could have played on buddy, maybe Simpkin with fisher and bj chopping out?

[mr six o'clock]

Our backline wasn't that bad , we were smashed in the centre , only lenny and jack could hold their heads high there .
So there forward line saw plenty of the ball . the free kicks they got inside fifty as well as the fifty metre penalty's also helped !
How many frees inside fifty and fifty metre penalty's did we get ?
Franklin only really got on top once fisher was out !

[dragit]

Lucky we kept Ray, Peake, Polo & Clarke instead of Dawson

[Toy Saint]

Sam Gilbert has the agility to go with Buddy, and is quite strong overhead

[bendigo bob]

Franklin was always going to be an issue, and I assume the plan was to have fisher double team him while playing the lose back - that fell apart when fish went off and the matchups should have been redone, probably gilbo to buddy and dempster onto rioli. Another option would have been to pull blake from ruck to go to buddy and rotate stanley and kosi in the ruck and use gilbo as a forward option. I just don't think Scotty reacted well enough tbh

Surely you can't be serious about playing Gilbert on buddy!!! Gilbert should be playing for sandy next week. He is a very poor imitation of the bloke who played for us in 2009 and 2010. Others could/should be joining him ie dal, Joey, gram. Even bj needs a good kick up the backside. Give us a few more kids like simpkin. He may not be the most skilled in the team but does the boy have some ticker. He is not afraid to put his head over the ball or take on a rampaging buddy like he did in the last quarter

[therabbitinthehat]

Franklin was always going to be an issue, and I assume the plan was to have fisher double team him while playing the lose back - that fell apart when fish went off and the matchups should have been redone, probably gilbo to buddy and dempster onto rioli. Another option would have been to pull blake from ruck to go to buddy and rotate stanley and kosi in the ruck and use gilbo as a forward option. I just don't think Scotty reacted well enough tbh

Surely you can't be serious about playing Gilbert on buddy!!! Gilbert should be playing for sandy next week. He is a very poor imitation of the bloke who played for us in 2009 and 2010. Others could/should be joining him ie dal, Joey, gram. Even bj needs a good kick up the backside. Give us a few more kids like simpkin. He may not be the most skilled in the team but does the boy have some ticker. He is not afraid to put his head over the ball or take on a rampaging buddy like he did in the last quarter

I can only go with what we had available on the ground, and while I agree that all players you mention need a good kick up the backside, even playing at 50% most are better than what we have to replace them currently. I think Simpkin probably had his best game for us yet, but had no chance in curbing Franklin who demonstrated a few times just how strong he is - maybe in a year or 2 Simpkin could match it with him physically, but not yet. So, as I said, as bad as gilbo is at the moment, he was probably a better choice to go with Franklin and at least force a contest than Dempster who was out-muscled, outmaneuvered and clearly outmatched for height. Keeping all that in mind, I think Dempster did everything he could do, it was just an insane role to give him and the experiment should have been stopped at half time when it was obvious it had failed.

[kalsaint]

Sam Gilbert has the agility to go with Buddy, and is quite strong overhead

Gilbert does have defensive attributes but go with Buddy, I am not sure he would have done any better than Dempster. Fisher should have been on Buddy or perhaps Blake. The difference was the plentiful supply Buddy got from poor kicks and pressure applied from turnovers. Our kicking was just 2 levels lower than Hawthorns.

Our pressure around the packs was good. Hawthorn still managed to get clearances when they mattered and manufactured scores from forward pressure or rebounds from soft St. Kilda turnovers.

I love Lenny but his disposal by foot was terrible today. I counted at least 5 times in the second half alone where he just kicked straight to an Hawthorn player mostly when not under any real pressure. I also hate this part of Gilberts game too. Kick long Gilbert you turnovers will lessen and be less dangerous.

Hats off to Kosi and Jack. Great games from both of you. Huge effort by Nick and Goddard seems to have turned th corner. Nick's set shots for goal is still well below par. Maybe a moved down back running into the forward line is better than movement from pocket to pocket?

I dont understand why Wilkes didnt play today even if it was down back on Roughhead! Saad was enjoyable but we needed to ensure our clearances were going to pay dividends rather than invest in speed. This was a risk on selection in my opinion. We needed those who were strong enough to mark around the ground with some applied pressure. Team marking stat comparisons told that story.

When we moved the ball quickly we got goals and equalled the HAWKS method. Under pressure both sides' kicking struggled at times. We just continue to kept kicking to the opposition when clear. Turnovers from this generally provides a high % chance of goal against us because of the resultant spread of loose players.

Holding our feet immediately after contests was a problem today. Milera, Gilbert, Milne, Geary, Siposs, Blake and Joey all come to mind. There were too many times Hawks ran free with support due to this.

I cant dispute the effort today. We didnt protect the ball handler today enough. This had statrted to happen in other games this year but fell away a bit today. This is our only chance to get quality ball movement as any perceived pressure seems to leave us short of quality delivery to forwards at all experience levels of the team.

We are genuinely 40 points worse off than Hawthorn even with a few ins.