Rd 1 Saints v Suns - match thread

[the dome]

Listened to the 774 coverage with Burkey commentating.
It would have hurt to have gotten zero points.
Hoping today's 'thriller' helps the team stay in positive territory.


GO SAINTS

[WellardSaint]

The AFL App has the ranking on AFL Fantasy points as
J Steele...111
J Lonie......92
J Newnes..90
J Steven.....90

I think Lonie n Newnes did some very good work at times; the challenge is for them to be more consistent and do it against tougher teams than the Suns.

Steele got 10 tackles, so he's still the tackle king

[guitars4]

Delivery inside 50 is mostly putrid.

Pretty fair assessment IMO

[wasaintsfan]

So much negativity and unsure why? Some clear sign of improvements.. IE our score accuracy .. Decisions in tight contested games... Yes we made some stupid errors but was actually a solid win.. Round 1 is the most unpredictable round... Only team from last years top 4 to win was Richmond......

Yes there's a high probability that we won't win many this year but how good was it having Bruce back??? Or seeing Steven run around after doubts about even playing???

Parker was outstanding in debut and gave real flare.... Joyce and battle did well even completely undersized against their forward line...

Brown coming in can only be a positive. Great win and now it's pub time to celebrate... Because who's going to rubbish me in WA when the reigning premiers gave up a 4 goal lead to lose by 7 goals

[Enrico_Misso]

Delivery inside 50 is mostly putrid.

Pretty fair assessment IMO

Delivery was mostly good - most hit the oppostion one out in space.

[Otiman]

Q3 was telling for us, we got lazy, pressure reduced and kicks inside forward 50 were long bombs. We should have kicked away to a 5-6 goal lead at 3qtr time but didn't.

Dunstan's 4th quarter was good when he needed to be. First three not so great.

Long was good until a few things went against him and he let them get to him.

Joyce was good in the scheme of the 4 quarters, but struggled in Q1.

Gresham great through the midfield

Our loose ball collects and intercepts, as well as our quick ball movement in packs is key to our success this year.

Pierce v Marshall - hard to say how Marshall would have fared in the same situation.

Umpire decisions are out of our control, but we definitely dropped our pressure game when decisions started going the other way.

[DJ Higgins]

F#$k Lonie

Wow 22 possessions not enough for you

Easily keeps his position

I love his work up and down the ground

You need to actually watch the game

I was at the game and I watched it big time. Lonie does do some good things which I commented on but he also did some shocking things. He kicked Ag great goal from a tight angle but he also got a free from just outside 50 kicked it to a suns player who luckily dropped the mark and 10 seconds later it landed back in lonies hands from the same spot who then kicked it out.

Match the time of his error with my comment and you will see a poor piece of play

[guitars4]

We won, but nothing to get excited about in regards to the season.

Could not agree more. A wins a win but to fall over the line against an undermanned Gold Coast at home is hardly going to push membership numbers through the roof but as I said a wins a win so I suppose we should enjoy it while we can because they might be few & far between judging on today's performance IMO

[Aussie Jonestown]

Every win is a good win. 3 on the trot. Need to play much better throughout the year though.

I think we lost in Rd 23 v North?

Or are we counting JLT now?

4 if you include the Intraclub win.

lol
Win Win Win Win
On a roll

[tedtheodorelogan2018]

Luke Dunstan take a bow.

Selfless act. Big tick. It just shows you can still influence the game if not playing that well. Well done Luke.

[WellardSaint]

Dean Kent got less than 14 touches, but I hope he stays next week.
He does some very good work.
We need to give him time to develop, I think he only played 7 games last year.

[SAINT-LEE]

So much negativity and unsure why? Some clear sign of improvements.. IE our score accuracy ....

So you don't count 3 shots on goal that went out on the full...which is insipid.

[The_Dud]

Umpires have kept GC in the game blatant cheating that is obvious.

Wrong.

Umpiring has been fine.

Rubbish don't know how you can say that

Swings and roundabouts.

I’d rather talk about footy than whinge about umpiring.

Not much difference on the whinge factor - 23 of your last 25 posts were whinges about the saints. If I went back weeks it would still run at 90% anti saints. You must hate them.

Just quickly looking at this thread alone, I posted 21 times with only 8 being negative about the Saints or the actions of a Saints player.

So let’s just say your post is about as accurate as a one-eyed supporters opinion on umpiring...

[The_Dud]

So much negativity and unsure why? Some clear sign of improvements.. IE our score accuracy ....

So you don't count 3 shots on goal that went out on the full...which is insipid.

True, but if included we still kicked at above 50% which is a positive!

[tedtheodorelogan2018]

Dean Kent got less than 14 touches, but I hope he stays next week.
He does some very good work.
We need to give him time to develop, I think he only played 7 games last year.

He played a planned negating role on Harbrow too remember.

[GilsAuPair]

I quite liked Kent's game. At least he has a nice kicking technique.
Seems to know what he is doing.

[GilsAuPair]

Dean Kent got less than 14 touches, but I hope he stays next week.
He does some very good work.
We need to give him time to develop, I think he only played 7 games last year.

He played a planned negating role on Harbrow too remember.

Fair point
Harbrow usually plays well against us.
Today he did bugger all. Barely sighted.

[shrodes]

Dean Kent got less than 14 touches, but I hope he stays next week.
He does some very good work.
We need to give him time to develop, I think he only played 7 games last year.

Haven't seen the last half yet, but heard he was doing a run with job on Harbrow and keeping him very quiet, so that probably explains the low numbers.

[twirlyhair]

Much improved game plan compared to the we want to defend like the swans experimental season last year. Brown as FB is a big inclusion next week. Sure we faded, but Def. Headed in the right direction.

[The_Dud]

And with a 1 point win I don’t think I’ll even be able to brag that we’re in the 8 for a week!

[MC Gusto]

Only thing we can take from This game is the bombers getting pumped. Nothing makes me happier!

[kosifantutti]

Umpires have kept GC in the game blatant cheating that is obvious.

Wrong.

Umpiring has been fine.

Rubbish don't know how you can say that

Swings and roundabouts.

I’d rather talk about footy than whinge about umpiring.

Not much difference on the whinge factor - 23 of your last 25 posts were whinges about the saints. If I went back weeks it would still run at 90% anti saints. You must hate them.

Just quickly looking at this thread alone, I posted 21 times with only 8 being negative about the Saints or the actions of a Saints player.

So let’s just say your post is about as accurate as a one-eyed supporters opinion on umpiring...

So that leaves 13 complaining about people complaining about the umpires.

[Scollop]

Much improved game plan compared to the we want to defend like the swans experimental season last year. Brown as FB is a big inclusion next week. Sure we faded, but Def. Headed in the right direction.

Who is Brown going to line up on? He isn't a match for Stewart or for Stringer

Let's develop our young team. I'd give Joyce a go on one of those blokes and play Battle on the other.

They have McKernan and Bellchambers so we need to play both Marshall and Pierce. Having Brown as well makes us too top heavy imo.

Can the coach make a statement or will he go the conservative short term option and play Brown at FB?

[Linton Lodger]

The game was always going to be scrappy thanks to the idiotic decision to keep the roof open. Players had the sun in their eyes often and it caused many of the skill errors.

GC were well drilled defensively, getting a lot of numbers to the ball and beat us in the middle. It started from the dominance of Witts (BOG) and we had a few mids down. Dunstan & Ross were terrible, Gresh was quiet and Jack Steven a bit underdone.

We were undermanned down back and our back 6 struggled. Our gameplan needs 3 mobile tall forwards, given the absence of McCartin, Battle has to go forward. Perhaps with Brown back next week that can happen.

The unpiring was disgracefully inept and GC had the rub of the green there.

Nothing much turned on the Coaching, you don't beat the tactics GC employed well, with tactics. You beat them by winning the one on one contests. We didn't work quite hard enough, too many skill areas and some poor decisions. It was a consistent effort across the board from GC we had at least 3 players who were simply sub-par: Dunstan, Savage and Ross. Lewis Pierce had a lesson from a bigger more experienced ruckman. Aside from that, everyone else were decent to very good.

I'm happy to take the 4 points.

[tony74]

When you look at results in Round 1 there’s always a lot of uncertainties and weird results. When you wake up in the morning and check your back pocket you’ll find 4 pts. All that matters .