AFL Richmond v St Kilda: News and analysis from Friday night clash

Reigning premier Richmond is fearing key defender Noah Balta has suffered an ACL rupture on a miserable Friday night that saw the Tigers kick only two goals.

Damien Hardwick’s team faces the prospect of being outside the top eight by the end of the weekend after the shock 40-point defeat to previously struggling St Kilda at the MCG.

Richmond hammered the Saints by 86 points in mid-April, but its 2.10 (22) scoreline this time was the club’s lowest since managing only eight behinds against the same opposition in 1961.

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Balta was trying to mop up the Sherrin in his defensive 50 in the third quarter when he fumbled, then was caught in a Josh Battle tackle that brought him to ground.

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The 21-year-old’s right leg was caught underneath him and his boot appeared to get stuck in the turf as he immediately grabbed for his knee.

“I don’t like to speculate but it doesn’t look great at this stage, which is disappointing for the lad,” Hardwick said.

“Once we get further details, we’ll pass that on, but it looks disappointing at this stage. It looks that way (ACL), but once we have that confirmed, we’ll pass that on.”

There were other injury concerns throughout the night for Nathan Broad, Nick Vlastuin and debutant Samson Ryan, but they all played out the game.

A Greater Western Sydney victory over Hawthorn at the MCG on Sunday would see Leon Cameron’s men replace Richmond in eighth place.

The Tigers’ top-four hopes are as good as shot, now trailing both the Lions and Cats by three wins with only eight matches remaining.

They play both those sides in the run home, as well as the Giants, but the others are all against teams outside the top eight.

“I’d like to think we’re a proud footy club and we don’t let people down too often … but I thought tonight we didn’t fire a shot, which is incredibly disappointing,” Hardwick said.

“Generally, we surge at some stage but we never felt that happened at any stage tonight.

“A lot of credit goes to the Saints – they played some really good footy – but I was disappointed that at no stage we probably challenged a side we thought we could beat.”

The Saints lost two players on the night, with Jack Billings copping a knee knock in the warm-up before his replacement, Nick Coffield, suffered a left hamstring injury in the third term.

Leo Connolly was upgraded to the medical substitute when Billings was pulled out, then he came in for his AFL debut once Coffield was subbed out.

St Kilda improved to a 6-8 record – just one game behind the Tigers, albeit almost 20 percentage points in arrears – and co-captain Jack Steele was thrilled with the performance.

“We were under the pump quite a lot over the last couple of weeks and it’s definitely nice to be able to come out and beat the Tigers on the MCG on Friday night,” Steele told Channel 7.

“I’m glad the boys responded. We were just really connected. Probably something we haven’t done all year is play out four quarters, so each quarter we broke it down and took it quarter by quarter.

“We were able to keep them to a low score, which is pleasing, but we were able to kick a nice score ourselves, so that was great, too.”

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