In Search Of A Silver Lining

[damienc]

At the risk of stating the obvious, our start to 2024 has not been great. And for all supporters that is frustrating.

Does it mean we are staring down the barrel of yet another forgettable year for this football club? No. Way too early to tell.

There are excuses for one win from three games. There are always excuses and I’m not saying those excuses aren’t valid.

We are missing important players through injury and suspension and at least one who is almost certain to be a very important player in the future.

Injuries are a fact of life. Every club has them. Good players go down. The good clubs have a list strong enough to cover those inevitable losses. I’m not sure in fact I am sure we are not one of those clubs. Yet.

But we are getting there. The two losses were both close games that could have gone either way. So that is cause for optimism.

The pessimist in me obsesses about our obvious weaknesses that reveal themselves regularly. We ask too much of Rohan Marshall. Mitch Owen is not a ruckman and we have no one to give us consistent first use at stoppages. It isn’t a new problem. We just haven’t fixed the problem.

To allow Nic Martin to gather 44 possessions is unforgivable. It’s a mystery to me why steps were not taken to curb his influence.

This weakness at stoppages is the elephant in the room. It will put us at a permanent disadvantage as this year progresses.

Here’s what I don’t understand.

Despite everything against us we’ve still been competitive even though results did not fall our way in two tight ones.

We’re playing kids who need time to develop. And their form is going to be up and down for that reason.

Patience is required especially for those of us who have it in short supply.

So my take is the club must keep doing what they’ve been doing. Show faith in youth, try to get better as a team ,address our weaknesses as best we can.

On a brighter note, Lance Collard played a blinder in the twos. Garcia was up and about and it was pleasing to see Jack Hayes put in some game time after his bad luck with injury.

[Yorkeys]

Meanwhile our rivals for limited positions in the 8 have improved to go past us.
Composure near goal is non existent.
Coaching seems to be second guessing itself.
We play Butlers instead of Collards.
Have been unable to harness Pou's talents.
Keep giving Bonner kickouts despite all evidence that’s shooting yourself in the foot.
The side representing this time last year would beat Saturdays side by 50 points.
Seems coaches and leaders just can't harness the list talent and are well behind the curve.
If you can't take chances no amount of post mortem or wishing or invoking bad luck is going to change the ladder. The non or spasmodic contributors are going to drag our few elite players down unless selectors get ruthless and coaches can instil more smarts and discipline. In the last quarter the forwards broke and ran. And it was so close, just one less brain fade.

[Otiman]

The silver lining is the players still to come into the side.

Missing:
Full Back
Full Forward
2nd best Midfielder
Best lockdown small/medium Defender
2 recruits which will improve our best 22 (Dow, Henry)

Underdone:
Butler first game back
Steele sick all week

[meher baba]

Lots of silver lining in Saturday's performance. As I have posted elsewhere, we were clearly the better of the two teams and would have won comfortably if normally reliable players like Membrey and Sharman could have kicked straight from set shots.

Among the good things were:
- Phillipou, who I think had his best AFL game ever: it would seem that BJ's influence might be starting to rub off.
- Steele and Ross who are playing as well as I've ever seen them play
- our defence was heroic on Saturday: sure, Wilkie made a few uncharacteristic mistakes, but they stood up to almost unrelenting pressure for a very long time. Battle in particular is such a tough and strong player, what a gem. And I become more impressed with Stocker all the time.
- our opponents put a lot of work into NWM but, as the game went on, he was able to find ways of becoming much more involved, which is very encouraging for the future
- Sinclair played a little bit better in his second game back, but was still a long way short of his best. If he can lift in future games, our performance will improve: particularly in terms of escaping from our back half.
- our game plan and structure were really good IMOexcept for the bit where players were supposed to convert opportunities into goals

There are a few weak links in our team:
- Obviously it would be much better if Webster was there. Bonner is not that great, and I would hope that the club was seriously considering Schoenmaker for the next game. And Bonner wasn't all bad: he had a terrible first half, but improved a bit in the second.
- Byrnes concerns me. We all know that Ross loves players who run hard and give 150%, even if their skills aren't up to much: Clinton Jones was the quintessential example. But, in terms of skillls Byrnes makes Clinton Jones look like Nick Daicos. Most of his kicks either miss their target or loop up in the air so slowly that they bring the opposition into the game. His handpasses almost always seem to leave the recipient flat-footed. This has the effect of slowing down the rapid movement of the ball out of defence which - for as long as we don't have a set up that can win a lot of the ball out of the middle - is always going to be the key to our winning games. If we want to develop into a top team, I can't see a place for him going forward, but I doubt very much that Ross will agree.
- I also think Caminiti looked like a better fit on Saturday than either Sharman or Membrey. But Membrey is coming back from a tough time and has scope to improve a bit. I'm not so certain about Sharman.
- Owens. Really strong player, but what is his best position? I like him as backup ruckman and believe that he should spend more time in and around contests. He's not a full forward that's for sure, but he's got the potential to be one of those players who start in the middle and then move forward creating problems for the opposition. I suspect that this is how the coaches are trying to use him and the problem might be that he hasn't quite learned how to do it just yet. I'm not suggesting that he will ever be anywhere near as good a player as Petracca (although he conceivably might), but we should remember that it took Petracca a few seasons to learn to play the way he does now.
- the midfield: Steele and Ross are terrific, and I silll believe that Crouch will add a lot when he can come back. But Windhager wasn't anywhere near as good on Saturday as he was against the Pies. Jones showed a bit, as he always does, but there is a significant flaw in the way he plays. He can step around opponents better than most in the comp but, once he's done that, he doesn't time his disposal of the ball at all well, and his execution of handballs is often pretty poor: like Byrnes, he tends to deliver the ball to teammates when they are flat-footed. So what looks like the start of a dangerous attack often ends up with a successful tackle and a ball up or HTB decision. I think Jones has to stay for now for want of anyone to take his place. But we should have a serious look at Garcia: particularly next week in the absence of Windhager. Alas, knowing Ross, we might see Hastie start on the wing and Byrnes move back towards the middle.

Sorry I went on so long, but there was a lot to digest from Saturday. But the summary is that there are lots of good signs and a few things that need to be addressed, and probably can be. Except for the goalkicking: I really can't understand what went wrong with that on Saturday.
 

[1971]

Thank you Meher Baba I enjoy your views on the Saints.

[SaintPav]

In a word, the youf.

[Bruce G McAbee]

Well, seeing Sandringham have a big win with the same injury problems as our Firsts and Essendon having a lot less injuries.
To me, it says that maybe our depth is going to be a lot better than Essendon.
I expected us to finish as high as 6th and as low as 12th and we have a tough start to the season.
The next 2 weeks makes or breaks our season.

[Yorkeys]

Pou has a blinder in his own State.
Our brains trust makes some actually clever, astute moves ( come on guy, smarts!).
Players are so mortified by that collective debacle v Don's they crush a severely depleted Richmond.

[Otiman]

The next 2 weeks makes or breaks our season.

I don't think it makes it, but it certainly breaks it if we go 0-2.

[bobmurray]

Last round the Saints did their best to make Essendon look like a competent team, tonight Port are reminding everyone that the Bombers
are still shite, especially against a decent team it seems.

[Bruce G McAbee]

Last round the Saints did their best to make Essendon look like a competent team, tonight Port are reminding everyone that the Bombers
are still shite, especially against a decent team it seems.

The difference is that Port kicked their goals and broke the game open.
If we had done that last week we would have won by 5 goals.

[bobmurray]

Last round the Saints did their best to make Essendon look like a competent team, tonight Port are reminding everyone that the Bombers
are still shite, especially against a decent team it seems.

The difference is that Port kicked their goals and broke the game open.
If we had done that last week we would have won by 5 goals.

The old woulda, coulda, shoulda.

[The Fireman]

the bummers got done over easy...did we soften them up?

[B.M]

It just hammers home how fkd last week was!!!

[saintsRrising]

Dow and Henry were both meant improved our midfield this year. Henry showed he can. Dow is not yet in the team.

Crouch was good for our midfield last year, but started this year proppy, then got worse.

So our midfield is now worse that it was last year. Not better, though it may improve later in the year.

Sincs is still ramping up. Butler the same.

Throughout the team injuries and suspension have been hamstringing the team. So deeply that that we are not bringing in players just outside the best 22, but raw kids.

Last week we played 7 young players we have recruited over the last three years, and while this is good for the future, in the present it bad. Teams with a lot of young players tend to wilt, and make more mistakes. We saw that against the Dons. You see it with North, you saw it in GWS for many years despite the cream of raw young talent that both have. Now playing some kids is vital, but not all at once!

So at present we are missing key players, have a poor engine room, and have a lot of inexperienced players in the team
So that is our reality at present. A poor midfield and inexperience all over the ground.

I think we are going to continue to struggle this year until we get more key players back, and not only back, but match-practiced back.

The way it currently stands we are going to have to have a very good second half of the season in order to play finals. And yes we need Henry and Dow to be part of our midfield rotations.


PS: There can be a fine line at football. The way it stands at present if King and Webster had both not been suspended we could well have been sitting on 3 wins. Still not with the 22 as good as it needs to be, but at least with more wins in the bank. King owes us bigtime against the Tigers.

[Bruce G McAbee]

Last round the Saints did their best to make Essendon look like a competent team, tonight Port are reminding everyone that the Bombers
are still shite, especially against a decent team it seems.

The difference is that Port kicked their goals and broke the game open.
If we had done that last week we would have won by 5 goals.

The old woulda, coulda, shoulda.

True, but at half time Port actually had 1 less scoring shot than we did and Essendon were about the same score.
Difference, Port kicked 10.3 and we kicked 6.8.
We missed very gettable goals from set shots and it cost us and kept Essendon in the game.

[shrodes]

Silver lining... 3 losses, average losing margin 4.3 points. We're not playing anywhere near our best and we're still in games, and against a couple of good sides also (...and the Bombers, less said about that the better).

[The Fireman]

And the paper baggers lost a close one…

[Teflon]

Our back end draw looks better …8/9 at Marvel ??
Just have to stay close …3-4 by Rd 7 would take that