St Kilda are a grim watch with Ross Lyon’s limitations exposed

St Kilda’s match against Port Adelaide on Sunday was the quintessential Ross Lyon game – minus the win and minus the effort. Photograph: Graham Denholm/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

No matter what you expected of St Kilda this year, surely you expected better than that. Sunday was the quintessential Ross Lyon game – minus the win, and minus the effort. The coach tried to remain upbeat in the post-match press conference. As always, he sought to deflect, to charm and to set the narrative around the team. But he was fooling no one, perhaps with the exception of his former media colleagues who continue to pull their punches. For it was blindingly obvious on Sunday – St Kilda don’t have the stars, they certainly don’t have the midfield and they don’t really have anything that makes you want to watch them, or believe in them.

Lyon has been granted an unusual amount of power at St Kilda. He’s shaped a lot of change around him – recruiters, development staff, CEOs. When he was appointed, he laid out his vision for how he wanted the team to play, and how he wanted the club to be run. He was disarming, and he was blunt. He gave us all the old aphorisms. Football has changed, he said, and he would change with it. He’d be less of a lunatic in the box. He’d be less of an autocrat. He’d be “Cuddly Ross”.

What he doesn’t have, and what he hasn’t been able to change, is the list. He said he barely looked at the list before taking on the job at Fremantle and St Kilda. But in his previous role, he had Matthew Pavlich and he had a young Nathan Fyfe. This time around, he inherited a list that looked plain, clogged and poorly constructed.

Early on in his tenure, the Saints caught the competition on the hop. They were limited, but they were super fit and they were relentless. But it’s since stalled. The Saints are a grim watch right now. The coach seems a bit bewildered by it all. He thought they’d be better than this. “Failure’s feedback,” is one of his favourites. He keeps saying it, and they keep losing the same way.

The supporter base has seen it all, heard it all and been subjected to too much. But they expected better than this. Losing is hard enough. Losing and scratching around for a couple of goals a quarter is just depressing.

“A year of exploration,” Lyon called his first year. 2024 has been more of a reality check. For him, it’s the realisation that a coach can’t just waltz in and overcome decades of poor drafting, poor trading and poor development. For everyone else, it’s Lyon’s own limitations that are glaring – the inability, or unwillingness, to foster a brand of football that is sustainable and, at the very least, watchable.

Crunching the numbers

This is the first time that 11 clubs have been within six points of one another this late in the season.

Player to watch this week

Before the Fremantle game, Marcus Bontempelli was bedridden all week. Heading into Saturday’s clash with North Melbourne, he’d suffered back spasms. In both games, he shored up three Brownlow votes.

The Bont does the lot. He bores in, and lopes out. He carries the Dogs when they’re no good, and he’s the cherry on top when they’re travelling well. So many greats of the competition are in Brownlow contention this year, but it would bring the house down if this magnificent footballer finally wins one.

From the archives

State of Origin football has been in the news again recently. The football industry simply can’t handle another sport, especially rugby league, doing something better than them. Dermott Brereton offered one of the more honest, realistic perspectives this week. He said his first ever state jumper meant everything to him. But that receded. He called it dishonest footy. A lot of players were not accountable, and were running ahead of the ball, he said.

Derm played in the 1989 MCG game against South Australia in the mud. At half-time, as was his way, and as was certainly not the done thing back then, he slipped into a pair of fluorescent pink boots. Prowling the rooms, the late Ted Whitten quickly put an end to that. “There’s no way you’re playing for Victoria in those,” he said.

They said what?

Always one to go into bat for his players, Beveridge leapt to Weightman’s defence after allegations of staging.

View from stands (or the couch)

“Umpiring crisis needs ‘royal commission’ style response”

The headline on Mark Robinson’s The Tackle column in the Herald Sun on the current state of umpiring was arguably a tad over the top.

Footy quiz

Who has coached the most AFL/VFL matches without leading any club to a premiership? Answers in next week’s newsletter, but if you think you know it, hit reply and let us know.

Last week’s answers: Record for the longest surname in AFL/VFL history: Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, Essendon (2016–2023); and the shortest: Tom Re, Fitzroy (1936-1937).

Want more?

Ken Hinkley is still in his job at the time of writing, but despite a win at the end of a week in which the atmosphere surrounding Port Adelaide had been poisonous, the pressure on their coach may have been released only temporarily.

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