SORRY SAINTS IN DEEP STRIFE
ALWAYS in football, the answer starts with the spiritual before the mechanics can be worked on.
And right now St Kilda is in a deep hole, lacking both spirit and mechanics.
Spirit aside, which basically underpins the want to compete for each other, the baffling question is: What is St Kilda’s game plan?
The numbers tell us it’s continuous ball movement, high disposals, No.1 for uncontested marks and the No.1 kicking team in the comp.
What does that mean? They like to keep control of the ball, but the issue is they too often turn it over. In the past six weeks, when their season fell off the cliff, they are ranked fourth for turning over the ball in the back half and have conceded the most points from those back-half turnovers.
That’s a bad profile. They overuse the ball, they turn the ball over and they can’t defend the turnover. And when they do have the ball, they are only average at moving it from D50 to F50.
Against the Bulldogs, they took 158 marks to the Dogs’ 100 marks and were down by 50 points at three-quarter time.
All the analysts in the footy world were confounded by that, so what’s coach Brett Ratten thinking when he knows what the team is trying to do? Confused? Frustrated? Angered?
That is a brief – and tormenting – synopsis of St Kilda’s mechanics.
Spiritually, they are a damaged mob, a collection of individuals – bar a few standouts – who are a mix of frontrunners, lazy, selfish, introverted individuals who, since the bye break, largely masquerade as a connected footy team.
They say they are connected, but they don’t act it. Certainly, don’t play like it.
Bob Murphy used to call it “circling up”, a phrase to describe a truth-telling session held by a team in the 48 hours after a run of spiritless performances.
Last Friday night, Ratten circled up 10 minutes after the final siren.
In what was tragic and gripping transparency after yet another defeat, the Saints released video of Ratten’s sermon to his bedraggled players and for that the Saints deserve congratulations.
Why they did it is a separate question.
If they wanted to share the inner torment with Saints fans, you know, invite them along on the journey of despair, then that horse has bolted. Despair has ridden shotgun to St Kilda’s seasons for some time now.
Dissecting Ratten’s words, tone and emotion is for each person to assess, but from this vantage point, it was a speech from a wretchedly desperate coach to a playing group who don’t care enough.
“It’s so hard to earn the respect and the trust. But f--k it’s easy to let it go. And I think tonight we let some go. We can sit here and review the games and all that but you blokes, you know the efforts and what you’re after and the responses you need. We’ve got to draw it out of you. This is the part where – the teams that I’ve been involved in – there was f--king blokes saying that ain’t f--king good enough mate, lift your game.
And …
“We’ve got to push. Not concede. “We’ve got to ask of more of each other, not allow it to happen. If you’ve got someone and you’ve got it done and you hand them over, f--kin’ do your job for me, I’m trusting ya, that’s what we’ve got to get to.
“Not, oh OK, yeah jeez bad luck. It’s not f--kin bad luck. We control the environment. We control our attitude and we’ll be OK because we’ve got a bit of talent and we’ll show some things, but we’ll never be the team we want to be until we f--kin’ ask each other to f--kin’ lift when it counts.’’
And …
“We have to take our friendship to real friends, to even family.
“What it will make us is stronger and a better team. And a team that cares. And this group cares.’’
Excuse the language, but that was Ratten pleading, urging, demanding a team plays for each other and not for themselves.
In his speech, he named several players, but could’ve named more.
Like, why Jack Higgins do your tackle numbers halve from wins to losses? Like, why Zak Jones do your tackle and pressure numbers plummet when the team loses?
Like, why Brad Hill are you able to maintain pressure, but lose your dare in losing games?
Like, why Jade Gresham do you play like Eddie Betts one week and look like Eddie the Eagle the next?
It’s staggering the fall in performance, from starting 8-3 and beating Geelong and Fremantle and then delivering 1-5. It’s fair to say the Saints’ mentality waivers and also they lack star power when the mentality stars to waiver. St Kilda has committed to Ratten for the next two years, and Ratten clearly is committed to improving the connection between his players.
So, what’s the solution? Football is partly about trusting yourself and each other to do the team thing in the decisive moment, against doing what you want to do because it is easier and better for you. That’s OK, if you don’t want to do the team thing, you don’t play. The players have six weeks to determine if they want to play team footy or not.
If they don’t, then the club has to weed them out and restock, because St Kilda will continue to tread water – not coming, not going, not anything.
And not for the first time in the past decade, Saints fans are spiritually broken. Just like their team.