David King says St Kilda were ill-prepared from a tactical perspective following their 54-point trashing against a rampant Richmond on Friday night.
The Saints were dismal from the outset as an 11 goal to two opening half from the Tigers put the result beyond doubt before the main break.
It was a bitterly disappointing night for Alan Richardson’s side, and North Melbourne champion King has queried where St Kilda’s manic pressure game has gone after forging that as their identity over the last couple of seasons.
“Richmond toyed with St Kilda, they really did,” King told SEN’s Whateley.
“I don’t know what St Kilda’s plan was to be honest. They knew the handball game was coming at them, St Kilda are supposed to be this great pressure team.
“Where was it? If that’s your only asset, where was it? Richmond stepped out of stoppages.
“We backed over a couple of stoppages on Friday night and it was primary school stuff. We know Richmond hold their wingman right in towards the corridor to try and stretch you.
“You pick your poison: do you want to man him up or do you want to go where you normally go?
“They got beaten by that half-a-dozen times, now what’s the plan? People say: 'you’re hard on this team'.
“You know what’s coming, don’t get beaten by what you know. If you’ve got six or eight coaches watching the upcoming opposition every week, you can’t get beaten by that.
“I won’t accept that it’s a talent problem, you can get beaten, out-bodied, out-marked, you can be too young and inexperienced, all those things.
“But you can’t get beaten by the tactic and they got beaten by the tactic on the weekend. I was disappointed in St Kilda’s performance tactically.
“I thought they got beaten by method and the method of the Tigers is almost unstoppable.”
King highlighted incidents during the match where St Kilda’s lack of tackling intent was an example of the gulf in class between the two clubs.
“They rave about Seb Ross and I saw Dustin Martin step through him on the weekend and I thought, ‘wow’, there’s your gap,” he added.
“I don’t care if he’s had 35 touches, when the big boys come to play your best have got to go with their best.
“They sit on their heels and say: 'we’ve got four or five that are just on the verge of A-grade'.
“Well if they are you make those tackles, Dustin Martin embarrassed them.”
Listen to David King's chat on SEN's Whateley with Gerard Whateley in the player below