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The last thing St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt wanted to do after tonight’s AFL semi-final win over Collingwood was talk about himself.
Then again, he didn’t need to – Riewoldt’s awesome captain’s game and the unanimous praise for his performance were enough.
“I suppose it feels good, but the challenge is there again next week, footy is unrelenting, we’ve got another opportunity,” Riewoldt said.
“So we’ll bury this one pretty quickly and focus very heavily on Hawthorn this week, because they’re a terrific side.
“We’ll go in as big underdogs, but that doesn’t worry us too much – we’re confident if we get the even spread we had tonight, we’ll be in most games.”
Riewoldt took 15 marks and kicked five goals, creating mayhem in attack as the Saints won by 34 points.
Just as Western Bulldogs captain Brad Johnson led his team superbly last night in the win over Sydney, Riewoldt proved again that a champion is at his most dangerous after a poor performance.
Riewoldt had a terrible match last Sunday in the qualifying-final loss to Geelong and the word out of Moorabbin was that he was filthy with what transpired.
He kicked three goals in the first term tonight and gave young opponent Nathan Brown a lesson.
“You want your key forwards to ‘clunk’ a couple early – I know midfielders rise when forwards clunk them … Nick’s had a super year,” coach Ross Lyon said.
“Nick’s our captain, he stands out, and I thought he did what he had to do.
“I thought last week he had some opportunities but it didn’t quite go his way – it was greasy and all those things – but really good players bounce back through their preparation and he had a great week on the track.
“You dont fluke what he does, it’s not an accident.”
Riewoldt hurt his shoulder in a clash early tonight, but did not flinch and it did not appear to affect him.
He said rather than focus too heavily on negating Collingwood, the Saints had made a commitment ahead of tonight that they would hit the Magpies with everything.
“Tactics go out the window when your effort’s not good and we learnt that the hard way last week.
“The most pleasing thing was the effort the guys showed – it was more about us this week.
“With all due respect to Collingwood, we put due time into them, but it was more about us and how we wanted to go about it.
“They’ve built a strong reputation in that area (winning the hard ball), but I think we have as well – it’s an area we pride ourselves in and it was very pleasing tonight.”
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