By Andrew Wu
Ross Lyon’s second coming at Moorabbin has St Kilda surging, and Saints fans buckling up for the ride.
The Saints are the early season bolters, and the Western Bulldogs are stuck in the starters’ box after Lyon engineered another upset victory at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.
Mattaes Phillipou and Brad Hill exemplify St Kilda’s intensity with a gang-tackle on Ed Richards.Credit: Getty Images
With his team winless from the first two rounds, Dogs coach Luke Beveridge has foreshadowed a soul-searching few days for his men before they host Brisbane off a five-day break to avoid a 0-3 start on Thursday night.
The Saints’ 51-point win was soured by a shoulder injury to skipper Jack Steele, who will undergo scans on Sunday to determine if he has re-injured the joint he hurt last year, which cost him four games.
Steele was sporting an ice pack on his right shoulder in the rooms as he chatted with club president Andrew Bassat and actor Eric Bana.
“It’s not feeling great, but we’ll get some scans and see how it is,” Steele told Channel Seven after the game.
Steele sustained the injury in the third quarter, returning to the field with his shoulder strapped. He played out the game but appeared limited in some movements.
“Is it an AC [joint] or a hairline fracture? We don’t know,” Lyon said.
Ahead of the Saints’ 150th anniversary celebrations, there is suddenly a spark at Moorabbin – and their youngsters are the fire starters. Teenagers Mattaes Phillipou, Mitch Owens and Anthony Caminiti booted eight goals between them in a forward line that was expected to struggle without Max King and Tim Membrey.
If they haven’t already, Saints fans will soon fall in love with Phillipou, who kicked three vital goals when the match was at its hottest. In just two games, the No.10 pick from South Australia has already shown why he was such a highly rated junior, energising what was a staid forward line last year with his ground level verve and nous around goal.
Mattaes Phillipou gave an outstanding performance.Credit: Getty Images
Or perhaps the kids will iron the No.10 of Owens on the back of their jumpers. Like Phillipou, the second-season Saint also booted three. If they like their cult heroes, Caminiti is their man. Signed as a pre-season supplemental selection just over a month ago, after Jack Silvagni unwittingly tipped off his Saints list boss father, Caminiti snagged two, troubling the Dogs with his height and speed.
The highlight was his team-lifting running goal from 50 out, capping off a stirring passage of play started by Dan Butler’s desperate run-down tackle on Liam Jones in the middle of the ground.
“I always say it to players, if I see it at training, good or bad, I’ll see it in the game,” Lyon said. “I’ve seen Mattaes at training kicking it from outside 50. I’ve experienced Mitch Owen’s work rate. We haven’t hoped with Caminiti.
“He came in the first day at training and took those marks, he has that speed. We picked them on what we saw, and they’ve been doing it in AFL footy.”
St Kilda’s newcomer Anthony Caminiti celebrates a goal in the win over the Bulldogs on Saturday night. Credit: Getty Images
This was an excellent performance by the Saints, who, apart from a brief period late in the second term, were clearly the better side.
They were too tough and too hard for a Dogs outfit playing with little of the spirit they showed in their march to the 2021 grand final.
St Kilda’s Mitch Owens outreaches Bulldogs Bailey Dale (front) and Tim English while teammate Rowan Marshall 9bottom left) also competes for the ball.Credit: Getty Images
Their senior quartet of Jack Steele, Brad Crouch, Seb Ross and Rowan Marshall outmuscled the Dogs at the stoppages.
After the Dogs closed within three points, the Saints responded to Lyon’s half-time challenge, breaking the dam wall with five goals in a row in a match-winning burst.
Once the king of the contest, the Dogs were found wanting in that area again. Bailey Smith, Tom Liberatore and Marcus Bontempelli and co are generating numbers on the stats sheet, but their forwards are starving.
From 37 entries, the Dogs managed just five goals. Their vaunted tall timber aren’t marking it, and the ball is spilling out far too easily.
Beveridge has plenty of questions but few answers after another ordinary performance by his men, following up a 50-point hiding last week with another shocker.
After finishing poorly against Melbourne, the Dogs gave up nine of the last 10 goals of the game. Asked if fitness was an issue, Beveridge questioned his team’s work rate.
“I think you’d have to say that the first two rounds we’ve been outworked,” Beveridge said. “So we’ve had a really solid pre-season but some surprises coming into the year with some boys. We’ve got 11 on the injury list at the moment, but that’s not an excuse, it’s just the way it is. You need a deep squad.
“But there’s no doubt that when we compare our output as far as the ground cover and the intensity and the speed of it, we haven’t been up to the level that the first two teams we’ve played have.
“Now that’s a combination of things – it’s definitely not because we haven’t worked hard enough. So it’s a difficult one to analyse, but we’ve just got to face up to it.”
Beveridge said he would support his players but is looking for an antidote to their early-season malaise.
St Kilda teammates get around goalkicker Anthony Caminiti. Credit: Getty Images
“The main message, the clinical message, is around believing we can turn it around quickly. It is still only round two, so there’s a lot of the season left to make a mark, and we really believe we can, so that’s one,” Beveridge said.
“And two: I’ll always just be totally in our players’ corner. I’m here to support them, and I’m their ally, I’m not their gavel. We analyse and we look at performance, but ultimately, my drive is always to pick them up and pursue the improvements and the development in them.
Josh Battle competes with Marcus Bontempelli.Credit: Getty Images
“They’re a really close group, so they feel like they’re letting each other down as much as our great supporters. So, they’re absolutely turning their minds to being better teammates and us being a better team. We’ll facilitate that, and we’ll look to bring it against Brisbane.”
The hard-nosed, defensively sound football synonymous with Lyon was on show in a brilliant opening by the Saints, who had the greater appetite for the contest.
They were harder at the ball, and when they didn’t have possession, pressured the Dogs into costly errors. Smith and Ed Richards were among a group of players, normally assured with the ball, who coughed up shockers which led to Saints goals.
It was not until midway through the second term before the Dogs, through leaders Bontempelli, Liberatore and Smith, belatedly matched the Saints’ intensity.
Goalless for the first 47 minutes of the game, the Dogs booted three in a hurry, and when Tim English converted after the siren a game that had appeared well under the Saints’ control was wide open.
TEMPERS FRAYED
English’s goal after the half-time siren sparked a melee in which two players familiar to both clubs figured centrally. Josh Bruce was in the thick of it, along with English, but it was the heated words between Zaine Cordy and Dogs pair Bontempelli and Aaron Naughton which will make for an interesting discussion when the former teammates meet next for a coffee. Whatever the banter was riled Cordy enough for him to keep yapping as both parties went their separate ways.
CORDY LAUGHS LAST
Lyon revealed Cordy, an unlikely game-breaker for his new club, had played a key part helping the Saints plot the Dogs’ demise.
“I know for a fact that he gave us some good insights by the way,” Lyon said. “I’ve been out of it for a while. He said, ‘look, this is how they play’, and he really helped in the planning, no doubt about it.”
He also played a vital role in executing the plan. Better known as a defender, even though he was a forward in the Dogs’ 2016 premiership, Cordy was influential in the third term. From his six touches and four marks, Cordy booted two vital goals in a makeshift forward line missing injured spearhead King.
WESTERN BULLDOGS 0.1 4.5 5.8 5.11 (41)
ST KILDA 4.1 5.4 11.5 14.8 (92)
GOALS
Western Bulldogs: Naughton 2, Baker, English, Garcia
St Kilda: Phillipou 3, Owens 3, Cordy 2, Gresham 2, Caminiti 2, Wood, Steele
BEST
Western Bulldogs: Smith, Naughton, Bruce, Jones.
St Kilda: Steele, Marshall, Sinclair, Ross, Crouch, Wood, Owens.