BERNIE Vince says a failure to understand how much time was left in the match played a crucial part in Melbourne’s dramatic two-point loss to St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Sunday evening.
Speaking to Dee TV post-match, the star midfielder said it was “always disappointing to lose those ones”, after Jeremy Howe put Melbourne in front with 41 seconds left in the match, before Saint Leigh Montagna sealed the win with 19 seconds remaining.
“It’s very disappointing to be in front with 41 seconds to go. We’ve got to learn from that,” Vince said.
“We didn’t realise there was probably only 41 seconds to go. There was only 24 or 25 minutes gone on the clock and we thought there was another four or five [minutes] to go.
“It was a bit of a comedy with a number of things that went wrong. We had [our runner] Millsy (Brad Miller) stuck on the ground giving messages and he couldn’t get the message out to us that there were [40 seconds] to go.
“Ideally, we would’ve sent a couple [of players] back [into defence]. Whether that would’ve helped – you never know – as they did go pretty wide and went around. It was one of those things that the bounce popped up perfectly for [Leigh] Montagna.”
Vince praised emerging Demon Jimmy Toumpas’ effort on Montagna, but said the star Saint managed to bob up when needed most.
“I thought Toump (Jimmy Toumpas) did a very good job with him, when he went to him in the second half and he kept him really quiet. He (Montagna) just popped up and kicked that last one,” he said.
“It might not be their day, but they pop up at the right time for their team.
“St Kilda was pretty good – I thought it was a pretty good game throughout. It was contested and I thought we actually won a lot of the inside ball. I thought … won the ball pretty well and got on top in the midfield, but it was disappointing to lose it.”
Given it was Melbourne’s closest loss for the season, and it was a see-sawing contest throughout the match, Vince said it was important to “find that balance” in assessing the result.
“I’m disappointed – there’s no doubt about it. To work as hard as what we did and get so close was bloody frustrating. But we’ll look at the tape and work out things that we need to get better at,” he said.
“A lot of that was our first 10 to 15 minutes of the second quarter, where we were pretty average. To our credit, we fought back in the second half of the second quarter, which is where the game [was] lost in that patch. We’ve got to cut out those lapses and get better at those.
“Every team is going to get a roll-on against you, but you’ve just got to find a way to stop them quicker. In games gone past, we’d be seven or eight goals down, so we’re getting better and we’ll take the positives, but right now it’s disappointing.”
