The Saints go marchin’ in

 
Pippinu Roar Guru

By Pippinu, 20 Sep 2009 Pippinu is a Roar Guru

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The Saints followed the form guide last Friday night by overcoming a brave Bulldogs team to make their first Grand Final since 1997.

In the last article I wrote on the AFL finals, where I looked at the likely source of goals for each finals team, I placed the Saints and Bullies at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of describing their respective forward lines.

The Saints possessed the twin towers of Captain Riewoldt and Kozzie, while the Bullies relied on a more unorthodox small, pacy forward line, with plenty of goals coming from midfield.

After the loss, the Bullies’ coach, Rocket Eade, rejected the claim that the naysayers had been proven right by casting doubt on the Bullies’ ability to succeed at finals footy with that sort of forward set up.

Looking at the closeness of the scores, and the fact that the Bullies had more scoring shots, one could almost be forgiven for agreeing with Rocket.

Almost.

However, a closer inspection of the stats reveals all – the Saint’s more orthodox forward line structure did indeed win them the game.

Firstly, the good news for the Bullies. They managed to stay in this match til the very end of the game by winning the contested possession count and splitting the clearances. That was a very good achievement given the strength of the Saints across the park all season.

But things start to look less bright from here on in. The Bullies frustrated St Kilda for large parts of the game with slow, patient, build ups, moving the ball laterally, and even backwards, to deny them the ball, who in turn, were prepared to plug up the space in the Bullies forward 50 to ensure there were no easy targets – confident that once they had the ball, it was an easier path to goals for them.

Thus St Kilda were able to score six of nine goals from turnovers; while the Bullies scored 5 of 7 goals from stoppages.

When the turnovers came, as they eventually did, the Saints had Dal Santo, Hayes and Fisher making a bee line for goal, gaining metres of 780, 731 and 653 respectively. The Bullies best, Gilbee and Griffen, could only gain a touch over 500 metres each – a reflection of their direct run and carry and the lateral movement of ball by their team mates.

At the end of line for the Saint’s prime movers lay the twin towers. The Saints took 20 contested marks to 12. Seven of those were to Riewoldt who ended with a game high four goals, while a further three goals came via Riewoldt’s play.

While the Bullies probably did as well as they could against the best team of the season, at the end of the day, they lacked the direct path to goal that the Saints possessed.

Both sides made it tough for clean possession all night, but a special mention must be made of St Kilda’s smothers – I doubt I have ever seen more smothers in a game, and I suspect they must have numbered over 30.

Congratulations to both St Kilda and Geelong for being the best two teams of the season and making the Grand Final.

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