North Melbourne champion David King has put a line through St Kilda’s finals hopes on the back of individual mistakes from their “big-money boys” in Saturday’s loss to Port Adelaide.
Brad Hill committed a pair of costly turnovers with the game firmly in the balance in the last quarter, while Brad Crouch missed a shot at goal on the run.
Fine margins decided the 13-point loss to the Power as the Saints dropped to 11th on the ladder with five home and away games against West Coast, Carlton, Sydney, Geelong and Fremantle to come.
Having won a final last year, King says St Kilda’s inconsistent 2021 campaign has been a “blown season”.
“I’m getting hammered by Saints fans for saying that the kicking skills of the big-money boys let this team down late. Brad Crouch and Brad Hill,” King told SEN’s Whateley.
“This was a game that was waiting for one person – and this is why I say it comes back to the big-money boys. This is why you get them, to win games of football.
“The spend is about the worth of a win.
“If you’re in the team to kick – and I’ve said this before this year – you’re not asking Brad Hill to go and win a contest, you’re not asking Brad Hill to go and win a clearance, you’re not asking him to tackle anyone, but you’re asking Brad to whenever he gets the ball, to deliver your part of the bargain, your skills – your kicking must be elite.
“We’re conceding other parts of the game everywhere for you. We’re instructing every player on our list to give you the ball when you’ve got a metre on your man … and then he does that?
“People say you’re too hard on him. This is the reality of performance at this level. If you fail, you miss the finals. They miss the finals on the back of what they’ve recruited. The niceties go out of footy pretty quick – it’s a blown season – they don’t recover from the weekend.
“Put a line through St Kilda. It is a disappointing campaign whatever way you look at it.”
The Saints will look back on losses to Geelong, Sydney, Adelaide and the Power with much regret at the conclusion of their season.
“I admire the way they’ve salvaged what they have in recent times,” SEN host Gerard Whateley said.
“They can blow a game. They blew the Sydney game, they blew the Adelaide game, and they’ve blown the Port Adelaide game.
“When they make their assessments at the end of the year, they aren’t freak individual moments.”
St Kilda must beat seventh-placed West Coast in Perth this weekend to keep its flickering finals hopes alive.