St Chris wrote:dragit wrote:… we beat carlton & essendon when everybody was beating them....
Carlton were 5 and 1 when we played them in Round 7....
Essendon were 10 and 3 and hadn't lost for a month....
I dont think either of them were travelling too badly when they played us.
I don't think we underachieved...I started the year without any expectation whatsoever because of all the uncertainty that comes with a new coach and a new coaching group. Personally, I felt that a mini rebuild was required for the Saints to be a top 4 club again, but I wanted the team and the club to aim high and if we could win enough games and be a top 6 contender, I thought that the core group had enough hunger for another tilt at a GF.
I guess I was optimistic and hoped like hell that most of our list would be injury free. The fact that our spine KPP copped 4 or 6 week layoffs really hurt us, and I think the playing group took a while to shake off the negativity surrounding the loss of Lyon and some of the medias perception of our closing premiership window had rubbed off. How could they escape Lyon's negativity about the 'end of an era' ramifications?
Most pundits and hotshot media types had us missing the 8 and after the disastrous start in Round 1, everyone was quick to write us off. The confidence of the group wasn't good with that round 1 defeat and their belief that the team could mount a challenge in 2012 took a massive blow.
We played 3 games in a row in April on the rock hard Etihad surface and lost to Freo in a tight match with some comical decisions in the last quarter and coincidentally...it was off a 6 day break. We took it up to the Hawks for 3 quarters even though we were severely undersized and had terrible match-ups down back. Up until some howlers from the umps and some magic from Cyril it was a tight contest.
We had to play Richmond off the back of three 6 day breaks in a row and 1 of those 6 day breaks involved a trip to Subiaco. The Tigers just pipped us at the post and they were in devastating form at the time, having beaten both Sydney and Hawthorn.
We played Adelaide coming off another 6 day break and TWO interstate trips in a row. Adelaide forward Tippett monstered us in the first half and in the end, Adelaide were lucky to hang on, as the Saints nearly came marching in like a freight train.
We could have built some momentum with victories against Adelaide and Richmond and we may not have had such a hard task if we'd gambled a bit throughout the middle parts of the year. The match committee and the leadership group should have made some calculated decisions and managed some of the players a bit better and demanded that they sit out against the likes of the Suns. Our strong percentage in the end won't count for anything if North, Geelong and Freo are ahead of us and in the 8.
Another close loss against a top 4 contender in Collingwood is evidence that we weren't far off from challenging for a top 6 spot.