St Kilda’s seven minutes of judgement after horror Tigers thrashing

It started with a damning stat and turned into a full-fledged St Kilda breakdown.

Brisbane Lions legend Jonathan Brown called it at halftime – this match was going to turn ugly and turn ugly it did, with the final siren sounding on an 86-point Richmond win over the Saints.

One stat that perhaps underscored it all: From the 18-minute mark of the second quarter to the 25-minute mark of the third quarter, Richmond won the clearance count 21 to one.

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How Tigers exposed ‘cheating’ Saints | 01:57

It was a horror stat and one that led to a seven-minute deconstruction of where the Saints are going wrong … and why they’re running out of time to fix it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jonathan Brown: It was embarrassing, watching that second-half footage, credit to Richmond they were fantastic, but that was a terrible insipid display by the St Kilda Football Club. And don’t worry, I reckon most of the fans will agree with us. because they’d be very disappointed with it all. I think Jack Steele can probably hold his head high, but a few guys are gonna have to have a good hard look in the mirror tonight. Yes, I know Marshall wasn’t there, Jones wasn’t there, Ryder wasn’t there, but that’s no excuse for poor effort. Poor effort. That number (clearance stat) – that is as embarrassing as you’ll get as an AFL football.

Sarah Jones: Pretty confronting stuff, as is this stat: 80 to 80, explain this one to us.

David King: It’s four points the difference halfway through the second term. So it’s very similar to what the North Melbourne Football Club were against the Western Bulldogs. In the next 80 minutes, they tack on another 80 points. It was as brutal as you’ve seen. I look at St Kilda’s list profile – this is a team that’s set up to win a Premiership in the next two to three years.

JB: Why?

DK: Because they’ve given up some first round picks to get experienced, known products in. That’s fine and it’s not an assessment we need to make every week of the year. But this is a list that’s got to win a flag in two to three years. If they don’t, they’ve got a void coming where they’ve got three to four years of minimal first round picks and it’s start again. It’s really on this group to gather themselves get a brand of football that’s an honest, finals-like brand of football, not the fraudulent model that we see every second week at the moment.

JB: It’s most weeks isn’t it really. Three of the last four weeks there‘s been real question marks. They got out of trouble the last 40 minutes against West Coast but Melbourne, terrible. Their first two- and-a-half quarters against West Coast, terrible, tonight terrible. They’ve got to start having a hard look at themselves. You used the word ‘fraudulent’, I’ve used the word ‘insipid’. We’re not throwing these words around lightly. We don’t just turn around and fire five bullets at teams. You know, we want to cheer for the game, hopefully they’re good games. The coach said it too – ‘they need to toughen up in there’ when he was interviewed at three quarter time, very rarely coaches talk about that. So imagine what he’s saying behind closed doors.

Saints press conference | 06:14

SarahJones: Do you think they‘ll play finals?

JB: Definitely not the way they’re going clearly, but I’m still a watch when Ryder, Marshall and Jones get back. Like we said there’s no excuse for poor effort tonight. But they do change the complexion of the team. No doubt about it. But they’re right on the cusp now. We see another performance like that next week, you can nearly put a line through them.

DK: It’s not about finals. This is a Premiership industry. It’s about winning flags.

SJ: As you said they’re older than what you think. This is not a young building side, this is a right here right now side.

DK: This is it, the window is wide open for them right now but it’s going to close and abruptly in three to four years time. That’s not a lot of games. The next wave of young talent coming through is not really there. So these players have to get the job done, so limping into a finals series, winning one final, winning two finals even, you got to get to preliminary final minimum with this group this year or next before you can take that next step.

JB: As a St Kilda fan you‘d be bitterly disappointed because those words that were used, you wouldn’t even attach to St Kilda last year, they would’ve been the last words you would’ve used. They were competitive, honest, turned up every week, they fight and they compete and they push the best teams right to the limit every time. What’s happened this year? Have they drank the Kool Aid a little bit over the off-season and they got a little bit ahead of themselves? Have they won a final and gone ‘we’re going alright, we get a couple more recruits, a couple more experienced players over the off-season, we’re just going to naturally get to the next level, we’re going to get on prelim final or a grand final’? It can happen easy. All of a sudden now they’ve been sat on their backside and they’ve played some really ordinary footy.

Tigers press conference | 05:38

DK: Or is it just the reality of the gap between Richmond and St Kilda? Is that a real margin? Are they 10 goals off the top two or three teams? Is that a real discussion or not?

JB: We‘ve seen it, we’ve got form. Against Melbourne, big chunks against West Coast and obviously against Richmond we’ve seen a lacklustre St Kilda, don’t you think?

DK: It’s more the integrity of their plan. Can you guarantee what St Kilda are gonna bring in terms of they get the game played the way they want that they‘re going to get the job done? I can’t guarantee that. I know how Richmond gonna play – we we can sit here and cut vision for halftime and post match on Richmond and it’s the same or similar to what we’ve shown in the previous three to four weeks.

JB: Do you reckon teams have gone to work on St Kilda?

DK: I think if you stay in the contest long enough against St Kilda, you break them. If you‘ve prepared to hunt that loose ball, hunt that contested footy and win it, you can then get them on the outside.

JB: Do you think they’re scrapping as hard as they did for all of last year?

DK: They run one way. It‘s as simple as that. We showed vision at halftime. We’re not looking for this vision but it becomes apparent. The numbers take you to the story – they step goalside quicker than any other team in the competition without secured possession, without their team having their hands on the ball, they are off and gone. Now that is great when it works. Looks awesome when it works. But it only works once in every five or six times. And Richmond exploited that tonight. The amount of times they bounced out, it’s embarrassing. It really is, the vision we just showed, Cotchin getting the ball to the outside, it renders them (Saints) useless straightaway. So if your plan doesn’t help you win what’s it doing?

JB: It’s an indictment on the Sainters. A lot of questions to be asked.