Ross Lyon and the Saints were berated after winning ugly against the Gold Coast Suns last week, but despite playing a more attractive brand of footy against the Brisbane Lions on Friday night, they lost the game.
The Saints registered their highest score of the season, as well as conceded their biggest score of the year, in their 19.12 (126) to 16.10 (106) defeat to Chris Fagan’s men at The Gabba.
Post-match on Fox Footy, AFL great Garry Lyon wondered whether the narrative around St Kilda’s game style would change after the Saints contested an open, free-flowing game against Brisbane — but lost.
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“St Kilda has kicked its biggest score for the year; they kicked 106 points, (but) they’ve conceded their biggest score, giving up 126,” he began on Fox Footy’s post-game coverage.
“What’s the narrative going to be around this? I’m interested in this. Last week, the narrative was (St Kilda’s win over Gold Coast) was a boring bore-fest, it was poor — some of the more hysterical stuff — it was an indictment on the game.
“But they won. So, now they come out and the game was a free-flowing affair. They’ve kicked their highest score (of the season) but they’ve conceded the most they’ve given up all year and they lost.”
Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley said Saints fans would be more pleased with the way their club approached Friday night’s fixture.
“The narrative will be that ‘we didn’t win the game, but that’s the type of footy that we’d like to watch’ if you’re a St Kilda supporter,” Buckley said.
“Let’s see a more transitional, expansive game, I’d prefer to see them scoring 100 points — let’s just tighten up our defence a bit.
“That’s a one-week thing. If it happens for two, and then three, and then four, then it starts wearing thin.”
Lyon jumped in: “So, you’d rather lose pretty than win ugly?
Buckley replied: “No, and I think that’s a short-term thing. But, the losing pretty is OK in the short-term as long as you start winning pretty.”
“St Kilda is still in between, and Ross (Lyon) will always coach a really good defensive structure first — that’s his philosophy fundamentally.
“There’ll be elements that he’d be happy with and elements that he’s not.”
Brisbane Lions legend Jonathan Brown praised St Kilda’s performance for a large portion of the evening, noting Lyon would be feeling “positive” about aspects of his team’s effort.
“If you look at the score chart, (their) first quarter was horrible, I thought they were off,” Brown said.
“And then Brisbane pretty much kicked the last four goals of the game. In between, St Kilda did a lot of good things.
“They defended well, and they moved the ball better than any side has against the Brisbane Lions all year, and probably any team, for that matter. 30 inside-50s for 20 scores, so there’s a lot of good things happening there.
“No (Nasiah) Wanganeen-Milera, who, along with (Liam) Henry are probably their most exciting offensive talents.
“So, I think (Lyon) takes some positives out of that. Clearly, at quarter-time, the way he reacted to his team — he gave them an almighty spray — he wasn’t happy with their effort and their defensive responsibilities.”
Concluding, Buckley returned to the bottom line.
“Ross Lyon’s job is to coach to win,” he said with finality.
“You want to win in a manner that looks great, (but) the coaches just want to win, and sometimes you come up against an opponent that you might need to coach dour.
“Other times you might want to coach it for an open game.”
The Saints remain two games behind the eighth-placed GWS Giants, who have played two fewer games entering Saturday.