St Kilda Coach Alan Richardson has labelled Jack Billings’ performance against Carlton as ‘exceptional’ after the classy forward booted a career-best five goals to lead the Saints to a 19-point win at Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
In his 50th game, the 21-year-old demonstrated why St Kilda banked their No. 3 pick in the 2013 draft on him, amassing an equal personal best 30 possessions, a career-high 12 marks, 568 metres gained, 12 score involvements and six inside 50s.
Talk about a complete performance.
“Billings was pretty impressive for us for most of the game; that’s a big game as a forward – 30 possessions and five goals – that was a really strong performance,” Richardson said in his post-match press conference on Saturday.
“His first couple of games were ok but since then he’s probably narrowed his focus and played predominately as a forward, so it’s been building.
“His last two weeks have been positive, today was an exceptional performance.”
Highly prized Billings reaches half century
After several injury interrupted pre-seasons at Linen House Centre, Billings was able to put together his most complete summer on the track over the pre-season. Now, the polished game breaker is reaping the rewards.
“The challenge you refer to in the summer months was really personal; he wanted to take his game to the next level,” Richardson said.
“He’s had a bit of bad luck in terms of being able to do pre-season’s so he was able to have a really strong pre-season.”
Moments that mattered: Round 8 v Carlton
Despite accumulating 22 more inside 50s, St Kilda didn’t transfer that dominance onto the scoreboard, finishing with 12.13 (85) to 10.6 (66), with Carlton putting extra players behind the ball to stem the flow at times.
Richardson said St Kilda knew the defensive brand the Blues would bring to Etihad Stadium and was happy his side was able to persist and find a way to win.
“We went into the game knowing it was going to be a challenge. They’ve defended really strongly for most of the year and their last two weeks have been really impressive, they’ve been able to strangle teams.
“We spoke about this won’t be a pretty game, we’ll get a lot of opportunities but given the way they defend and their focus on defending entry, we’ll just have to persist and I thought that was really positive.
“We were probably able to get the game on our terms the last couple of weeks, we weren’t today and to find a way late was really positive.”
