How/Why did we win????

[starsign]

I'm exstatic that we WON!

and i agree with the poster who said that c/f our previous few weeks...
We did show more spirit.
We were more attacking.
We did dispose of the ball better.
We were more accountable.



but like Columbo....something bothers me....

cos I dont't think ....
We showed MORE spirit than the Tigers
we were MORE attacking than them
we disposed of the ball better ( maybe earlier in the game perhaps)
we were MORE accountable than the tigers

BUT and here's the conundrum....The Age is reporting us as losing Hard Ball Gets by 66-28 and we were plainly beaten in the hit-outs and clearances.

and the TV comentators were unanimous....in their opinion of our being smashed in the HBG's saying "no team EVER wins with those stats.....

SO how/why did we win ????

cos we simply kicked a Winning Score? or have I missed something vital?

[joffaboy]

17.8

People have whinged about our poor kicking, so when we get it right people need to whinge about something else.

We were harder at it in the second half. Not an opinion but the result speaks for itself.

In qtr 3 we had kicked 6 straight and were going away. Only thing that brought us back was Roo, and Goose going off in qtr 3, and then X and Bakes in qtr 4 (Goose was back on but wounded).

We then showed more passion than he Tigers who had a full team and should have steamrollered us, but players like Harvs and Kosi and Lenny, and Goose and Milney stood up and willed us over the line.

We have a badge over our heart. It was award to the team after winning a game with only 15 on the field.

Last night we showed that spirit.

Too bad more people cant get behind the team and support them and congratulate them for such a gutsy come from behind effort.

Not potting you, or your OP, I just think the players would ge pretty let down by the so called supporters on this forum after playing their guts out last night.

[OneEyedSainter77]

17.8

People have whinged about our poor kicking, so when we get it right people need to whinge about something else.

We were harder at it in the second half. Not an opinion but the result speaks for itself.

In qtr 3 we had kicked 6 straight and were going away. Only thing that brought us back was Roo, and Goose going off in qtr 3, and then X and Bakes in qtr 4 (Goose was back on but wounded).

We then showed more passion than he Tigers who had a full team and should have steamrollered us, but players like Harvs and Kosi and Lenny, and Goose and Milney stood up and willed us over the line.

We have a badge over our heart. It was award to the team after winning a game with only 15 on the field.

Last night we showed that spirit.

Too bad more people cant get behind the team and support them and congratulate them for such a gutsy come from behind effort.

Not potting you, or your OP, I just think the players would ge pretty let down by the so called supporters on this forum after playing their guts out last night.

Hammer nail head.

If we kick with this kind of accuracy every week, we will win more games than we lose - regardless of injuries.

[n1ck]

SO how/why did we win ????

cos we simply kicked a Winning Score?

Thats generally all you need to do...

[Teflon]

We won by 3 pts.

We won because an inexperienced side hasnt learnt to win yet.

We won because Richmond DOUBLED our error rate by foot and missed targets from which we scored easy goals.

Dont be lulled into some dreamworld that we had this "aura" that came out in the second half...the Tiges still had 2 chances to end the game in their favoutr and got robbed 14 seconds in the process deep in their fwd line.

As Nathan Brown said pon radio.....HUGE positives for Ricmond to take out of the game - they are finally moving in the right direction...when asked about St Kilda hsi reponse was "they are now where we are - MID TABLE"

Is that us going backwards? or just them getting better and us stagnating???????...I thinkl the latter which is why Lyon has to persist with some rotations of kids through NOW.

[The Doc]

Nice post and good thoughts, Joffa.

Some kids continuing to come through (Armitage, Geary, etc) would definitely be helpful - now and for the future.

[my les foote]

As Nathan Brown said pon radio.....HUGE positives for Ricmond to take out of the game - they are finally moving in the right direction...when asked about St Kilda hsi reponse was "they are now where we are - MID TABLE"

Thanks. I take all my advice on the relative merits of St.Kilda and Richmond from Nathan Brown

[BAM! (shhhh)]

Joffa summed it up nicely.

That game's a perfect example of why key indicators are less important that the scoreboard... play that game 10 times, lose the clearances, hard and loose ball like that each time, and the Tigers will win 9 of them.

Use the ball that well though, and you'll always be a chance.

[BakesFan]

It was a gutsy win and the Saints players deserve the kudos. Well done, boys!!

Richmond are a vastly improved outfit. They got to within 12 points of the Hawks for goodness sake.
The Tigers would have be 'up' for this game. Wallet would have been in their heads about losing the last 9 straight to us, it's the Tiges turn to give it back, blah,blah,blah.
We'll now it's 10 straight against the Tiges and we did it without our Captain after midway through the 3rd and without a bench for the last quarter.

That win was the most enjoyable of the season for me. Our boys showed more in that game than any other to date.
Milney was superb and I forgave his frees against immediately, because it was obvious he'd come to play. I really hope he can maintain that level of endeavour.

To me the areas we're lacking in is confidence (the day I see Raph backing himself, rather than constantly hesitating, is the day I'll know we're playing well) and tackling (we're just not 'sticking' enough of them. Opposition players shrug our blokes off too easily). Once we get those two things right, we'll be close to our best.
I'm still confident we can make the 8 (we're 5th at the moment and not playing well), get our mojo on and give the Finals a really good shake.

GO SAINTS!!!!!!!

[starsign]

Not potting you, or your OP, I just think the players would ge pretty let down by the so called supporters on this forum after playing their guts out last night.

thanks Joffa, excellent post
My OP was from a Devils Advocate stand point , and was hoping to also draw some comment from those who continued to post last week with the theme that the Tigers were crap and we would slaughter them, on current form, so drop many of our underperforming stars in favour of more inexeperienced youngsters


it was certainly a gutsy win, and Tim Lanes explanation of our club badge was very appropriate I recon

[saintsRrising]

In many ways.....the Saints (and our opponents) were the reverse of ourselves in the Cats v Saints game.

In that match we smashed the Cats in clerances and on the ball....but the Cat's were cleaner around the ground and more accurate at goal.


Both matches highlight the importance of minimising your mistakes.

[Teflon]

As Nathan Brown said pon radio.....HUGE positives for Ricmond to take out of the game - they are finally moving in the right direction...when asked about St Kilda hsi reponse was "they are now where we are - MID TABLE"

Thanks. I take all my advice on the relative merits of St.Kilda and Richmond from Nathan Brown

Id think a 3pt margin where we were smashed in all areas and got lucky in the end suggests hes not far off the mark. Good choice for your advice Id say...

[my les foote]

Id think a 3pt margin where we were smashed in all areas and got lucky in the end suggests hes not far off the mark. Good choice for your advice Id say...

If we got smashed in all areas and we won the game, I'd suggest you are looking in the wrong areas. I find that Goals, Behinds and especially total Points are a good indicator.

And yes Richmond were unlucky in the last few minutes. But the game is played over 2 hours. We had posters, we had frees given against us that nobody can explain (Simmonds goal) we missed easy set shots in the last quarter, we had three players go off with injury including our best player.

[starsign]

thanks sRs for such good insight
I think that throws a bit of light on the subject!

and Nathan Brown is probably pretty near the mark at this paticular point in time ....but ....one would like to think we have the cattle to outperform his mob if we can play to our known capability, and often just 1 week is a long time in footy


and sometimes a gutsy win like ours can just be the catalyst needed to go on to greater things, whereby the converse could easily apply to the Tigers....Witness Freo who shoulda/coulda beaten the Cats then come out and roll over to the 6-0 Dees!
The other thing being x factor fluctuations in form from week to week than can occur with teams.seemingly out of the blue.. Freo again
The thing about bringing the A grade game with one week, then not the next and the concepts that that involves is intreging

[happy feet]

Any sporting success is a difficult mix to try to measure. It takes alot of skills, talent, planning, luck and a bloody lot of determination to make a success in any sports arena. Combine these into a team element and the combination of elements is also multiplied. All of our players have somehow got what it takes to get to a senior AFL list - individually. Now what is needed is that they need to gel as a team. Great teams of the past have continually seen individuals put in over and above their own personal ability on a week to week basis. Look at Paul Kelly when he was at the Swans. Week in and week out played courageous and fearless footy, and stamped his hallmark at the Swans of the expected behaviour. I think we are starting just to see that now at the Saints post Grant Thomas. The rev up by Nick Riewoldt re the aging stars, Milnes comments about having to lift. You add these signs together and string a few consecutive wins and all of a sudden the team starts to operate on a basis where they are afraid of losing and will do anything to perpetuate the winning streak. Look at Geelong, this is where they are now at. Where were we in '97 - i think we had 5 losses in a row and got through to the GF. We need to change adversity by self determined inner strength, as a team, and develop a mental attitude to win at all costs. I think this is starting to happen, and it must come from only one source and nobody else - the players themselves.

[Teflon]

Id think a 3pt margin where we were smashed in all areas and got lucky in the end suggests hes not far off the mark. Good choice for your advice Id say...

If we got smashed in all areas and we won the game, I'd suggest you are looking in the wrong areas. I find that Goals, Behinds and especially total Points are a good indicator.

And yes Richmond were unlucky in the last few minutes. But the game is played over 2 hours. We had posters, we had frees given against us that nobody can explain (Simmonds goal) we missed easy set shots in the last quarter, we had three players go off with injury including our best player.

Turn it up FFS.

I mean what football supporter who watched that game doesnt realise that we didnt win it - Richmond lost it FFS.

Did we have the same turn over stats that resulted in direct goals Richmond did?...

Nup.

Nice to believe that "the boys" came together in the last and we simply outmuiscled the Tigers.......while you there you might want to suggest Geelong were lucky to get away with the points against us just scraping in to smash us by a lazy 7 goals.

We got lucky against Tigers - yes we hung on and played with an undermaned side in the end - but Richmond AND Richardson played all over us. What we need to do IMO is learn from it fast - the so called once weaker teams are getting better fast and we cant stand still.

[Dazvolt]

The better team on the night lost the game which doesn't often happen in afl footy. Milney won us that game with his effort.

Their is also an argument to suggest that Richmond disposal in the 1st half cost them.

Most pleasing thing is that we won playing 2 short for most of the 2nd half which does show the effort and hardness at the contest was fantastic. No suprise that the tiges had a number of chances late in the game to win when our boys ran out of legs.

[GRAMophone]

I can't quite work out how we won in some ways but could see the sheer determination of our boys to fight it out in the second half got us over the line.

One of the players was quoted [for memory] in the Hun on Monday as saying that Lyon implored them at half time to lift their game so that the year was 'not wasted' for two of the legends of our club. Harves and Fraser.

[my les foote]

Turn it up FFS.

I mean what football supporter who watched that game doesnt realise that we didnt win it - Richmond lost it FFS.

Any football supporter who only watched the last five minutes.

[Teflon]

Turn it up FFS.

I mean what football supporter who watched that game doesnt realise that we didnt win it - Richmond lost it FFS.

Any football supporter who only watched the last five minutes.

Hows that Les?

Richmonds turn over were prevelant in the first and second qtrs?

Did you watch the game at all?

[my les foote]

I did watch it. I thought it was a great game of football. I'll gladly watch it again and keep a special eye out for turnovers.

But what ever the stats say, I thought it was a tremendous effort by the Saints to win a tight game with only one (maybe none?) fit players on the bench that shouldn't be trivialised by claims that the other team were much better on the night.

[my les foote]

Did we have the same turn over stats that resulted in direct goals Richmond did?...

Nup.

I suggest you watch the game again. Dal Santo's goal in the first quarter was directly from a turnover. After that, you'll be struggling to find one.

But just keep saying it, and maybe it will be true.