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Game Review

It was a beautiful day for football, with the roof open at Telstra Dome as the Blues took on St Kilda. Such games have been considered whitewashes over the past few years, unfortunately for the Blues the tables of history have generally been turned against us with St Kilda smashing us on a number of occasions over recent years.

The game would start tight, with the Blues playing a plucky defensive game and an open forward line of Brendan Fevola and Troy Longmuir from the square. Young Kade Simpson would provide the spark required with some bolts from the centre square and Longmuir kicked a nice goal from the boundary, as the Blues kept pace with St Kilda to draw even at the first change.

In the second the Saints would start to pull away but the Blues kept up their tenacious best with the defence of Livingston, Thornton, Carrazzo and McGrath fighting hard. Luke Livingston in particular, who had Gehrig as his opponent, appeared to be at his fisting best and as always, there was a lot of interest to see if he could secure the Full Back role. A couple of tough free kicks against him and Gehrig had 3 to half time.

The hard-working defence game trialled by Pagan through the year was set to unravel under an onslaught in the second half. Milne would tear Bowyer apart with 5 goals 1, Gehrig would break Livingston’s concentration with a mass of possession (scoring 4 goals 6), and Koschitske would come alive in the ruck and dominate all over the ground. Fevola had a disappointing game and failed to record a single kick, while giving away a 50 m penalty. He would spend much of the game on the bench. The midfield, with solid contributions from Heath Scotland (21 possessions), Nick Stevens (18) and Anthony Koutoufides (16), would work hard but would be out-pointed by Hayes and Dal Santo. The Saints would kick 16 goals to 7 in the second half to win by 80 points.

Highlights, particularly in the second half, were few & far between. Simpson would be a live wire at half forward, with 3 classy goals and earn himself a few new fans. Lappin would kick 2 goals in junk time, but with 20 possessions was almost our highest stat winner, that mantle taken by Scott Camporeale with 23 from half back. Finally, Jordan Russell would make his debut, but in effect was given little more than a cameo appearance on the ground, in which he was able to have just 2 kicks. He was subsequently immediately returned to the VFL for the remainder of 2005.

The Saints would continue their recent dominance over the Blues. It will be a great day when we reverse the trend.

Team

B:	18 Glen Bowyer	4 Luke Livingston	15 David Teague
HB:	32 Bret Thornton	43 Anthony Koutoufides (c)	20 Cory McGrath
C:	16 Scott Camporeale (vc)	44 Andrew Carrazzo	29 Heath Scotland
HF:	30 Jarrad Waite	8 Lance Whitnall	33 Ryan Houlihan
F:	21 Troy Longmuir	25 Brendan Fevola	12 Matthew Lappin
Ruck:	27 Chris Bryan	1 Andrew Walker	24 Nick Stevens
Interchange:
	10 Brett Johnson, 6 Kade Simpson, 28 Ian Prendergast, 2 Jordan Russell
Coach:	Denis Pagan
Emg:	Callum Chambers	Brad Fisher	Trent Sporn
In:	Jordan Russell, Kade Simpson
Out:	Callum Chambers, Trent Sporn

Milestones

Debut: Jordan Russell
Consecutive Games: Kade Simpson played the first of 100 games straight (as at Round 3, 2010) with his selection in this match.

Brownlow Votes

3: Justin Koschitzke (STK)
2: Lenny Hayes (STK)
1: Luke Ball (STK)

Best & Fairest Votes

Kade Simpson (29), Andrew Carrazzo (26), Matthew Lappin (25), David Teague (19), Heath Scotland (9), Scott Camporeale (7), Nick Stevens (3)