BOTH Saints’ coach Nick Dal Santo and Suns’ coach Cameron Joyce were on the same page when it came to the reasons behind St Kilda’s huge nine-goal victory over the Suns on the Gold Coast. While the Suns dominated the centre clearances, the Saints’ ability to force turnovers and then get the ball moving in transition quickly down the other end and “score heavily” was the main component in the 11.8 (74) to 2.8 (20) result.

Joyce gave full credit to the Saints who “comprehensively outplayed” his side on the night.

“St Kilda were very good, the way we’ve been preparing, training and playing in the preseason, I don’t think any of us seen that coming,” he said. “It’s all about now how we respond.”

Gold Coast won the clearances 32-27, highlighted by a whopping 11-3 centre clearance differential. They also won 24 more hitouts (47-23) and broke even in the inside 50s (34-apiece) but were pressure out of it by the Saints who laid 10 more tackles (73-63) and forced the Suns into seven more turnovers (56-49).

“I think we’ve got to give real credit to St Kilda with the way they played,” Joyce said. “Their pressure was really good, they pounced on our turnovers and our mistakes and scored heavily off the back of that, so all credit goes to St Kilda.

“The reality is you shape around the contest once you get your hands on it to then to be able to receive the ball and once the ball gets turned over you can really get hurt if you fumble the ball or get dispossessed or get overwhelmed by pressure from the opposition and that was a lot of what happened tonight.”

Joyce admitted the higher turnovers and lower disposal efficiency (60 to 66 per cent) meant the effectiveness of the clearances was limited and therefore impacted the Suns going forward, while simultaneously allowing the Saints to quickly transition from defence into offence.

“I think our ability to connect tonight, our ability to get the ball out of contest to an effective disposal was hard, and they made it hard,” Joyce said. ‘We’ve got to keep working through that. It’s usually a strength of ours to be honest in terms of our midfield work inside to be able to get the ball to the outside. We’ll go back and have a real good look at that and train it and respond next week.

Dal Santo thought the game was won along the same line, with the Saints’ ability to transition the ball from defence to offence and capitalise off turnovers was key.

“There’s no hiding the fact that you practice you transition the ball when you win it back but also stopping the opposition when they win it,” Dal Santo said. “It’s the same as in the men’s footy, that’s where you get the majority of your scores from, turnover ball and as you’re trying to maintain it for as long as you can before you lose it again.

“Both teams average 65 to 70 turnovers per game, so you might as well practice it, both sides of the footy. “We have worked on it (disposal efficiency). “We’re definitely not perfect and we’ve definitely got more work to do, but it was a step in the right direction.”

Equally as pleasing for the Saints coach was winning on the road, which was an element that has hampered his side in years gone by. In fact, not since a Round 1 win over Sydney in the Swans’ first ever match back in Season 7 have the Saints won interstate, marking two years, albeit three matches.

“A lot of the things that we’ve been focusing throughout the course of the preseason, I think we saw that in patches,” Dal Santo said. “I also felt that we could have done more, there were just bits that we just didn’t get right consistently.

“I mean it was a really good game, we travelled two weeks ago to go to Perth to play the West Coast Eagles. We felt we learnt a lot from the travel experience, something we haven’t done overly well for the last few years, so it’s good, it’s been a good experience.”

St Kilda will play host to Sydney at RSEA Park next Sunday, while Gold Coast will head further north to host Carlton at Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay on the same day.