St Kilda urged to follow the lead of Carlton and conduct an urgent football review after its latest loss
An AFL great says the Saints needs to take urgent action to arrest their form woes, and they have copped another brutal injury blow.
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St Kilda has been urged to launch an urgent and “ruthless” review into its alarming slump as Brett Ratten lashed his team for its inability to play “hard” football.
The Saints will finish the round three games and percentage out of the eight after the most demoralising loss of the club’s 4-8 season.
St Kilda stopped to a crawl against an Adelaide side boasting 11 players under 30 games, losing clearances by 12 and contested possession by 21 in the disastrous last quarter.
Brett Ratten smacked his group post-match for its inability to roll up its sleeves and compete after building a 36-point lead, saying “we’re just not strong enough and hard enough”.
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President Andrew Bassat foreshadowed the club making long-term plans to help overcome a lack of resilence in a recent open letter to fans.
Hunter Clark will miss up to a month with a broken jaw, but after the bye Tim Membrey and Seb Ross should return after missing the game to be with family.
Without Membrey’s swingman duties the Saints had Jack Billings (0.2) and Jack Lonie (0.2) again miss key chances, and had no one to throw behind the ball late as Josh Battle (six possessions) failed to make an impact.
Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd, denied a chance to help Max King with his goalkicking this month, said the Saints should join Carlton in launching a review.
“They need to be ruthless. There’s a review going on at Carlton, and there may be one at St Kilda with how they’re playing their football. I think there might be a mini one over this bye round. I know they’ve got injuries, but this is not good enough,” he told Nine.
Respected sports medico Peter Larkins said on Sunday Clark was likely to miss between six and eight weeks.
“The majority of those broken jaws are around the six-week stage. He looked pretty sore and most times clubs will take the option of putting wire or plates in. They are usually a break on both sides of the jaw. In fotoy they are almost exclusively double breaks so with the wiring six to weight weeks is around the ballpark.”
Collingwood champion Tony Shaw laid the blame squarely at the feet of the playing group.
“I just thought, you cannot coach that. When you come in at three quarter time with a lead and looking strong in the game, you cannot coach what happened in the last quarter. It’s about the leadership of the whole group and it came down to doing it on the field. Brett Ratten would be mortified. This is totally about the players,” he told 3AW.
St Kilda has 13 players on its injury list but regardless of a review being called fresh scrutiny will be put on the club’s recruiting choices after such a miserable performance.
Dan Hannebery could end up playing only 13 of a possible 68 games in his first three seasons for $2.4 million, while Brad Hill has not provided bang for buck at $900,000 a season.
The club prioritised experienced recruits including Jack Higgins, Shaun McKernan, James Frawley and Brad Crouch but does not have the performances to warrant the investment.
Without the club’s most dangerous breakaway midfielders in Jade Gresham and Zak Jones (both injured) the onball unit lacks pace.
Bassat spoke of formulating a long-term plan to change the club’s flakiness this year in his recent letter to fans.
“We are capable of playing strong, hard, contested football. However, the gap between our best and worst has been too great,” he said.
“We need to be able to turn it around when things are not going our way and our backs are against the wall. We need to find a way to address this, both with short-term solutions and a long-term plan.”
He conceded the club had been able to thrive in hublife last year with a short injury list.
But as injuries have hit to key players including Rowan Marshall, Gresham and Jones the Saints have been exposed.
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