age article...none shall pass

[stinger]

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Photo: Sebastian Costanzo
None shall pass

Greg Baum | July 25, 2009

With a history-making defence, the miserly Saints are giving nothing away - on or off the field.

ST KILDA gives away nothing. Not goals, not behinds, not glimmers of hope, certainly not games. In one game this year, the Saints conceded five widely spaced goals, in another six. All were begrudged. Twelve times they have held opponents goalless in a quarter; no one has been so mean since 1958. They held Richmond scoreless for 77 minutes, longer if you include half-time.

St Kilda 2009 doesn't give its opponents as much as a sniff. They allow the ball into their defensive 50 merely 39 times a match, a record low. From these meagre chances, oppositions manage a goal once every four-and-a-half entries, any score once every two-and-and-a-half entries, both records for miserliness. The Saints' defensive arc has become a black hole into which entire elaborate goalkicking apparatus disappear, never to be seen again. And all this has been achieved without a single appearance from Matt Maguire and only three from Max Hudghton, both cornerstones.

On average, St Kilda surrenders 60 points a game. Unless it concedes 90 or more points a game henceforth, it will establish itself as the best defensive team since 1969, when the introduction of the out-on-the-full rule drastically changed scoring.

In their present state of mind, the skinflint Saints wouldn't give even to the Good Friday appeal. Approached this week, defensive coach Steve Silvagni, full-back of the 20th century, said he could give us nothing. He wouldn't, would he?

It wasn't always so. Twenty-five years ago, St Kilda was the most profligate team in the game's history. In one season, they conceded on average 133 points a game, in another 139. In those days, the Saints had an excess of everything that was bad for a football team. About then, Danny Frawley came along to try to shore up this team of pushovers.

In a record nine seasons as captain, he half-succeeded. So did his successors. But they could not rid the club entirely of its own shadow. Frawley thinks third-year coach Ross Lyon has. "For years and years, St Kilda was a side that was reliant on its stars," Frawley said. "The team-of-the-century are all superstars. But we've won one premiership."

Now it's all for one and one for all, and that is the secret to the way the Saints blank opponents. "Total team defence," said Frawley. "It starts in the forward pocket, with Stevie Milne. You only have to look at the way he is running and chasing. It's two-way football for everyone."

Milne has laid 38 tackles this year, already a career high. Nick Riewoldt is three away from a career high. Most others are tracking for the best tackling seasons. At the Western Bulldogs, Farren Ray averaged fewer than two tackles a game, at St Kilda, almost four. Leigh Montagna was averaging three tackles a game. This year, it is nearly seven, and his 107 tackles leads the competition. Lest you think him one-dimensional, Montagna also has had third most kicks in the competition. Check the Brownlow markets.

St Kilda is averaging 70 tackles a game, the most since stats have been kept. Lyon acknowledges that there has been an emphasis. But he demurs at the idea that the Saints are doing something extraordinary, noting that at least seven other clubs are averaging in the 60s for tackles. It is where the game has gone.

The way Lyon tells it, the Saints are doing the ordinary things, but a little bit better than the rest. This bears out Frawley's idea that they are no longer the maverick club that wins nothing. In the Lyon era, they have become normal, and now, exceptionally normal.

The way Lyon tells it, it just happened. He's right, in a way. No-one plans to win 16 games in a row, but they do plan to win every match, every quarter of every match, every contest of every quarter, one by one. No-one plans to have the best defensive season in the history of the game, but they do plan, intricately, to stop their opponents from scoring. Do it well enough, often enough, and, hey presto.

Lyon tells it this way: the Saints spent two pre-seasons growing bigger, stronger, harder. They reduced the incidence of injury from one of the highest in the competition to the lowest. This season, they have used just 27 players. "It's probably just luck," Lyon said. "I haven't got another answer for you." A part answer lies in the work of fitness trainer Dave Misson, like Lyon, recruited from Sydney.

They had drummed into them the importance of total football. "We've got to work hard every minute of the game, with and without the ball," said Lyon. "We've been preaching that."

They were already on a parsimonious progression. In 2007, Lyon's first season, they were seventh for defence, averaging 88 points conceded. Last year, they were fifth, at 87 points. But in the second half of last year, as they went on an 8-2 run, they were second for tight defence, averaging less than 76 points. Then as now, no one factor told. But Lyon noted that Sam Gilbert, injured in the first half of the season, came back in the second to lead the league in rebound 50s.

This year, it's been the same, only more so. Frawley said the Saints combined the best of modern defensive theories, guarding both space and men. Worked properly, it meant on the few occasions the ball reached the defensive 50, it came high, wide and slowly, and was soon spat out again. Critics says the so-called Lyon Cage works better on small grounds than big, but the Saints have won twice in Adelaide this season, and at Subiaco, too. They haven't won at the MCG — only because they haven't played there.

Of course, there has been some fine-tuning along the way. "We've evolved structures that help," Lyon said. "Different stoppage structures, different forward structures. What happens at the fall of the ball. We felt it got swept away a bit (last year). It's really important when it goes in (to the forward line), not getting swept away from the talls."

The Saints have passed all the tests. Geelong was the sternest. Carlton stepped it up, beating St Kilda for contested footy and taking a wanton and extravagant 25 shots — but the Saints won. Adelaide last week was a different test, of the theory that no team can sustain this sort of high-intensity football forever, of the certainty of a let-down. Result: the Crows were corralled in their own half like sheep in a slaughter yard, and duly slaughtered.

Lyon said he had heard all the theories about why the Saints couldn't keep it up: soft draw catching up with them, law of averages, tiredness, getting lost on the big grounds.

"We can't control people's expectations or agendas," he said.

"I'll tell you what we do. We focus on our preparation and pursue improving on a weekly basis. At the minute, it's standing us in good stead."

This is what happens when teams get on a roll in any sport. After a while, it doesn't seem to matter who is in the team and who isn't: momentum carries it along. Zac Dawson instead of Hudghton might not have seemed much of a swap at season's beginning, but it's the jumper that counts. So St Kilda's defence has evolved into a man-eating, morale-destroying beast of prey, frightening opposition coaches and Friday night footy fans. None shall pass, it mouths. None has.

But there's a dimension missing here. Lyon bristles at the notion that because his team holds opponents to pitiful scores, it is somehow dour and industrious, but lacking the flair of, say, Geelong and the Bulldogs. Having crushed Adelaide underfoot, Lyon was anxious not to talk about how the Crows had kicked 7.7, but how his team had kicked 15 goals and could have had more, and was the third-highest scoring team in the comp. "We average 400 disposals a week," he said this week. "We're the highest for inside 50s. Next question, that one's irrelevant."

How do they do it? Well, it all starts from the back pocket

[emmdee]

very proud to be sainter after reading that article......big sigh of happiness

[SaintWodonga]

very proud to be sainter after reading that article......big sigh of happiness

Only thing missing is this year's flag... I know we can do it, and I am sure week after week, pleople writing us off, we come out on top, our mindset is gaining strength.