St Mary’s facing a tough push to finals
ST MARY’S co-coach Travis Robertson believes his side can only afford to lose one more match in the remaining seven games of the home-and-away season or their finals hopes are over.
The Saints’ five-game winning streak was brought to an end by Bell Park in a five-point thriller on Saturday, leaving St Mary’s seventh on the ladder at 6-5, six points and percentage outside the top five.
With games against Colac, Newtown & Chilwell, South Barwon and Leopold to come, their task is an unenviable one.
“The challenge is going to be to keep winning games of footy,” Robertson said after the 7.16 (58) to 9.9 (63) loss at Anthony Costa Oval.
“When you look at the draw and you see you’ve got Joeys and a few others … to dish that up after last week was pretty disappointing.
“It makes it a lot harder. I don’t think we can drop more than one from here on in.
“We need a few things to go our way.”
After Bell Park skipped away in the second quarter with a flurry of goals to lead by 27 points at halftime, the match swung after the main break.
St Mary’s mounted a bold third-quarter comeback, kicking four goals and holding Bell Park to just two behinds.
The Saints led by two points at three-quarter time, but only Harry McMahon (two goals) could hit the scoreboard for the Saints in a thrilling final term as Bell Park surged back in the heavy rain.
“It’s been a bit of a common theme for us after a poor second quarter, move a couple of things around and we get a response,” Robertson lamented.
“They just need to start playing 100 per cent of the game. We’ve tried a few things and nothing seems to be working.
“It’s certainly not a talent issue, it’s just something the boys need to respond to.
“We went to sleep in the second quarter. They put some scoreboard pressure on us, they kicked really straight and then we were chasing.”