The incredible hard running of St Kilda under Ross Lyon has turned them into a ball movement machine, and if it continues they should make the eight, according to North Melbourne champion David King.
The Saints are 2023’s biggest surprise packet, sitting as the only 4-0 team heading into a showdown with one of the premiership favourites Collingwood this Sunday evening during Gather Round.
Few expected Lyon’s return to Moorabbin to be so immediately successful, given their poor end to last season and the swath of injuries they’ve been battling all year.
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Yet the man who took the Saints to their last Grand Final has capitalised on a clear strength of the list – running power – to turn them into a machine that grinds down opposition clubs.
“It’s extraordinary how they’ve tapped into the ability for these guys to run. Is this a flash in the pan for a month of football or is this a point of difference? I think you can start to say now it’s a point of difference,” King said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.
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King took viewers a passage of play against Gold Coast last weekend which exemplified how hard the Saints’ wingers, midfielders and half-forwards work to get up and down the ground, in what he called their “chain gang”. Watch the analysis in the video player above, or here.
“Ball goes in their forward line, so they’re up, pressing up. I’ve highlighted these (five) guys, there are other guys running just hard,” he began.
“They lose control of the ball and it’s a decision – they either get back or get to where the footy’s going. It’s a full length of the ground run for most of them. The two wingmen, a couple of midfielders, a half-forward flanker’s involved.
“Outnumber instantly on the wing, what’ll start as a 3 v 3 finishes as a 7 v 3. Then the ball goes into the Gold Coast forward 50, goes 30 metres from goal – same thing, 5 v 3. Constantly outnumbering them just because they’re working harder. Not sacrificing too much, not giving and holding a defender, just working harder.
“And then the ball goes the other way – and this is not just the Suns, they’ve done this to every team the first four weeks – this is constant. There is no rest, no stopping, until they get a mark inside 50, they get to take their foot off the accelerator and when you swing behind the goals, you can see they’ve all pushed back again.
“They’re committing to these runs that are 600 metres – 150 down, going back, if it bounces in and out three and four times it doesn’t matter.”
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He continued: “When they commit, it’s 100 per cent. You have to go with them. Some of these (Suns) mids were tonguing it because they’ve been in the middle for a fair while but it doesn’t matter against the Saints, because they can all run sub-10 minute 3kms.
“They’ve got a dozen on the list who can do it and it’s evident gameday. So Ross Lyon is tapping into this formula for this group; and the talent’s going to get better forward of centre. Membrey comes back this week, King’s not too far away, Billings.
“You can just see where they are. I love it. Look how gassed the opposition are – that’s what they do to you. They break you. And every team that comes up against St Kilda is saying the same thing – we learned the depths of their running capabilities and they broke us.”
The incredible workrate the Saints have shown has them ranking second in the AFL for moving the ball from defensive 50 to forward 50, and first for defending ball movement from defensive 50 to forward 50.
The counter-play, as explained by former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, involves being incredibly precise – which is all the more difficult with how hard the Saints make you run.
“You need to hit targets inside 50 against them … and then your teammates get a breather,” Buckley said on AFL 360.
“But St Kilda still gets back to defend, and the attitude of a Ross Lyon-coached side is we’ll defend first, and we’ll take our chances going forward.”
Having beaten an underwhelming Fremantle in Round 1, then a still-working-things-out Western Bulldogs side plus likely non-finalists Essendon and Gold Coast, many have questioned whether it’s the level of opposition making the Saints look good.
And while that may be a factor, King declared ahead of their clash with the Magpies: “If they play like that, they’re going to break a lot of teams and they can make finals.”
