I said in another post last week that I think our record against good sides will be a positive this year, but that the games I’m worried about is when a mediocre team sets out to stonewall us because we struggle to unlock scoring against those teams. That’s exactly how it played out on Sunday.
It was a classic Lyon game plan. Gum up the other team’s forward line, then break quickly the other way into space. Whereas our haphazard forward delivery landed in a group of 30 players, St Kilda’s haphazard forward delivery landed mostly in the hands of Brennan Cox, except for the odd one that squirted out and bounced into space where the Saints could pounce.
The way to beat that game style is to move the ball quickly, or to get the ball into the hands of players who can pinpoint passes into a crowded 50 or kick it over their heads. We did neither. Experienced teams can find a way to do that, but we’re still pretty immature in that regard.
Tabs was irrelevant, Fyfe was poor, and Jackson had an almost game. We only needed to kick a goal or two more in the middle of the game, and the Saints would have been forced to take the game on, and we would have rolled them by 6 goals.
I think we’ll look a lot better against really bad teams or good teams actually trying to win the game.
