AFLM Round 19: Port Adelaide v St Kilda: It’s not over until we’re cooked like a chook

 

Saturday July 29 7.25pm

Adelaide Oval

Yvette Wroby

 

With the launch of The Women’s Footy Almanac 2017 all done, books to contributors posted, and Archie the labradoodle settling in for a two-week holiday at Nanna Yvette’s, all I had to do was sit down and watch a game of footy where the Saints had a chance.

 

All the Saints had to do was to be in the game. All I had to do was watch.

 

And then my phone went nuts – Twitter was abounding with the Sunday Age article already posted on the Sydney Morning Herald site and doing the rounds. I got to read the article and send it out on its way.  I was remembering all my lessons on Twitter – connect to as many @ as I could. I watched the game while being somewhat distracted.

 

The game didn’t help. We started inaccurately, as did Port before Jack Lonie goaled. Four more points shared between the teams before Justin Westhoff and Karl Amon put Port ahead. It was a quarter of behinds. Port led by 6 poins.

 

The second quarter saw Jackson Trengrove miss before Jarmon Impey goaled. Then it got frustrating: Lonie misses an easy one, Jack Billings misses, Jack Sinclair misses. It doesn’t cheer me up that Robbie Gray misses too, cos Jack Billings coughs up another chance. Josh Bruce goes for a mark and wraps himself around a goal post but Tim Membrey has captured the ball and put it through the correct posts. We’re in this, despite ourselves. Port are 3 points ahead at half time.

 

My phone is twinging and twanging and it is hard to not keeping shut my eyes every time we are in front of goals.

 

Weeks ago, I met a chap at a Saints function, and he told our CEO, President and Coach that he’d taught both kids and Alastair Clarkson his sure-fire way to kick straight. I tried to line him up to talk to our coaching staff and sent his info onto our CEO. I never heard back, and the Saints haven’t kicked any straighter. I think we should listen to the elderly.  Been around a block or two, and if what he said was true, it couldn’t hurt. And it hurts to watch the lack of confidence that inaccurate kicking week after week, brings. It deflates the supporters and does nothing for the team.

 

Tweets continued as did Port. Jared Polac goals and there is more back and forth. In the next period Membrey misses, a rushed Port point, Jade Gresham misses two, Charlie Dixon misses and Bruce gets his third point for the game. I think I was enjoying my phone more than the game. Especially when Aaron Young gets the ball to Trengrow and he goals. Blake Acres pulls one back on the siren and Saints are 7 behind.  We are 3 goals 12 points.  Arggghhhh!  We are too sloppy and it’s killing us.

 

Dixon starts the last quarter and their defence is killing us.  We bomb it in and they are tall and taking marks at their pleasure. Finally, there is good forward thrust from the Saints, Membrey marks and goals from outside 50.

 

It is bouncing forward and back, and Brad Ebert goals. Gresham kicks accurately at last, and we are within 8 points, but Port get it forward and miss everything. Jack Sinclair gets a free and goals. Luke Dunstan puts the Saints in front and I am paying full attention.  I notice Jake Carlisle has become our ‘interceptor’. Both sides get a behind before Membrey goals and Saints are 10 points ahead.

 

Now in 2015 (as reported in Siren’s Call), we played Melbourne and came back to kick a goal in the last seconds to steal the game, we overcame and protected our space. But without our elders Nick Riewoldt, Joey Montagna and defender Sam Gilbert, we had no one to muster the boys and make sure they knew to lock this game down. I sat in my lounge room, about to text a friend that we won, and I hesitated. Stopped dead and never sent it, as I watched Aaron Young bring it back within a goal, and the Paddy Ryder hitting the ball to Robbie Gray who boots it straight through winning the game with 7 seconds left on the clock. They beat us by two points, the text never got sent, and I saw the shattered Saints boys who knew they let this one get away.

 

It’s hard to lose like this. We were in it. We’d won it, till they won it and it’s taken days to recover. And my body wasn’t bruised and battered, I didn’t have to fly back interstate, and get ready for another game.

 

I just had to write a report and recover from disappointment. Losing by two points can only be a lesson for the future.  I hope the Saints have learned it well. The fans certainly have.

 

(The week remained challenging when Nick Riewoldt, our wonderful champion, announced his retirement. Saints will miss him but he will always be our hero, our friend and a St Kilda man through and through. We wish him well.)

 

 

 

About Yvette Wroby

Yvette Wroby writes, cartoons, paints through life and gets most pleasure when it's about football, and more specifically the Saints. Believes in following dreams and having a go.

Comments

  1. Terrible way to use a game, Yvette. Especially after having led for such a long period of the game.
    The Saints really need to beat West Coast this week – or I feel the season will have been a waste.

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