Match thread vs West Coast.

[battye]

I was able to go to this match
Even though the score line was very disappointing, as there was nothing on the line it was still nice to see the Saints play live as I haven't had the chance in about 6 years!

Here are some photos from the match; I thought the Fremantle kids giving the Saints a guard of honour (second photo) was pretty funny

[defacto]

We're in for a tough year.

WCE were at 60% and dominated us. They were missing their all Australian full back glass. They were missing their CHF kennedy. They were missing embley and hurn. Hurn is a very underrated player who kicks goals outside 50 like gram an is very good at directing play outside their back half like fish.

We got smashed in the ruck. We got smashed down back. Wilkes doesn't have the fitness to run out a game. Simpkin needs time.

Our kicking was atrocious and we still cannot take a contested mark.

We've gone to the well too many times. The rebuild and slide has started.

[clarky449]

Of Course we are in for a tough Year. If we arent in the running midway through the season we need to think strongly/harshly about the future.

[sasaint]

Lesson learnt from tonight. Every opposition will run two rucks against us. We have no answer to that.

[avid]

dwayne russell is UNBEARABLE

Why? Because he is stating facts? Would you rather he lie?

Chaos Ball

I thought the "chaos ball" call was great -- never heard it before -- sounded spontaneous.
It made perfect sense in the circumstance -- it worked for the Weagles -- they got a goal out of it.

[Con Gorozidis]

Of Course we are in for a tough Year. If we arent in the running midway through the season we need to think strongly/harshly about the future.

i said last year (and was almost hung) and ill say it again. if ur not in top 6 at round 12 - go the TANK

[kosifantutti]

Of Course we are in for a tough Year. If we arent in the running midway through the season we need to think strongly/harshly about the future.

i said last year (and was almost hung) and ill say it again. if ur not in top 6 at round 12 - go the TANK

We should have done it in 2005. Losing every game would have been much more fun than storming home, beating the Crows in a final over there and having a genuine shot at the flag.

[samuraisaint]

I am not worried and I think a lot of people on this forum are forgetting a couple of things:
1) A lot of our senior players were having their first hit out - it was all about getting minutes into the players
2) It was hot out there. Hot!
3) Last time I checked practice games are for trying things out.
4.) West Coast are pretty handy - especially at home.

I think our defence was always going to be an issue this year. We haven't had to worry about defensive pressure for quite some time, but we now need to develop a new backline. It will improve if/when two things happen. Kosi to CHB and Gwilt returning. Last night really means jack. We have Collingwood next week who have their own issues and I think this will be a much more realistic barometer of where we are sitting right now.
FWIW I always thought we were going to be a slow burn this year.

[ace]

Sounds like Mac was but has dragged himself back onto the ground. We need to win this if we are serious about 2012.

Not serious about 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, ......... 2020 ..... 2030 ......
Then our No 1 draft picks may start to help out.

My grave will be dug up by archeologists before our next premiership.

[borderbarry]

I thought Stanley was our best big man last night. And it did show that we missed out on a decent hit-out last week, although it did'nt effect the bombers. We might suffer as a result of injuries suffered though. And we had four at Sandringham.

[perfectionist]

...My grave will be dug up by archeologists before our next premiership.

If it is to be a prerequisite, please leave plenty of clues so the sake of the younger generation.

Jack Steven (our Dane Swan) played well. One kick. The same as David Armitage, but at least he disposes to a teammate.

[saintDal]

I am not worried and I think a lot of people on this forum are forgetting a couple of things:
1) A lot of our senior players were having their first hit out - it was all about getting minutes into the players
2) It was hot out there. Hot!
3) Last time I checked practice games are for trying things out.
4.) West Coast are pretty handy - especially at home.

I think our defence was always going to be an issue this year. We haven't had to worry about defensive pressure for quite some time, but we now need to develop a new backline. It will improve if/when two things happen. Kosi to CHB and Gwilt returning. Last night really means jack. We have Collingwood next week who have their own issues and I think this will be a much more realistic barometer of where we are sitting right now.
FWIW I always thought we were going to be a slow burn this year.

5.) On top of West Coast playing at home, they have also been training in these conditions and are much more used to it.

[The Bluff]

gees surprised some are writing off the season already! We were always going to struggle with the travelling we had done in the last week compared to WCE who haven't left Perth.

I was at the game and thought there were a few positives, Stanley looked quite good, WCE supporters around us were all asking who he was. Simpkin looked good in the backline and Tommy Ledger looks ready to play reguarly. My concern is the forward line wasn't functioning which seemed to be our biggest problem last year. Perhaps Beau Wilkes needs to play forward.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

Considering we are missing only one of our best 20 and West Coast are missing 8 or their best 15 or 16 or so, this is a very ordinary performance. We're getting pansed. Cox, Natanui and Darling are beating us on their own. I hope it's the heat that's largely contributing to our poor performance, because otherwise we have a massive amount to do by round one and only one more match to do it in.

Oh dear.

You're all stressing about practice match form.

This is funny!

Don't you remember in 2009 where our praccy match form was crap then won 20 straight.

I'm not stressing, I'm just stating the facts (that we took a full strength team over and got smashed by their half strength team, who, I'm pretty sure were also only playing a "practice match") and saying that we need to improve in a lot of areas in a very short period of time, which I dare say Watters would also agree with. I don't think he would have gone over there expecting us to be so ordinary and get so badly outplayed by such an understrength team, heat or not. And I do remember our 2009 preseason form, but do you not remember our form from this time last year?

This time last year many were concerned about how we were travelling, but then others came on here like you are now and said "it's only praccy matches, they mean nothing blah blah blah", but it turned out that those concerns were justified, because they were a true reflection of where we were at and we took that poor form into the season proper and started horribly. I remember Lyon even saying, with a week or so left of the pre-season last year, that he was concerned with how we were travelling, so it can be very much an indication of how you'll start the season. As it also was in 2004 for instance, when we won the pre-season comp and then won the first 10 games of the season proper, by an average of 10 goals a game.

So I realise full-well it can go either way and that we also still have a couple of weeks to work on it, which is why I'm not stressing, but considering we got really badly outplayed by Sydney as well (another game I don't believe we wanted to lose/get outplayed by so much, in such a short space of time, especially as we had a strong team in), it does not suggest that we've gotten anywhere near accustomed to the new game plan yet, with just one more game till the season starts (or that we are travelling as well as we'd want to be). Unless, as I said, the heat was a major, major factor, that affected us far more than it did them, which could certainly have been the case. I just get the feeling we're going to need that relatively "easy" draw to start our season.

I am not worried and I think a lot of people on this forum are forgetting a couple of things:
1) A lot of our senior players were having their first hit out - it was all about getting minutes into the players

Really, you consider two "a lot", as we only had two that played last night who didn't play round one?

[Teflon]

What's wrong up fwd FFS

I mean each time we play without Riewoldt up fwd we do better??

[asiu]

.more than a fair observation.

[defacto]

What's wrong up fwd FFS

I mean each time we play without Riewoldt up fwd we do better??

i think the difference was WCE's forwards were very good at taking a contested mark. our players cant take one to save their lives.

they were also very good at hitting up a leading fwd. we werent.

[Leo.J]

NAB CUP
38 degrees
Nothing to gain except for injuries.

GET A GRIP PEOPLE!!!

It's like putting a book down after the first page and saying it's crap.

That was a our 2nd hitout for the year with a new game plan!

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

Some books are crap and you'll know it after one page. Not everyone needs to read a book all the way through, or a lot of the way through to know for sure if it's crap, or not something they'll want to read.

And this "nothing to gain from pre-season games" attitude is rubbish. There is in fact an area in between "nothing" and "everything" and pre-season games fall somewhere in there. You can gain essential match fitness, you can get more used to a game plan (especially a new one), you can try different things to see how they work, the newer members of the team can gain confidence and get used to playing at the higher, faster level, without having to do so with premiership points on the line and so on. There are plenty of things to gain, for those that see everything as an opportunity to better themselves and move forward. Teams that haven't won much in recent times also use them as an opportunity to get used to actually winning a match, which can become a habit. Apparently West Coast are one team doing that, wanting to build a "winning culture", according to what one of them said when interviewed after the match last night.

If your attitude was correct, then if there were no "compulsory" pre-season matches, no club would play a single game before round one, because there would be "nothing to gain" from them, but I guarantee you they would organise games amongst themselves, if the AFL didn't organise them for them. I hear that a couple of clubs even did this a couple of weeks ago, on top of the NAB Cup matches they were to play and I'm pretty confident they didn't do that because there was "nothing to gain" from doing so. I'm sure they just did it to waste their time and energy.

Geelong got smashed today.

Yes they did and this is what Chris Scott had to say about it: "It is hard to assess, but we're not happy," he said.

"We didn't come just to get a bit of match practice and not worry about the result. We expected to play better, the opposition were very good.

"We were poor, they were good.

"I would hate any of our players or coaching staff to think that it just doesn't matter because we wanted to play well and we played poorly, so that's a concern.

"You do need to be careful not to read too much into it, I'm not standing here devastated, but the competitor in me and the boys should be a little bit stunned because we want to play better than that."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/r ... 6295788978

And that's the thing. As far as I'm concerned, poor pre-season matches are only a concern if you went out there meaning to play well and be competitive and weren't. Geelong obviously did yesterday and that is why Scott was so unhappy. At least in their case they didn't have 9 of their premiership team out there, while Richmond were reportedly only missing Delidio, though.
I have no idea whether we went over there looking to play well and be competitive, but if we did, then that is a concern, because we were simply very, very poor and were not really very competitive, against the West Coast B-side, with a few of their A-side thrown in. If they had been as full-strength as us, it would have probably been an incredible thumping.

And even though we got some cheap goals in the last quarter, after WC had subbed off three of their few "stars" at 3/4 time, we still only managed to score 52 points (albeit in a shortened match), which is a sign that we still have much to work on in that regard.

The heat and our lack of fitness and match fitness were obviously factors, but I think we just have an awful lot to work on in the next few weeks. I fully expect we will and hopefully we'll hit the ground running, but we really do look to be coming from a fair way back. That's all I'm personally saying.

[spert]

If you take that game as any indication of form, forget it. The season is long and with a few more hitouts under our belts, and the players settling down a bit, I expect we will be a pretty good unit when the season proper gets underway.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

A few more hitouts before the season proper gets underway? According to this article, we have just the one more: http://www.sportal.com.au/afl-news-disp ... fit-165756

It looks like we're going to have to do most of it on the training track. Maybe yet another intraclub match will be required.
Was glad to see him say that we ran out of gas, as that is something we can definitely work on leading up to R1.

[Old Mate]

Need to chill the blues, pies and cats were hammered over the weekend are we writing them off as well?

[clarky449]

Need to chill the blues, pies and cats were hammered over the weekend are we writing them off as well?

They have more upside to us.

[maxdis 42]

I was at the game...and it was hot even in the shade...Went with a mate who's an eagle supporter...and he commented that he was impressed with us...definately a new game stlye...more attack..and was impressed with our young guys..i dont think its all doom and gloom...good signs...if we get it right and peak at the right time anything is possible...
On anther note kudos to the Saints trainers who were on hand straight up when Eric MacKenzie decided to header the ball out...and was KO...great work!!

[Moorabbin Man]

Considering we are missing only one of our best 20 and West Coast are missing 8 or their best 15 or 16 or so, this is a very ordinary performance. We're getting pansed. Cox, Natanui and Darling are beating us on their own. I hope it's the heat that's largely contributing to our poor performance, because otherwise we have a massive amount to do by round one and only one more match to do it in.

Oh dear.

You're all stressing about practice match form.

This is funny!

Don't you remember in 2009 where our praccy match form was crap then won 20 straight.

I'm not stressing, I'm just stating the facts (that we took a full strength team over and got smashed by their half strength team, who, I'm pretty sure were also only playing a "practice match") and saying that we need to improve in a lot of areas in a very short period of time, which I dare say Watters would also agree with. I don't think he would have gone over there expecting us to be so ordinary and get so badly outplayed by such an understrength team, heat or not. And I do remember our 2009 preseason form, but do you not remember our form from this time last year?

This time last year many were concerned about how we were travelling, but then others came on here like you are now and said "it's only praccy matches, they mean nothing blah blah blah", but it turned out that those concerns were justified, because they were a true reflection of where we were at and we took that poor form into the season proper and started horribly. I remember Lyon even saying, with a week or so left of the pre-season last year, that he was concerned with how we were travelling, so it can be very much an indication of how you'll start the season. As it also was in 2004 for instance, when we won the pre-season comp and then won the first 10 games of the season proper, by an average of 10 goals a game.

So I realise full-well it can go either way and that we also still have a couple of weeks to work on it, which is why I'm not stressing, but considering we got really badly outplayed by Sydney as well (another game I don't believe we wanted to lose/get outplayed by so much, in such a short space of time, especially as we had a strong team in), it does not suggest that we've gotten anywhere near accustomed to the new game plan yet, with just one more game till the season starts (or that we are travelling as well as we'd want to be). Unless, as I said, the heat was a major, major factor, that affected us far more than it did them, which could certainly have been the case. I just get the feeling we're going to need that relatively "easy" draw to start our season.

I am not worried and I think a lot of people on this forum are forgetting a couple of things:
1) A lot of our senior players were having their first hit out - it was all about getting minutes into the players

Really, you consider two "a lot", as we only had two that played last night who didn't play round one?

AND A CLOSE TO FULL STRENGTH GEELONG WERE SMASHED BY RICHMOND AT HOME, CARLTON GOT TOUCHED UP BY BRISBANE AND COLLINGWOOD GOT SMACKED. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? NOTHING.