AFL Western Bulldogs v St Kilda: All the news and analysis
With St Kilda in a desperate fight to remain in the finals race, the latest injury for Paddy Ryder and subsequent time on the sidelines has the club at crossroads.
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St Kilda’s dimming finals hopes have been dealt a cruel blow with key ruck Paddy Ryder sidelined for what could be the remainder of the season.
Ryder, 34, injured his calf in Friday night’s loss to the Western Bulldogs and was subbed out of the game amid achilles fears, with scans revealing late on Monday that the damage will put the All-Australian ruck out for between four and six weeks.
The Saints were demolished by the Bulldogs and now sit 10th, outside the top eight by percentage.
They travel to Perth this weekend to take on a wounded West Coast before a tough run home that includes top-eight outfits Geelong, Brisbane and Sydney.
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St Kilda entered their bye 8-3, but have since dropped five of their past six games.
Those losses have included smashings at the hands of Sydney (by 51 points) and Fremantle (by 41 points).
Coach Brett Ratten, who was re-signed on a two-year deal earlier this month, had conceded after the loss to the Bulldogs that Ryder would be “touch and go”.
“We’ve just got to be wary of a player at 34, nearly 35, who has had a history of that,” he said.
Ryder has played 12 games this season and remains one of the Saints’ most important players.
The 281-game veteran, who started his career at Essendon before moving to Port Adelaide and then St Kilda, is out of contract at the end of this year and it’s possible he has played his last AFL match.
He said in May that he would be keen to play on into an 17th season next year, but would have “to keep my body in good nick”.
“Being so far into my career now, I know what I need to do to keep myself going,” he said on Fox Footy.
“I’ll just take it year by year and at the end of the year I’ll assess, but if I keep playing good footy then I’ll just continue to play.”
His absence leaves sole ruck duties to Rowan Marshall, who was recently re-signed on a monster five-year deal at Moorabbin.
Dan McKenzie, who only last week returned to contention after battling concussion, injured his calf at training last week and will also be sidelined.
The 26-year-old will also be out for up to six weeks.
Ratten admitted on Friday night that the team was “running out of time (to play finals) very quickly)” with just five games remaining to secure their place.
Dan Hannebery could be recalled to senior contention this week against the Eagles.
Key midfielder Hunter Clark could return after his gruesome nasal fracture in Round 16, while key defender Dougal Howard remains up to another fortnight away in his recovery from knee surgery.
Saints to weigh up Ryder risk ahead of crunch clash
By Ronny Lerner
St Kilda will closely monitor Paddy Ryder this week after the veteran ruckman was subbed out of Friday night’s loss to the Western Bulldogs with achilles soreness.
The Saints face a trip to Perth for a crunch game against West Coast next Sunday as they look to keep their season alive.
Ryder, who turned 34 in March, has a history of achilles issues, but has played 12 of a possible 17 games this year.
“We’ve just got to be wary of a player at 34, nearly 35, who has had a history of that,” St Kilda coach Brett Ratten said on Friday night.
“Whether he plays next week or not, we’ve got the eight days, which might help him.
“It will be touch and go.”
Saints fans’ cruel tease as blow compounds terrible loss
The Western Bulldogs have kept their finals hopes alive with a much-needed 28-point victory against an insipid St Kilda outfit in what was a virtual elimination final at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.
The stakes were huge, but only one team rocked up for the fight, with the Bulldogs seemingly the sole combatants who got the memo about just how important this match was to both teams’ September ambitions.
Straight off the bat, with so much on the line, St Kilda inexplicably looked like a deflated and beaten team bereft of intensity and effort as the Bulldogs helped themselves to the first seven goals, putting the game to bed by the second quarter.
After trailing by 52 points late in the third term, the Saints woke up in the final quarter, trimming the deficit to 22.
But it amounted to nothing more than a cruel tease for their long-suffering fans and, fittingly, Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli put the full stop on the contest, capping off his best-on-ground performance with a huge pack mark and goal late.
Bontempelli played his best game of the season, helping himself to 34 disposals (17 contested), 11 marks, five clearances and 12 score involvements, including three goal assists and two goals.
His counterpart Tom Liberatore was a dominant force at the stoppages, racking up a game-high 11 clearances to go with 31 touches (16 contested).
Exacerbating the Saints’ defeat was the loss of Paddy Ryder to an Achilles injury, which could sideline him for multiple weeks.
In the first three quarters, the Saints were let down badly by safe, stagnant ball movement and terrible foot skills which led to a plethora of turnovers. The Bulldogs weren’t even playing overly brilliant footy, but the Saints largely did their job for them, gifting them a host of easy goals as a result of their woeful play.
Before they knew it, St Kilda were down by 44 points halfway through the second term, and it was lights out.
The gulf in class between the two teams was cavernous as the likes of Bontempelli and Bailey Dale (30 disposals) used the ball with sublime precision, something the Saints were crying out for, but were badly lacking.
For much of the night, St Kilda over-possessed the ball and went nowhere, as evidenced by their huge lead in marks (158-100) and their advantage in disposals (399-377). But they were belted in the clearances 41-21 and, oddly, refused to take on the Bulldogs’ 12th-ranked defence and put them under any meaningful pressure prior to three-quarter time.
The 13.6 (84) to 7.14 (56) result saw the Dogs move to ninth spot, leapfrogging the Saints who continue to drop down the ladder like a stone, having now lost five of their last six games after sitting pretty inside the top four at the halfway mark of the season.
St Kilda will probably have to win three of their last five games to make the finals and with Geelong, Brisbane and Sydney in their run home, their margin for error has shrunk considerably.
But the Bulldogs certainly aren’t out of the woods in their ambition to qualify for the top eight. They likely need another three wins as well, and face top three teams Melbourne, Geelong and Fremantle in the next three weeks.
BONTEMPELLI BRILLIANCE
Bontempelli capped off a magnificent 20-disposal first half on the stroke of time on in the second term as he gathered the ball and off just one step from 50m out on a 45-degree angle through traffic, banged home a sensational goal.
DALE MAKES BATTLE PAY
The warning signs were there early for the Saints, the most alarming of which was when Josh Battle centred a kick in defence, only to kick it straight to Bontempelli who released Dale and the speedy Bulldog finished off the job from 52m out in front, putting the Dogs up by 19 points after 17 minutes.
That's Bailey Dale's bread and butter from outside 50 ðŸž#AFLDogsSaintspic.twitter.com/3RKAulGkCx
— AFL (@AFL) July 15, 2022
SAINTS STIFLED
St Kilda’s quarter-time score of 0.2.2 was their worst since Round 13, 2019 and their worst against the Bulldogs since the 2009 preliminary final.
0.2.2 is St Kilda's worst first quarter since Round 13, 2019 and their worst against the Bulldogs since the 2009 preliminary final #AFLDogsSaints
— Ronny Lerner (@RonnyLerner) July 15, 2022
BULLDOGS 5.2, 8.4, 12.5, 13.6 (84)
SAINTS 0.2, 2.4, 3.9, 7.14 (56)
LERNER’S BEST
Bulldogs: Bontempelli, Liberatore, Dale, Macrae, Gardner, Smith, Ugle-Hagan.
Saints: Wilkie, Sinclair, Webster, Battle, Steele, Marshall.
GOALS Bulldogs: Ugle-Hagan 3, Bontempelli 2, Weightman, Dale, West, Dunkley, Hannan, Garcia, Treloar, Johannisen.
Saints: King 2, Wood, Steele, Sinclair, Billings, Jones.
INJURIES Bulldogs: Nil. Saints: Ryder (Achilles).
UMPIRES Donlon, Broadbent, Gavine
VENUE Marvel Stadium
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
LERNER’S VOTES
3 Marcus Bontempelli (WB)
2 Tom Liberatore (WB)
1 Bailey Dale (WB)
‘MINDBLOWINGLY POOR’ HALF EXPOSES SAINTS
— Dan Batten
Most expected a tight contest between two sides desperate to keep their seasons alive on the Friday night stage.
Instead, St Kilda was blown off the park in a dismal first half where it lacked any defensive intent, trailing by 36 points — but it could have been worse, with the Western Bulldogs missing some gettable chance.
The Bulldogs scored their first five goals off turnover as the Saints burnt the ball by foot, with their attacking forays easily handled by a Bulldogs defence that has struggled of late.
And they were even worse on the defensive end, laying a paltry 12 tackles in the first half — the AFL average for a match is 54.
Luke Beveridge’s side piled on the first seven goals of the game before St Kilda’s broke its drought in the 17th minute of the second term, with Mason Wood kicking an unlikely snapping goal from the boundary — when he had butchered a far easier snapping opportunity in the first term.
Man U have kicked as many goals in a half as St Kilda. 😬
— Daniel Wilkins (@lensmandan) July 15, 2022
With five minutes remaining in the second term, Channel 7 commentator Brian Taylor revealed that 70 per cent of the game had been played in the Bulldogs’ half of the ground.
Hawthorn legend Jason Dunstall and former St Kilda star Leigh Montagna were scathing in their assessment of the first-half horror show.
“They are mindblowingly poor, that’s how bad it is,” Dunstall said on Fox Footy.
“When your season is on the line … I can barely grasp what I’m seeing.”
Montagna said it was their “worst performance of the year so far”
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