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St Kilda have “no choice” but to recover quickly from Saturday’s heavy AFL grand final replay loss and keep improving, according to captain Nick Riewoldt.
The Saints skipper and his team had a dirty afternoon as the Magpies won their first premiership in 20 years, smashing St Kilda by 56 points.
Riewoldt, the most important player in the two grand finals, only kicked one behind as his direct opponent Nathan Brown and some outstanding Collingwood defence kept him quiet.
It follows last year’s 12-point grand final loss to Geelong and means their premiership drought will extend to at least 45 years.
“We’ve got no choice, we have a strong membership base and we represent a lot of people, our families and a lot of supporters,” Riewoldt said when asked about rebounding from Saturday’s heavy loss.
“We’re professionals, one thing we’ve been able to pride ourselves on is the ability to never give up.”
Riewoldt was shattered post-match and said it hurt to lose so badly.
“It’s as bad a feeling as you can have when you’re involved in what we are. It’s pretty self-explanatory really,” he said.
The captain’s only score was also a pivotal moment in the match.
Collingwood had kicked the first two goals and were piling on the pressure, but the Saints stormed into attack and Riewoldt was running into an open goal.
But Magpies Heath Shaw ran him down superbly in the goalsquare to force the behind.
The Saints only managed one more behind for the quarter and trailed by 18 points at the first change, setting the tone for the match.
“I thought I was in the clear, obviously I wasn’t,” Riewoldt said.
He was repeatedly outnumbered in marking contests as St Kilda were smashed across their half-forward line.
“That’s the way they try to execute their game plan and they were able to do it pretty well today,” Riewoldt said.
“We had other opportunities and probably didn’t show enough composure at times with the ball to find those loose guys.”
Inaccuracy was the other problem for St Kilda’s forwards, just as it had hurt Collingwood in last week’s grand final.
Indeed, goalkicking has been a crucial factor for the past three years in grand finals.
The Saints had only kicked 1.9 early in the third term.
“In the second quarter it came down to execution, we had a number of chances and weren’t able to put that scoreboard pressure on,” Riewoldt said.
“But I think they really dominated for three of the four quarters.
“If you take a few of those chances in the second it might have been different, not taking anything away from them.”
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