ST KILDA’S visit to Sydney to take on the Swans this week will see the club return to the scene of some of its most memorable victories.
In 27 matches at the SCG, the Saints have won just 10 but that includes some of the greatest wins in the club’s recent history.
The most memorable, for various reasons, was perhaps the 1994 round 7 clash, which started out poorly for the Saints.
Star forward Tony Lockett had clashed heavily with Swans defender Peter Caven, shattering Caven’s nose early in the game. That incident earned Lockett an eight-game suspension.
It looked to be a miserable day, with St Kilda trailing by 38 points at three-quarter-time.
But the Saints came home with an eight-goal final quarter to win by one solitary point.
Lockett kicked 11 goals, the final one a low spearing shot aimed squarely at the heads of elderly Swans supporters who had been giving him a piece of their mind all day.
Lockett’s statistics were amazing that day with 20 touches, 12 marks, 11 goals and seven free kicks against. Other stars that day for the Saints were Dean Greig and Nathan Burke, while the best afield for the Swans was a curly-haired rover by the name of Scott Watters who gathered 30 touches.
The previous season was not as memorable for the result (a 37-point win to the Saints) as it was for a pitch invasion from a pig painted with no. 4 on one side and ‘Pluga’ on the other. The human “Plugger” didn’t play that day but his little pink namesake made quite an impression before Darren Holmes eventually tackled him.
Those wins came in between a seven-game winning streak the Saints enjoyed at the SCG. The Saints had won only one of their first nine games at the ground and lost their next seven.
One of the more amazing individual experiences of the Saints’ 1980s games was in 1989 when Greg Williams gathered a whopping 53 touches on the way to kicking six goals.
Of course, not every game in Sydney has been against the Swans. The Saints’ first game at the SCG was against Richmond in 1981 before a team was based permanently in the harbour city. North Melbourne played a handful of home games in Sydney as well, one of which was against a young Saints team that included debutant Lenny Hayes in 1999.
Hayes was welcomed to the AFL with a heavy bump from Kangaroos hard man Glenn Archer that set the tone for the physical sacrifice he would go on to make for the red, whiter and black for the next 14 years.
The Saints have played one final at the ground over time, a narrow Qualifying Final loss to the Swans in 1998. That was the second last game in red, white and black for Nicky Winmar, who missed a shot late in the game that could have won the game for his team.
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Then there was the two-point win in wet conditions in 2006, punctuated by a gutsy final quarter effort from Nick Riewoldt and Luke Ball that saw the Saints get over the line against the reigning premiers.
