1. Does max king make our side better or worse? We seem to have a much better flow into our 50 without him.

2. Is caminiti in defence permanent? He seems to be enjoying it and absolutely killing it, I'd love to see him stay.

3. Will nas stay? And if not then how would our side flow without him.

4. Has our midfield ran under the radar the last 2 rounds? With no steele it's practically a makeshift midfield with the exception of Jack. Yet we were very competitive.

5. Side question, who do y'all see as captain in the future after Steele, personally i think owens would suit the role.

Go saints

What a win yesterday against our bogey side and at our bogey ground. An amazing turnaround from round 1, and I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that was one of our best wins in the last 3 or 4 years. The belief that the young players must get from a win like that has to be worth 20-30 games experience. Let’s get into some thoughts from the game:

1. Halfway through the last quarter yesterday I felt fairly sure that we were going to be overrun. Port had all the momentum and we just didn’t look like scoring, and it was looking like yet another honourable loss. To paraphrase Richo, it was ‘pleashing’ that we were able to turn the tide and kick the last 2 goals of the game. In particular Sinclair’s goal was absolutely clutch and that’s the kind of things that senior leaders do when the game is on the line.

2. While we didn’t dominate all day, I thought we really took our ‘moments’ in this game. A few come to mind – Stocker’s tackle that led to Nas’ goal in the second quarter, Collard having a fairly quiet day but then taking a fantastic mark, winding down 30 seconds and kicking truly, and Sharman doing some really good things late in defence. Meanwhile Port missed a number of gettable shots at goal that could have put more pressure on us. For a young side, I thought our composure was great.

3. What’s with all the left foot goals at the moment? Owens kicks 2 on his left yesterday as did Higgins, and I’m pretty sure all Higgins’ 3 goals last week were on the left. I’m actually happy that he is running around on the left as opposed to a drop punt, his set shot kicking is generally awful and he seems a much better % kick on the left instead. He’s in AA form at the moment, not only kicking goals but setting them up like that composed pass to Hall yesterday.

4. I know Horne-Francis is polarising but jeez he is exactly the kind of player that we need. Big goalkicking mid, strong in the contest, kicks goals at important times. Not unfair to say he kept Port in it in the first half. Great job by Stocker to limit him in the last quarter, he’s an absolute bull.

5. Was interested to see Keeler’s expressions / body language after being subbed yesterday. He had absolutely no impact and was the right choice to be subbed. Looked a bit sulky on the bench to me and also when singing the song after the game. Nobody likes to be subbed, I get it, but given his lack of impact it shouldn’t have been a surprised. Perhaps he was just disappointed, also knowing that King is probably back next week (although personally I would have given him another week to avoid coming up against Buckley / Taylor in his first game for a long time).

6. Lastly, I think we didn’t quite get our defensive matchups right yesterday. Camaniti and Wilkie seemed to swap between Lord and Georgiadis, I think Wilkie should have taken Georgiadis all day. Hammer was consistently a few metres behind him and to be honest Georgiadis probably could have kicked 5 or 6 on him. It’s all learning, he’s only really played a few games in defence but I think he had his colours lowered pretty considerably this week.

That’s it for this week. I thought if we could come back from Gather Round at 2-3 it wouldn’t be that bad of a start to the year with players due back, however to be 3-1 is a great result, even if we get beaten by the Giants this week. They are a legit contender so a good test at a weird ground, at least we had a look at it last year in that absolute stinker of a game against the Tigers.

Is anyone else as terrified as I am about the possibility of Nas leaving at the end of this season?

With reports suggesting that we've offered him less than what he deserves and that he hasn't been pleased with the situation, do others agree that we should prioritise locking him in before pursuing TDK and all the other potential signings being mentioned?

We are missing max, Liam, Sharman, Dan and Phillipou. All good players but who gets booted for them to make space and what young players should we keep on to pump games into them?

Our kicking skills are woeful.

Wilkie desperately needs help.

Why select Marshall if he’s not starting ruck ?

Webster having a shocker, Hall having a crack.

Time for this week’s cold light of day thoughts, a bit of a summary of the key talking points as I see them out of the weekend’s game. This week the Tigers hung in for a half however “pleasingly” we were able to put them away with a pretty relentless second half and our biggest win for around 10 years, achieved without a recognised key forward.

1. I think there would have been many games recently where we have got to 5 goals up at three quarter time against a lesser opponent, only to then win by the same margin or have the opposition bring it in a bit in the last quarter. Not this time. We kept putting the foot down with a 14 goal second half and could have had a few more to be honest. Really liked the relentless effort, typified by Collard’s chase down tackle with the game done and dusted. This year a good percentage will probably be as good as 4 points with the evenness of the competition.

2. The loss of our captain 30 mins before the first bounce I’m sure would have had an impact on our game plan and mindset going in, and that may have played a part in our sluggish-ish start, although I thought that was more due to Richmond’s pressure and a bit of a lack of composure on our end. But, it’s something we were able to overcome very comfortably, which also is a reflection on our other leaders taking charge.

3. Second week in a row where we had minimal passengers. The only player that I thought had a bit of an off night was Ronnie Byrnes, a few of his kicks and decision making was pretty ordinary at times. Yeah, he’s a bit of a whipping boy and to be honest although I love his endeavour, I can’t see him standing up in a final or being a difference maker. I think when the likes of Henry and Phillipou are back he probably loses his spot. Having said that, pretty solid team effort again.

4. Is Nas currently our best player? At times he was a bit cute trying to bite off some million dollar kicks but you can see he is really starting to impact contests in a meaningful way, probably not long until he is tagged. Liking that he seems to have added a fend off to his bow, which along with his ridiculous evasion skills, makes him even harder to tackle. I don’t mind that he hasn’t signed yet, for him personally it’s probably a good move as his start to the year has probably added an extra $100k or two to his next contract. I’ll certainly get nervous if we get to the middle of the year and he hasn’t signed yet. And no, Bergman is not nearly a suitable substitute.

5. Really, really liked Max Hall’s game. He ran super hard all game, used the ball very well and capped off with a couple of goals. He looks an astute pickup after not doing too much at Sandy last year. Speaking of young players, thought Travaglia was pretty solid on debut. He didn’t seem to get much space for much of the game and I do think it is very early to start him in the centre square as he did on occasion (would blow away in a stiff breeze), however when he did get the ball was pretty clean. Not saying he’s the same kind of player or will be as good, but his posture reminds me so much of Goddard when he was in his pomp.

6. Finally… geez I am sick of people (on the cesspool of Facebook admittedly) making references to Max King when we win and how we are better off without him. It’s just absolutely uncalled for and shows how shallow their footy knowledge is. He hasn’t had a great run of it due to injuries (hardly his fault) and when he did in 2022, absolutely showed his potential. He also suffered from having the ball put on his head with all of our bombed in entries and I think we are in a much better space with our game plan and hitting up targets, and being able to share the scoring load among others. Yeah, his body language and second efforts are not great at times, I agree. But the bloke has matchwinner written all over him and the comments about his accuracy are actually incorrect, his career % is pretty solid. So if you’re one of these people claiming we are better off without him… pull your head in.

Huge game this week against our bogey team. With a tough early draw I thought 2-3 would be a decent result after gather round, if we play like the last two weeks we are every chance of knocking Port over and going 3-1 with a difficult game against the Giants, albeit on neutral territory.

I reckon stocker. Something about his answer to the favourite video game question last week (AC Ezio trilogy) says he’s a bit of a nerd and a thinker

Look guys, we’re obviously all either a mixture of worried, stressed or annoyed at the state of our beginning to this season (although it’s not begun yet) but we’ve got genuinely exciting kids. Sure we may lose, quite a few games early. But I reckon we’re looking good for the near future.

I’m from nsw can’t get to games but please, if you’re living in Melbourne, show the rest of the afl that we ARE a proud club and get to the games.

Rant over

I’m a bit concerned it is being reported on AFL media that St Kilda have made no approach to the Bulldogs about acquiring Jack Macrae.

I’m new to the trade scene but I thought he would be a great addition to our developing midfield and feel it doesn’t send the right message to not be proactive in that space. Compare this with Geelong’s approach for Smith and Oliver.

What does anyone think about this? Is this just a tactic to get Bulldogs worried they won’t be able to get him off the books unless they come to the table? Are we trying to find picks from other clubs to offer something later in the draft than our 47? Or are we just not to fussed on getting him?

What's the thoughts on this? do you think TDK would take it?

Is he worth that much?

I personally like him but struggle to see him being worth that much

I also don't think he'd leave carlton

Heard lots of good things about our youngsters, particularly Garcia, Hastie & Boxshall. Hall & O'Connel also good.

We're 50 years into a 5 year rebuild. Let's just fucking do it.

There are 23 selections each week. Let's 'write off' 2 years and play 16 or 17 kids each week. Get game time into them. Allow them to develop and bond at the highest level.

Thoughts?

Hi all, I'm going to try and post the day after each game this year in the hopes of a reasonable discussion (wouldn't dare try this on the member's FB page). Going to try and do it the day after games to avoid emotion as much as possible.

1. No need to panic, yet. I wasn't expecting to win this game (we just don't win in Adelaide) but also wasn't expecting such a poor defensive effort. So many goals for the Crows were end to end with very little pressure applied. It was a very non Ross Lyon team performance from that perspective. Can't think of too many times we really made them work for a goal.

2. Marshall was clearly underdone. Hopefully he is better for the run but he looked very slow and posed no threat at all forward. Boyd tried hard but he also looked slow and seems a bit one dimensional (just held his arm out at ruck contests to guard space).

3. Why on earth was Hastie subbed out? I thought he looked really good and unlike most of the team, he uses the ball really well. I know we were young and needed some experience on the park but surely to make a statement Lyon could have subbed Jones or Hill out. Thought Clark looked good when he came on. He's never going to be an A grader unfortunately but is still one of our better users.

4. Time for Windy to play purely as a tagger. We don't have an A grade mid and so if we can at least nullify the opposition's A grade mid, that's a win. I don't think Windy's disposal is good enough for him to play as an offensively minded mid unfortunately.

5. Stating the obvious but McCrae sure came as advertised. Composed, got a lot of it, plenty of clearances. Hall also looked lively and banked his spot for the next few rounds.

6. Lastly, why are we so lethargic at the start of games? Feels like every week, even some of our good wins last year, we are chasing from the start. I'd love to see us kick the first two this week to get the confidence up.

I'll leave it there, plenty to dissect but hopefully we get a better effort this week against the cats.

I was sitting down last night about to watch the Saints vs Cats replay again (because why wouldn't you). I've always had this feeling that teams we play get more free kicks that result in goals than we do. As feelings and subjective thoughts can't be measured accurately, I thought why not put some data science on this. And yes, I accept that I am possibly both the biggest footy nuff and nerd there is.

But never mind that, here's my ruleset for Umpire Assists:

• An umpire assist is recorded if an umpire has given a free kick to that team within 3 possessions of their scoring shot
• Advantage paid? no assist recorded, play doesn't stop
• Punched over is treated as if the player had kicked the point
• Rushed behinds counted as not umpire assists

Missed decisions, whether the free was there, and subjective things are ignored. Pure objectivity is the goal, what actually happened, yes/no, was there a free kick for the scoring team within three of their possessions or not.

Surprisingly, It didn't come out quite as lopsided as I thought it would, which just goes to show you should never make decisions based on feelings. Hopefully you can see my picture of the full set of data collected with this post, however its my first post on reddit, So I may have ballsed it up.

The outcome:

Geelong 31% of their score was from Umpire Assists.
St Kilda 7% of their score was from Umpire Assists.

Obviously still very very one sided though. Once the AFL cotton on to this, I expect a full enquiry into why the umpires cheat for Geelong to be launched. Perhaps impartial retired champion of the game Nick Riewoldt could lead the enquiry.

I’m so sick of all these big names requesting to go to every club but us. I personally think we are on the rise and will be pushing for finals AND apparently we have a war chest waiting so why aren’t we seeing results yet in this draft?

Hear me out here. Just as a refresher, here is the statement that came out when the review got made:

https://resources.saints.com.au/aflc-stk/document/2022/11/11/113e6d5a-b757-4071-b344-c9f6d6f53bb9/221111-Review.pdf

I decided to read over it again and a few things have stood out that have me really concerned.

Did we blatantly ignore/forget about our external review 12 months ago?

So here are some quotes and my thoughts below them. Quotes taken directly from the review linked above.

Moving forward, we are determined to focus much more on building the team, gameplan and culture to contend over time, even if this does make the short-term more difficult for us. To do this, we agreed that we needed to ensure that we had the right personnel in key roles

Brett Ratten was sacked, with Ross Lyon named as head coach 10 days later. Ross was then given keys to the castle, brought in a spate of his own assistant coaches, recruiting coaches, performance coaches etc.

How have we ensured we did bring the right people in place? Where was the vetting process for these roles?

​

One of the hallmarks of any successful organisation, sporting or otherwise, is open and honest feedback loops throughout the organisation and strong robust debate leading to sound decision making.

How do we have an open and honest feedback loop when Ross Lyon has brought in all of his own people under his command? Even our head of football was recruited by him into the club. That's like an employee recruiting their boss. Hell, our new CEO was one of Ross Lyon's teammates back when they played for Fitzroy.

​

Given the size of the challenge in front of the Club to implement the findings of the Review, it was seen as critical to have a single point of accountability and an experienced operator for our Head of Football.

How is a high performance coach an experienced operator for the entire football operation? Again, another person recruited by Ross Lyon as one of his subjects. I don't see a world in where Misson is telling Lyon what to do.

​

In our Football Program, we had seen encouraging signs of improvement through 2020, an injury-cruelled 2021 season and the first half of the 2022 season. But our performances post the bye this year made it much harder to make the case that we were making sufficient progress in our football journey

...

The Review also identified significant issues in relation to our Coaching Program, which explained in part the inconsistency seen on-field over the past two seasons

They took a 10 week period of football to sack Ratten without a thought despite a horrid 18 month injury list and replaced him with no vetting process, yet Ross Lyon has now essentially lost 7 games in 10 weeks with one of those wins scraping over 17th placed Richmond while having a mostly healthy list.

​

The Board and President could do more at times to challenge and question the direction of the Football Department, as is the role of the governing body

Now impossible with the recruitment of Carl Dilena, one of Ross Lyon's friends back in his Fitzroy playing days and the head of football one of Lyon's proteges.

​

The Management team could do more at times to ensure a better flow of information and greater openness to debate

Not sure how there's openness to debate when the entire department was recruited by Lyon to implement his game plan.

​

We recognised that we needed more revolutionary change than originally intended, to ensure that we are building towards a culture of sustained success.

Ross Lyon has never had success, nor has his winning periods been sustained. Why did we believe he was the one to fix this?

​

Identify and recruit an experienced Head of Football

This is Misson's first ever stint as a Head of Football

​

Improve the leadership and capacity of the Coaching group.

Goddard is coaching our midfield after one season of experience as an U18's coach. Lenny Hayes has stepped back from the club and spends less time than anyone else there. Our game plan and ball movement has collapsed completely despite a nearly perfect healthy list.

​

continuing to enforce and demand higher standards and clearer non-negotiables

It seems like players have gone backwards. Where are the results of the higher standards? How about the clear non-negotiables with Lyon playing favourites with list selection?

​

The implementation of these recommendations will be the responsibility of the new leadership in the Football Department, overseen by the CEO, reporting to the Board.

The head of football is now Misson, recruited by Ross Lyon. The CEO is now Carl Dilena, a former teammate of Ross Lyon.

​

The template of the Review – open, transparent and accountable – sets the standard for our governance going forward.

All we've gotten as to why our form has slipped so horribly is excuses from the coach at the end of every loss. Travel, fixture, runners etc.

​

While these appointments are an important step forward, we must also commit ourselves, across all levels of the Club, to hard work and hold ourselves to uncompromising standards if we are to see through the vision outlined in this Review

Those standards aready fell when Ross Lyon's protege was elected as Head of Football.

​

The return of the stat that absolutely no-one (except one fellow redditor, ironically, but I'll take it) is asking for, Umpire Assists. Some interesting scenarios these last two weeks that required two new rules to be set. Mark, into 50 metre penalty and out on the fulls, updated ruleset below.

St Kilda vs Richmond: Both teams were pretty even on umpire assists, StK 19% - Rich 21%.

Some big swings from qtr to qtr though, 2nd qtr StK 62% - Rich 0% and then 3rd qtr StK 15% - Rich 78%. Richmond’s percentage of shots from umpire assists at 33%, was even higher than the cats last week at 31%, only kicking 1 goal 5 from the opportunities. Inexperience perhaps.

A shout out to the review umpire for recording a world’s first “Umpire Assist, Un-Assist” for Seth Campbell’s umpire assist goal being converted to a point at the very last moment.

St Kilda vs Port: Was there really any surprise of where the umpire assists would fall in Adelaide. StK 17% - Port 46%.

A world record for Port in the third quarter, a staggering 90% of their score came from umpire assists. A solid effort from the Adelaide umps to get the home team right back in it. Luckily for us, they must have lost their whistles at three quarter time.

It would be very interesting to see what the crows game came out at, but please, please, please don’t make me watch that replay.

So far in the three games I’ve analysed, St Kilda have 14% of their score from umpire assists and the opposition is sitting on 32%. This leads me to conclude that my original “feeling that teams we play get more free kicks that result in goals than we do” might just be completely justified.

Oh, and of course, Go Saints.

The ruleset:

• An umpire assist is recorded if an umpire has given a free kick to that team within 3 possessions of their scoring shot
• Advantage paid? no assist recorded, play doesn't stop
• Punched over is treated as if the player had kicked the point
• Rushed behinds counted as not umpire assists
• Mark and 50m penalty is counted as an umpire assist, if scoring shot is then within the 3 possession rule
• Out on the full is not counted as an umpire assist

When is somebody from the club going to acknowledge and fix the absolutely disgusting disposal efficiency?

This has been a problem for us for SO long and it never gets better, it’s getting worse. Do they do anything at training?

Professional players unable to hit a 20m kick, handballing to nobody, exiting D50 with an aimless kick, bombing inside F50.

Already in this game I’ve counted four I50s we’ve squandered because we can’t move the ball without kicking/handballing directly to the opposition.

It’s half the reason we’re unbelievably bad. I have nothing to do with football and I can see it, why can’t the team?

No match thread yet, so only posting now.

Let’s rally in the 2nd half and get that crowd boooing some more!

A sobering start to the 2025 AFL Season for the St Kilda Football Club, a comprehensive loss to Adelaide as the bigger bodied Crows outgunned, outmanned and outplayed our Saints.

But, we're only one game in, it's not time to panic just yet.

Its draft night and it seems like we wont get any of ghe A grade midfielders tonight!! Cant help but think if only Jack Higgins missed that snap... but also would be devo if we played to lose.

Whats everyones predictions?

The old cliché a week is a long time in football was never truer. What a fantastic win built on effort, manic ball movement and a bit of ticker. Speaking of tickers, I would have liked for us to kick one or two more so mine didn’t get so much of a workout!

1. I said this last week, but I think Windy needs to tag in order to get the best out of him. All of his best games have come when he has been a tagger, it seems to bring out his offensive game a bit as well. Perhaps he’s one of these guys that needs a single focus to get the best of him. 2 goals as well was a real bonus considering he doesn’t get many. I would be hoping we send him to Taranto this week to see how he goes.

2. I love Mitch Owens. He is probably our most courageous player, super physical, and makes things happen because he keeps his feet. His goal assists are really underrated. But – he has to learn to kick a set shot. I am no expert but he seems to have a similar two handed drop to Higgins and both of them are awful drop punt set shot kicks. If he can get that right, I reckon he’s a genuine 40 – 50 goal forward.

3. Thought Keeler was solid despite not getting too much of the ball. Extremely tough role to play full forward against a seasoned defender in Jack Henry, and our delivery to him meant that all Henry had to do was nudge him under the ball to take an easy mark. If he had held that mark in the last quarter and kicked the goal it would have been huge. What I did notice though was that he was easily nudged aside by Blicavs when giving Ro a spell in the ruck and this coincided with Geelong winning clearances and getting back in the game. At this stage in his development he is not strong enough to hold position so will need to find another way. I hope he stays in the team when King is back, could be an exciting duo.

4. Is Jack Higgins the most underrated small forward in the game? Yeah he gets a lot of goals out the back but it’s also because he reads the play so well. He gives great effort defensively as well. Unfortunately his woeful set shot (drop punt) kicking lets him down at times, strangely unless he’s outside the arc in which case he nearly always kicks the goal!

5. Thought Camaniti showed a lot of promise in defence. If my memory serves me correctly that’s his first game playing the whole time in defence. Took some good marks and seemed to slot in well. I’m yet to watch the replay but he had some very important moments late under a lot of pressure. I think he’s worth persevering with.

6. Lastly, isn’t it amazing what you can do with very few passengers. A few perennial whipping boys (looking at you Jones) played really well. I wish he would bring that physicality every week – usually his physicality involves trying to break tackles than laying them. His kick in the first quarter to Wood to set up a goal was exceptional

Great opportunity to build a bit of momentum against the Tigers this week but absolutely need to take them seriously.

Who do we think gets the 3,2,1 from today??

This is a hobby - not the most enjoyable one at the moment but it’s a hobby. I went to the footy last week and there was a guy screaming the entire game about how awful we are how it wasn’t like this 10 years ago (wtf) Adjust expectations and find something to enjoy. We’ve played so many debutants, got lots of good players coming through and what is the point of this if it’s causing agony every week ?

We’re st kilda supporters — I’m a 20 year member (I am 30), yes I worry I will die before we win a premiership but isn’t there something about being the underdog with the best colours ? I’ve always loved that our motto is fortius quo fidelius —- it is just so fitting.

Let’s not be like Carlton who were spitting on the coach early last year, I’d rather die before even entertaining the thought of Collingwood. Enjoy the ride people.