Team is Up

[Con Gorozidis]

we are going short. im genuinely surprised. not sure anyone picked that 22. wonder if archer will be a late call-in.

[Con Gorozidis]

No real surprises in that team IMO.

Gamble to debut for Saints against his old team, big game for him personally you'd think!

im surprised by the lack of surprises if u know what i mean.
im almost shocked. its like RL has a real thing about debuts and young players actually playing. cant believe we are going in so short with the samle old same olds. coach must have issues with stanley. hope stanley isnt his new armo. i.e "tough love".

[dcstkfc]

Bloody Peake!!

In his defence he was in our best in the final against Geelong, only 3 games ago.

[Junction Oval]

It's early days. Geelong are a big bodied, experienced team, so matching them in these areas is ok with me. It's also likely to be a wet track.

There is plenty of back-up, so a couple will have to perform on the night to retain their positions.

Can see a Clarke/Goddard or Gilbert positional swap.

Substitute - Peake?

[saintly]

Disappointed to see Peake in the side, he had an awesome prelim, but his two GF's were just embarrassing. Would much rather see a youngster, it's a shame Ledger got injured or he would probably have played. Steven should have been playing, were it not for his stupidity, Rhys would have at least been thereabouts...

Not a bad side to start out with, it still looks like a top 4 team with guys like Gardiner, Kosi, Schneider, Stanley, Steven and a couple of our other promising youngsters,

so were alot of blokes GF's and yet they are in. Roo in the 2nd GF, Mcqualter etc

[Con Gorozidis]

Week off at Sandy also - so no opportunity for Winmar, Stanley and Cripps to out their hand up for Round 2 which means the first weeks team will probably be the 2nd weeks team (injuries aside).

[suss]

There certainly haven't been significant personnel changes but I wonder if there will be structural changes on the night - as in, which defender will play forward?

And I wonder where Rhys Stanley is right now...I hope someone is kicking him in the ar@e, because he deserves it. Talk about blowing your opportunities.

[Solar]

we are going short. im genuinely surprised. not sure anyone picked that 22. wonder if archer will be a late call-in.

weather, weather, weather. If it looks like it will pour we will go in as selected otherwise the big lug gets a debut.

Shame smith can't do enough to push out peake. Cripps has a beauty against the swans so not suprised he is an emergency. Need to use the likes of dal and BJ down forward till we get stanly and kosi match fit.

Glad we are not taking lots of the naughty four into round 1. Make them force their way into.

Geelong are very weakened and no excuse. We should grind out a nice 30 point victory.

[WinnersOnly]

VFL Practice Matches (March 25/26)
FRIDAY MARCH 25
Coburg Tigers vs Werribee at Highgate Reserve,Craigieburn (Reserves 5pm,Seniors 7pm)
Williamstown Intra Club game at Whitten Oval 5:45pm

SATURDAY MARCH 26
Frankston vs Sandringham at Frankston (Reserves 11am,Seniors 2pm)
Casey Scorpions vs Port Melbourne at Casey Fields (Reserves 11am,Seniors 2pm)
North Ballarat vs Geelong at Eureka Stadium at 2pm

[3rd generation saint]

No Ling, Chapman and that other guy who use to wear 29 but went North is going to hurt them more than our missing players.
All I care about is winning and hopefully everybody plays a good game.
Starting too feel a little excited, bit like all of us, just want the happy ending this year.

[The Sainter]

Hey Ross. what about some help for our captain? Play Gilbert and Dal on both sides of him this year. Both are fine marks, Gilbert is tough and Dal is clever and a great ball handler. They will certainly kick goals if left there all season. Other teams cannot afford to have their opponents leave them to help out Roo's man if our captain is thrashing him. Gilbert showed in one quarter how Maxwell has trouble when he is on a good tough player.
Baker is past it. now, much too slow and poor overhead, and Macqualter would be lucky to get a game with any other team yet they both seem to be walk up starts for our team. Baker has been a great servant of the club but his best football is behind him.
If our coach is fair dinkum he must start making the hard calls.
This has to be our year and we won't do it with all the same old faces ( his favorites like the two mentioned) plus Kosi getting selected week after week despite poor form.

[Wrote for Luck]

It's a bit rough to criticise this team considering it got us to a drawn grand final and Armo and Gamble are ins. And with regards to Peake, we really need to develop this guy, he has speed, good hands, bit of bravery, and a penatrating kick. Essentially we need his pace this year and he has to be given a good go to develop his consistency.
Bloody hell (rolling eyes and shaking ones head)

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

It's a bit rough to criticise this team considering it got us to a drawn grand final and Armo and Gamble are ins. And with regards to Peake, we really need to develop this guy, he has speed, good hands, bit of bravery, and a penatrating kick. Essentially we need his pace this year and he has to be given a good go to develop his consistency.
Bloody hell (rolling eyes and shaking ones head)

The only problem is that it's no longer 2009 or 2010, yet we've picked the team as if it is.
If we think we're going to win the flag this year with basically the same team that has come up short the last two years we're going to need a miracle. Other sides will go past us (or further ahead of us, in Collingwood's case).
Collingwood and Hawthorn would be LOVING seeing the side we've named for this week. They'd be rubbing their hands together with glee.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

If our coach is fair dinkum he must start making the hard calls.

Exactly.

[BigMart]

Who mentioned a 'team of kids'

Been pumping up cripps all pre-season....put your money where your mouth is and pick him.....thats one kid!

Would cripps replacing mini, dempster or peake make that much of a difference....really....they are referred to as our weak bottom six for a reason........perhaps cripps, ledger, winmar could turn out to be our dayne beams, ryan bastinac or david zaharakis

[Mr Magic]

Week off at Sandy also - so no opportunity for Winmar, Stanley and Cripps to out their hand up for Round 2 which means the first weeks team will probably be the 2nd weeks team (injuries aside).

????
I believe Sandringham are playing a practice match against Frankston.

[BigMart]

We do have some youngsters though

Armo, mcevoy......

In stk terms they are youngsters........we should call them appretices

[Leo.J]

Footy is a tough game.

Funny thing is those same olds were a point away from being premiership players...

IMO the core of our list - who are why we have been top 4, 3 years running - have improvement in them.

Most good players, unless hampered by injury improve at different levels up until 27 - 28, then they plateau for a couple of years. Then they fizzle out unless they are special.

There are 5 guys in that team over 28, and 3 guys that have played under fifty games, the rest are either close to or in their prime.

Most clubs would love to be in that position, with such a large group of players at their prime.

IMO opinion there is enough improvement in our list of same olds to win a flag.

[MCG-Unit]

It's a bit rough to criticise this team considering it got us to a drawn grand final and Armo and Gamble are ins. With regards to Peake, we really need to develop this guy, he has speed, good hands, bit of bravery, and a penatrating kick. Essentially we need his pace this year and he has to be given a good go to develop his consistency.

Couldn't agree more - I've got a lot of time for Peake - looks like he might be one of the new whipping boys this year

[avid]

I'm a bit disappointed to see all of Peake, McQualter and Dempster in the team.
Particularly Dempster -- way WAY too defensive -- and the same for Mini. I can't see us winning a big game (as opp to not losing it) with both of them in it. I would like to get more into the attacking ,winning, habit, as prommised.

Peake, I'm afraid is just too much of a liability with the ball. Which he rarely finds.

Too stuck in our previous ways for me.

But we'll wait and see. Fingers Crossed!!

[goddardisgod]

We're playing Richmond next week. We also have a Sandringham game this week.

A selection of Archer, Stanley, Cripps, Geary, Winmar, Smith, Ledger, lynch and Heyne will probably play against them.

[Con Gorozidis]

Week off at Sandy also - so no opportunity for Winmar, Stanley and Cripps to out their hand up for Round 2 which means the first weeks team will probably be the 2nd weeks team (injuries aside).

????
I believe Sandringham are playing a practice match against Frankston.

yep. sorry. my bad. thought they had week off.

so great news. crippsy winmar and stanley need to play absolute crackers.

we really need crippsy and ledger to be good NOW. none of this development/apprenticeship business. if ur good enough then 19 is old enough. cripps should pressure the hell out of peakey and ledger should have the fear of god into mcqualter.

[Leo.J]

It's a bit rough to criticise this team considering it got us to a drawn grand final and Armo and Gamble are ins. With regards to Peake, we really need to develop this guy, he has speed, good hands, bit of bravery, and a penatrating kick. Essentially we need his pace this year and he has to be given a good go to develop his consistency.

Couldn't agree more - I've got a lot of time for Peake - looks like he might be one of the new whipping boys this year

+1

[To the top]

The "Collingwood are certainties" is totally overblown by a media pandering to a market.

As with Hawthorn a couple of years back, and us from 2009 their game plan will be picked to pieces.

That is what happens af AFL level.

Sides have spent 6 months picking that game plan apart.

They have the advantage of very few games away from the MCG - and, as Maguire keeps rubbing in, a turnover of $75M with a plan to have an individual coach for every player on the list.

In the first match we had Gardiner struggling from very early in the game and unable to continue in the second half.

But we were only a fickle bounce away.

For the second match, we had run our race with Gardiner out and Fisher down before half time.

Players like Baker did not come up - and Riewoldt struggled with injury as did Koschitzke.

They had set themselves to play the final game of the year the week before - and they were spent.

Collingwood are not that good - and the need to play the likes of Swan and Ball more due to rule changes will hurt them - and badly.

In terms of our list, as I have mentioned elsewhere, we are in transition with 13 players having none or less than 10 games in experience (and all draft picks in the 40's or above) and then Baker, Hayes, Gardiner, Blake and Milne on the wrong side of 30.

In terms of the requirements on players today (and the tactics will change again this year), the likes of Baker, Blake and Milne are past their best - including because of disposal and an inability to create.

When we lost Fisher our rebounding defender in Gwilt had a specific job (at 188cm!) - and Gilbert was forward trying to assist a wounded Riewoldt and Koschitzke. That left the likes of Baker, Eddy, Dempster, Dawson and Blake as our defence - where was the run and rebound of Gwilt, Gilbert, Gram and Clarke?

Where were the dangerous, long foot skills?

And we got killed accordingly because we could not rebound.

We got bogged down in our defensive areas.

That is why we must transition because, quite frankly, and no matter the supporter love we see on here, Baker, Blake, Dempster, Geary, McQualter, Milne et al are not the future we want around our elite performers in the later years of these elite player's careers.

They have carried the "part players" who "perfom a function" for too long.

It is time to cut the slack and to see what we have on our list to improve the support for our elite players.

Hence the "bottom 6 discussion" and the fustration that the transition is not in evidence to at least some level.

The absence of a Lovett type was recognised correctly - but we have not seen the remedy of this deficiency in our side - as but one example.

To be in the competition we need a Lovett instead of a McQualter - again as but one example.

[saintsRrising]

Archer will probably play.

Why?

He is young...so why would you play mental games like that.