The Tackle: Forget Essendon excuses and show St Kilda respect
SENSATIONAL St Kilda, Carlton’s united front and Mark Robinson’s Likes, Dislikes and Top Tweets from Round 5. WARNING: Contains graphic image.
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YOU can talk about the Perth heat, preparation, lactic acid, sleep patterns, injuries, the flu, yet that would be taking away from St Kilda.
Sometimes excuses get more commentary than the footy.
As Essendon coach Mark Thompson ponders yet another disappointing loss, the Saints have emerged as the feel-good story of 2014.
They sit 3-2 after five rounds and play Brisbane next week.
Thompson had his concerns after being walloped by Fremantle, but so did Saints coach Alan Richardson, whose side was embarrassed by Adelaide the week before by 86 points.
While Essendon had to work on the bodies, Richardson had to work on the minds.
The Saints were sensational on Saturday night, led by Riewoldt, Hayes and Montagna and excited by Billings, Newnes, Curren and Dunstan.
The Saints didn’t allow Essendon to move the ball quickly through the midfield with their customary short kicks, and continually forced the Bombers backwards and sideways to try to find an avenue forward.
Essendon is by far the AFL’s No. 1 team at kicking the ball backwards.
In five rounds, the Bombers have kicked the ball backwards 98 times. The Hawks will be second after today. They have done it 58 times after four rounds.
The Saints appeared to be accountable to every Essendon player, save for the Bombers defensive group who played ring-a-rosy too many times.
It meant that when Essendon eventually got the ball into the forward line, there was no space for their forwards to move, allowing the Saints to spoil and, as the game wore on, rebound with ease.
Essendon has issues. Its forward line on Saturday night was non-functioning for the second week in a row.
WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW
Jake Carlisle can’t touch it, Joe Daniher might need a spell in the VFL and Kyle Hardingham is as opportunistic as a small forward, except the problem is he is a marking third tall and when he’s not taking his opportunities, it means he’s taking someone else’s spot.
It’s not all their fault, however, because if your teammates are dicking around with the ball, the opposition has ample time to fall back and defend.
Because the Bombers were flailing in the forward line, Thompson played Jobe Watson forward. It didn’t work on all fronts. Watson couldn’t find it and he was lost to the midfield, where the Saints hunted in numbers.
It’s never easy to say one coach outcoached another, but it’s safe to say Richardson would be happy with how his players responded to his demands.
It helps, of course, when you’re able to clog the opposition forward line and keep your own open, allowing Nick Riewoldt room to run and mark and then kick goals.
Essendon, similar to North Melbourne, are flaky.
Good teams win on the road and good teams should beat the opposition they are expected to. Essendon did neither in the past two weeks..
How much of a factor is the Perth heat?
In Round 1 against West Coast, Western Bulldogs midfielder Adam Cooney lost 5kg. The Bulldogs won’t release the figures, but you could safely estimate the playing group lost 40-50kg in the heat. The next week they pushed Port Adelaide for three quarters before running out of oomph.
Some Essendon players lost close to 3kg against Fremantle, but who is to say that was the reason they succumbed to the Saints.
Again, you would be taking away from St Kilda’s performance.
The Kangas were beaten by Collingwood’s pressure.
So much goes into a single game of footy that to select one aspect of why a team won or lost is futile. Suffice to say, Collingwood did to North what St Kilda did to Essendon: they didn’t allow easy ball to North’s runners, especially off half-back.
North, similar to Essendon, couldn’t move the ball how they liked.
Two weeks back, North had 99 uncontested marks against Port Adelaide. On Saturday against the Magpies, it was 77.
As St Kilda was all over Essendon backward of centre, the Pies were the same all over the ground against North Melbourne. It was a brutal defensive display from Nathan Buckley’s men, made to look even better when Travis Cloke marks and kicks goals.
It’s a reminder yet again that pressure wins football matches and excuses are the domain of the defeated.
BLUES STAND TALL
UNITED they stood, divided they had previously fallen.
Finally, the Blues walked the talk and their united charge on Twitter during the week was representative of their football yesterday.
The dissection will be fierce.
Was it a change in gameplan or a change in attitude? It is never one aspect which decides how a team performs, and three stood out yesterday.
It’s amazing what happens when players want to move the ball and it was plainly obvious it was play-on from a mark or free kick at every opportunity.
It meant players were forced to run, either to support or to be a target, which means sloppy-thinking opposition can be exposed, which the Bulldogs were yesterday in the first half.
The targets up forward were Lachie Henderson and Jarrad Waite who together kicked five goals in the first quarter.
They would finish with 16 marks and eight goals five behinds.
It was standout coaching from Mick Malthouse.
He had the courage and belief to assign Sam Rowe and Simon White to the key defensive posts, which meant Henderson could win the game and not save it.
Clearly, it was part of an attitudinal change at Carlton.
The midfielders, led by skipper Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs, ruckman Robbie Warnock and Ed Curnow on Tom Liberatore, were hungry and decisive, and they had forwards who were the same.
The Blues landed 88 tackles to the Bulldogs’ 74, and Carlton’s pressure acts were through the roof.
When one, two, three and four players present themselves to apply pressure to the opposition, it is a signal a team is up for the contest.
They lost Chris Judd with a hamstring and then Curnow with a knee, and then withstood a solid Bulldogs unit in the final quarter.
It was a resilient effort from the Blues.
No-one was better than the skipper.
In the first quarter, Murphy had 10 touches, six of which were contested. He led from the front.
By the end he had 28 touches, 12 tackles, five clearances and two goals.
Attitude is sustained by the leaders and Murphy, Gibbs, Walker and Simpson never wavered.
The confusion comes when you ask where this attitude has been for the past two games.
Malthouse went back to basics at training and the players took to Twitter to galvanise each other and the Carlton faithful.
It was a trigger to respond to poor performances which, of course, now presents a greater challenge.
Can it be sustained?
LIKES
1. Superstar forward I: Nick Riewoldt. Could he have four best on grounds after five rounds? Would like to think so, which prompts the query: If Ablett is praised for performing in a poor team such as Gold Coast after leaving Geelong, then surely Riewoldt gets the same accolades for performing in a very good St Kilda side for a decade and performing equally as well in a side many believe is a poor one. #ultimatesuperstar
2. Superstar forward II: Jonathan Brown. Questioned Brown in recent weeks and no-one is more pleased to see the lion-hearted big man be his team’s best player on Thursday night. The best aspect was his agility and ability to find space, something he had been struggling with. That’s 11 goals for Browny and he’s still the shining light in the Lions forward line.
3. Superstar forward III: Travis Cloke. Finally the big fella comes to the party and on Scott Thompson. Took 11 marks, five of them contested, and kicked 4.4. Time and again coach Nathan Buckley has said this season not to blame Cloke for his lack of potency and instead blame the midfield. The Pies moved the ball quick to Cloke one-on-one and this was result. It’s not rocket science.
4. Superstar forward IV: Lance Franklin. Seventeen touches, four goals, including three in a quarter and one to finish the Dockers in the final quarter. Like him deep in the forward line one-out and got the better of Luke McPharlin as the match wore on.
5. Patrick Dangerfield: Best put this as innocently as possible, but who thinks the return of Dangerfield’s girlfriend, Mardi, from Bangladesh after three months contributed to his slaying of GWS yesterday? Certainly, Dangerfield was running on top of the ground. There is a saying, happy wife means a happy life. What about, happy Patty means happy footy. The Crows should ensure Mardi keeps her overseas trips for the off-season if it means 33 touches, nine clearances and five goals for 192 SuperCoach points.
6. Swans: Got back to basics against the best defensive team in the competition and the critical stat was 102 tackles. That’s Grand Final-type intensity. The Dockers could only muster 66. Once again it was attitude which turned Sydney’s fortunes, just as it did the Blues yesterday. Led by Josh Kennedy, the underrated defensive duo of Dane Ranpe and Nick Smith, and Ben McGlynn’s 12 tackles.
7. Steele Sidebottom: Have a love/like feel for Sidebottom. Like him most of the time but expect more from him, and then love him when he produces what he did at the weekend. Has become the ultimate utility. Can play back, mid and forward, proof being his six rebound 50s and five inside 50s. Had it 34 times at 76 per cent efficiency. He is the fourth musketeer behind Pendlebury, Swan and Beams, and is quietly going about his business.
8. Jay Schulz: This bloke is jointly leading the Coleman Medal and should also be judged as one of the more courageous players in the competition. Has taken some huge hits launching at the ball and yet again on Saturday found himself in the wars. Check out the pic below that the man himself posted on Instagram to have a gander at his latest injury, which he just taped up and continued playing with. Note, it’s definitely not for the squeamish.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW
9: Honesty. Clubs don’t like explaining as much they like complaining so kudos to Fremantle coach Ross Lyon for detailing the delicate situation of young indigenous Docker Josh Simpson. “He has a number of family, cultural and attitudinal situations to work through,’’ Lyon said. “He’d done enough to be picked but, in this case, clearly Josh was disappointed about being out of the team so he’s basically dropped his bundle.” Good luck to Josh and Dockers.
10. Cats v Hawks. See you at the G.
Honourable mentions: Fasolo off a back flank, Polec yet again, Curren on Heppell, Ricky Petterd first-up after a spell, Jack Frost, Jack Darling, Billings and Newnes, Rischitelli’s back in town, Crow Scott Thompson in his 250th, Nathan Jones, Ryan Griffin and can’t leave out Gazza.
DISLIKES
1. Darren Glass. Not known for committing too much dirty stuff over 266 games, Glass will sit for a couple of weeks after crude bump on Port Adelaide’s Chad Wingard. Glass jumped off the ground, had eyes for Wingard and nailed him. Wingard was taken to hospital after the game. Fox Footy commentator Mark Riccuito labelled Glass a “bull at a gate”. It was worse than that.
2. Video review. Not much more can be said after yesterday’s howler, except how in the hell did the goal reviewer not see the deviation from the fist of Gold Coast’s Rory Thompson. My dear old Nan would’ve seen — and she’s dead.
3. Nic Nat. Want to put him in likes and dislikes. Likes for getting back on the park after being crunched by a brutal knee to the ribs in the final quarter. The dislike is for slamming Kane Cornes into the turf head first in the third quarter. Unintentional maybe, but Cornes didn’t have the ball and it appeared Naitanui wanted to inflict as much pain as possible. Cornes didn’t have his arms wrapped up which will make the MRP findings all the more interesting.
4. Doomsayers. Chris Judd did his hamstring. It is a bad one. Some medical experts are suggesting four to six weeks on the sidelines. It doesn’t mean he’s retired. Actually, he might even play in 2015. Some media folk are asking if yesterday’s game was his last. Please, the hamstring is headline enough without retirement talk.
5. Richard Douglas. It was a cheap shot which would’ve had folk of yesteryear cheering. But times have changed. Callan Ward was not in the play, he wasn’t earnestly chasing the Crows player with the ball when Douglas took him out with a classic shirt-front. It was a cheap shot because Ward wasn’t watching and Douglas knew that. There didn’t appear contact to the head, but Ward was concussed and substituted. Can’t see how he can escape a suspension, unless the AFL now allows such off-the-ball picking off. Can’t wait to hear Graham Cornes’ opinion, for he was mighty upset when Brendon Goddard bumped James Kelly when both were in play.
6. West Coast. Might seem like a West Coast bashing today, but can’t ignore just two goals in five quarters of football. Hill and Cripps not doing enough, no goals from the mids, and forwards playing high. Something not working under Adam Simpson. If he’s asking for greater defensive emphasis, the price he’s paying is lack of goals.
7. The dribble. Western Bulldogs midfielder Jackson Macrae is the latest player to attempt the dribble and miss. The fact Carlton kicked the next four goals was penalty enough without it being a topic of conversation. The problem was he didn’t have to dribble at all. He had a teammate in the square and by himself and Macrae didn’t handball to make it a certain goal.
8. Crowds. Liked this tweet from @nbhorse: “28000 at Etihad today. $40 for a seat on level 3 and $8 for a mid-strength beer. Losing the fans?’’ Maybe time to drop the question mark and replace with an exclamation mark. Maybe it was because Blues fans had had enough. Maybe the rolling mauls are putting them off. Just maybe it is the price of admission. Before too long, this issue has to addressed.
9. Collapsing the knees. Shaun Higgins did just that yesterday after Carlton’s Chris Yarran chased him down from behind. It was a terrific effort from Yarran who was not rewarded. Instead, the umpire pinged him for in the back. It’s the only negative I have from the umpires this year — the tackler is not being rewarded for incorrect disposal.
10. Bad whistle. Could’ve been a game decider when Hamish Hartlett was paid a mark in the final quarter, when Eric McKenzie clearly had two hands on the ball before Hartlett’s fist arrived to spoil. Hartlett kicked the goal. The Eagles fell behind and never caught up. It’s close to the worst decision of the weekend, that or the non-call on Chris Newman’s deliberate out of bounds on Thursday night.
TOP TWEETS
@NaylorMichael: like: Collingwoods pressure forcing turnovers Dislikes: Judd getting injured (and that’s from a Collingwood supporter)
@Tarvyo26: Dislike bombers supporters complaining about Leigh fisher umpiring, would they have complained if winning by plenty? Nope
@jstorm311: dislike only 17k ppl at a Melb. home game at the ‘G. Might as well play it at a suburban ground
@AnthonyGilberg: dislike the ridiculous free kick to Ablett. Sealed the game for Gold Coast.
@DeanAlepidis: Like: Adelaide Oval crowd. 44k on Easter Sunday 1240pm Adelaide time incredible Dislike: Melbourne Easter Sunday crowds
@brodie_dg: I like Cloke and Swan’s return to form. I dislike trading out that mug Dangerfield the week he scores 190 odd.
@B1ZK3Z: Like: St Kilda exuberance. Brad Ebert. Dislike: Darren Glass cheap two hits
@jfruch18: dislike: Jake Carlisle up forward
@grantdobson: Like: Marc Murphy stepping up to the plate and leading from the front in a crisis.
@Tigerwhite1977: dislike the video review. Sack it ... seriously!
@andrewwburton: Like: Big Johhno Brown, champ of the game. Dislike: Video review
@stevengh86: Likes Chris Yarran coming of age flashy silky skills, tackling work rate nd pressure up. Dislike nothing it's a long weekend
@tomkilgariff9: Dislike goal umpires not knowing what signal to give, as in Giants Crows game. Like the re-invented Matt Jaensch
@scottie2hotty75: just love Nick Riewoldt #winner #MANCRUSH
@ItisLJ_: Like: St Kilda’s kids — fearless, relentless and making us faithful supporters as proud as ever! The future is bright!
@britto2611: dangerfield mrs is home from O/S and bang he is back. No need to elaborate on the bang part.
@ivezica 32m: LIKE: The amount of meat I ate today. DISLIKE: The amount of meat left on the Judd hamstring.
@darragreek01: dislike Goal Revue, embarrassing for a Major Competition. Like The Power Forwards over the round, welcome back big fellas
@davo_cann: L: Key forwards! Brown, the Riewoldts, Cloke, Buddy, Pav, Dawes, Henderson. Nothing better than seeing your FF dominate!
@Carusiii: dislike: Whinging tagging tactics from last week costing teams this week ala Ablett vs. Melbourne
@hottalkhawk: dislike scrums, rolling mauls, and 36 guys in one half as soon as its inside either 50. Coaches culpable.
@BrissyPunter: Like: @h_lumumba back in style Dislike: Players consist’ly appealing to umps with arms out like Jesus on the cross #blight
@SidebySide: L: Alex Fasolo game off half back gives Pies some much needed run D: First half of Thursday nite — forgettable
@Jblee001: dislike players names on jumpers not visible at ground and hardly visible on TV, pointless
@pikeonaplate: like: the reinvention and impact of Matty White at Port. Dislike: centre bounces, it’s time for them to go, throw it up.
@CameronBSmith: like Alan Richardson as the new ken hinkley? Too early maybe but he’s clearly having an impact
@daniel_hood11: dangerfield #SCPig
@fitzyfiles: L: Jack Frost seizing his chance D: No reward for great tackles, u can’t just drop the ball!
@ace_cameron: dislike: footy turning into rugby #itsgettingworsebytheweek
@leigheustace: Like: Alan Richardson likening the way Lenny Hayes goes about it to old teammate Gavin Brown, two utter champs of our game.
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