It’s a long hard road being a Saints supporter and, as with a number of other teams in the re-building phase, hope is largely what we hang on to.
You look to the future, hoping the batch of youngsters reach their potential, and look for positives across the season.
So while looking on the bright side is a good thing, and clinging to hope and excitement about where the future may lead with a batch of fresh-faced youngsters is needed, a healthy dose of reality doesn’t go astray.
Consider St Kilda’s last five matches – a 15-goal home loss to an Adelaide side struggling for form, a surprise win against the Bombers, a loss to the then winless Lions, an absolute smashing from the Hawks and finally a poor effort against the Blues.
The message coming out of the Saints all season has been about effort, intensity and defence – attributes all on display against the Bombers. Yet against the Crows the simple basics of manning up and chasing opponents was completely lacking against the Crows, and the lack of intensity, effort and purpose was on show for all to see against the Lions. We were simply outclassed against the Hawks.
While it is understandable to have fluctuations in form with a young and developing group, the effort and performance of the past five games shows a disturbing consistency – lack of effort and urgency.
During this time there has been little criticism from the media, and if you read the articles and information coming out of the club’s website it would seem as though we are making great strides forward. We want to have some hope, and focus on positive aspects, however there needs to be some accountability.
The first thing needs attention is our goal kicking. In the past five matches the Saints have scored a total of 42.57, well below 50 per cent accuracy. Sometimes it’s the basics of the game that seem to hard to master.
Over the past five games we have a -196 possession differential, giving up on average almost 40 more possessions per game to the opposition. We are -60 for inside fifties, and given that the opposition has had so much more of the ball over the past five games we only have a +4 tackle differential. Clearly we are struggling to put enough pressure on the opposition.
So where to for the Saints now?
Following a very poor month it’s time for the club to be realistic and for the football world to hold the club accountable for such poor performances. In the game against the Blues – a team coming off a poor performance against the Pies the week before – only two Saints players managed to collect more than 25 disposals.
Compare that to the Blues, who had Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs and Kade Simpson all rack up 30 disposals, with Brock McLean also collecting 25.
The Saints are missing David Armitage’s output and grunt in the middle, but aside from Lenny Hayes the rest of the midfield have to get their hands on the ball. If we can’t win the ball in the middle it makes it damn near impossible to get enough quality ball into the forwards to be competitive.
While possession is not everything, if you can’t get your hands on the ball you are going to struggle. Interestingly in a game the Blues dominated in terms of possession (56 per cent) and inside fifties (+13) the Saints actually won the clearances and broke even in contested possession. That is a sign, along with the goal kicking, that points to our inability to maintain possession and use the ball effectively.
There’s plenty of work still to be done. Excuses about being a young team and highlighting one or two positives in an attempt to gloss over major deficiencies needs to be tempered with a healthy dose of reality.
It’s time the playing group lifted its output and improved its quality to give Saints fans some real hope.
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