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[theoracle]

St Kilda punishes Melbourne mistakes to win back to back games under caretaker Brett Ratten
St Kilda made it two wins from as many games under interim coach Brett Ratten but Melbourne was the architect of its own demise, and one unbelievable stat underlined where the game was won and lost.

Ben Broad, Sunday Herald Sun
Subscriber only
July 27, 2019

It was 14th v 17th — and for much of the match it looked every bit of it.
On a night when one clear narrative was always going to emerge, both sides did their best to fluff their lines.
Before the match, bookies couldn’t separate the two teams. At the final change — after three terms of lead changes and — there was just four points between them.
Could the Saints, under Brett Ratten for the second week, show the caretaker factor was no one-off and further enhance the interim coach’s credentials?
For Melbourne, it was about proving they simply weren’t that bad — no matter what the ladder or former club great Garry Lyon said.
In the end, it was fitting turnovers played their part in the Saints second straight win — 15.14 (104) to 13.7 (85).
With five minutes remaining, Demon Sam Frost — who had defended stoutly all night — stormed out of his 50 but his ball ended in St Kilda’s arms. Nick Hind ran into an open goal and banged it through.
That was almost the game.
When Jack Billings threaded the needle from 30m, they were marching in the Marvel Stadium aisles.
It was a gritty win.
St Kilda twice trailed by 19 points but fought back — their next gen at the forefront of the fightbacks. With plenty of help from the Dees.
The Saints scored an incredible 13.7 from turnovers.
Not even great teams can overcome that statistic. And as we’ve seen again, Melbourne is not a great team.

MASTER v THE APPRENTICE
The ruck battle between Max Gawn and emerging Saint Rowan Marshall was always going to tell a tale — and not just about the final result.
Could Gawn, for two seasons the premier ruckman in the competition along with Brodie Grundy, school the St Kilda big man who looms among the chief contenders to one day take that mantle?
Five minutes in and with the Dees leading 3.0 to 0.0, it looked very much like Gawn would leave his imprint all over the contest.
But Marshall, playing just his 29th match, showed he’s made of stern stuff.
He fell awkwardly at the first bounce and looked sore, perhaps allowing the Dees big man to jump all over him and establish an ominous clearance supremacy.
But by the final siren he’d done enough to nullify Gawn’s influence and help his team scrounge another four points.

JAKE’S HORROR MOMENT
Jake Carlisle had been having a Jake Carlisle kind of night — strong intercepting entwined with some questionable decision-making with ball in hand.
But his third-term brain explosion that led to a Demon “double goal” had Saints fans — and no doubt Ratten — seeing red.
Replays showed the contact Carlisle’s swinging left arm made to Dee Harrison Petty’s throat region was minimal, but the umpire was two metres away and looking for trouble.
Carlisle gave him some, so 30 seconds after Christian Petracca had soccered through a major he penalised the Saint without the ball even venturing back to the middle. In a game that would be decided in the final term, it always loomed a costly brainfade. Luckily, it wasn’t.
An error-riddled opening featuring 28 turnovers didn’t have fans out of their seats too often, but eight goals laid foundations — and the hope — of a free-flowing, attacking game at Marvel.
But there was nothing marvellous about the second term. In fact it was downright awful.
The two teams combined for a staggering 51 turnovers as they took turns either pinpointing the opposition when going inside 50, or pin-balling the footy between the arcs as neither found a clear marking target.
The Saints looked the better team but with goals hard to come by, it was going to be tight.

RATTS’ FEET ON THE GROUND
St Kilda caretaker coach Brett Ratten says himself and the Saints are “not getting ahead of ourselves” after he scored a second-straight win in his return to the coaching hotseat.
“If it keeps going like this, it’s a great job,” Ratten said when quizzed about his prospects of taking the role full-time next year.
“No, we’ve had two good wins. We played good footy. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves.
“We have a lot of work to do. The pleasing aspect is when you go into that room afterwards and the smiles on some of the players’ faces. (Nick) Coffield played 14 or 15 games before he had a win. Now he gets two in a row. Those kids they’re enjoying their time. Playing well. And jelling together.”
Ratten revealed he met with former coach Alan Richardson for a “debrief” on Friday night after Richardson’s return from a holiday to Bali.
Ratten said he had made some “positional changes” but otherwise had made few adjustments since taking the reins.
“We had a debrief of the game from last week,” Ratten said.
“He watched. He was very pleased for the players and all the people at the football club. We chatted about it. It’s just been probably a bit to the program. Maybe a little bit in positional changes to the group. We’ve had some different focuses I suppose. It hasn’t been like we’ve just turned the game plan upside down and play this way and do that. It’s been subtle changes. I think maybe sometimes the messaging is a bit different from me and him. But it’s not much in it.”
St Kilda kicked over 100 points for a second-straight week in a row, having not reached the milestone in their previous 22 games, but Ratten said his side’s defensive game had also been impressive.

— Chris Cavanagh

SCOREBOARD
ST KILDA 3.2 5.7 10.10 15.14 (104)
MELBOURNE 5.3 6.4 10.6 13.7 (85)

GOALS
St Kilda: Bruce 4, Membrey 3, Ross 2, Long 2, Langlands, Lonie, Hind, Billings
Melbourne: Petracca 3, Fritsch 2, Harmes 2, Lewis, Smith, C Wagner, Petty, Oliver, Neal-Bullen

BEST
St Kilda: Ross, Bruce, Clark, Gresham, Sinclair, Steele, Wilkie, Marshall
Melbourne: Oliver, Gawn, Petracca, Salem, Frost

INJURIES
St Kilda: Acres (shoulder)
Melbourne: Nil
Reports: Nil

Umpires: Stevic, Hay, Howorth
Official crowd: 22,854 at Marvel Stadium

BEN BROAD’S VOTES:
3 — Seb Ross (St K)
2 — Josh Bruce (St K)
1 — Hunter Clark (St K)

[WellardSaint]

Someone reported that we kicked 84 points from turnovers, which they said was 'double the league average'?