Veteran Pair May Miss In Shake-up

The Sunday Age

Sunday April 13, 2008

By Martin Boulton

ST KILDA veterans Robert Harvey and Fraser Gehrig could find themselves watching Friday's clash against Essendon from the sidelines.

Harvey received a heavy cork to his quad in yesterday's 42-point loss to Geelong, while Saints coach Ross Lyon admitted the tall forward set-up of Nick Riewoldt, Justin Koschitzke and Gehrig was "under pressure" after four rounds.

"We need to look at everything, midfield, defence and forward . . . and quickly," he said.

"The season is well and truly alive for us, so we're excited. If we can fix what we need to fix, I don't think we're far off being a very good team."

Harvey was instrumental in his side taking a six-point lead into quarter-time at Telstra Dome, but struggled to provide any spark through the midfield after the first break.

The 36-year-old dual Brownlow medallist finished with just four kicks and five handballs, but Lyon persisted with the veteran midfielder.

"Unfortunately, you need to put players on," Lyon said. "He (Harvey) was limited, but he could take the field and we needed to share the load, otherwise it's easy to do soft-tissue injuries.

"We had (Matt) Maguire back for his first game, (Sean) Dempster back for his first game (and) at the end of the day it was a cork. He wasn't zinging around, but he could move."

Against Essendon's electrifying pace on Friday night anything less than a fully fit team could see the Saints ledger slip into the red after starting the season on a high with two confidence-boosting wins.

"It's certainly not all doom and gloom, we're 2-2, we've played two teams that haven't lost a game and we're really looking forward to getting back on the paddock," Lyon said.

"We've got to improve our forward 50 pressure . . . we'll do something about that, I'm not sure exactly what yet, but we'll look at that (this week)."

The Saints missed valuable scoring opportunities in the opening term that could have stretched their lead and the Cats gained the ascendancy early in the second quarter.

After a scuffle between former Geelong ruckman Steven King and young Mark Blake, who was squeezed out of last year's grand final team to make way for King, the Cats were jolted into action and kicked three goals in two minutes.

"I thought that (scuffle) got us going a little bit, sparked us up and hit a nerve," Geelong coach Mark Thompson said.

Lyon said his side "looked dangerous" when they were winning the ball, but failing to apply scoreboard pressure in the early stages eventually proved costly.

"I'm not sure that the scoreboard indicates it, but at no stage did our group give up," he said.

"Our clearance work was fantastic against a great stoppage team, our centre bounces, throw-ins and ball-ups were very good (and) we took 18 marks inside forward 50 against them."

The main concern for Geelong was the report of fourth-gamer Ryan Gamble for allegedly striking Nick Dal Santo.

"He (Gamble) is tough and hard at it, pretty clean and just functions in that forward line," Thompson said. "It's a real bonus to have two boys (Gamble and Tom Hawkins) come into the forward line and really help us kick more goals."

© 2008 The Sunday Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home