St DAC wrote:If we have 3 or 4 "elite" players, and 8 to 10 "guns", why are we 9th after 21 rounds?
I think some of us over rate our players just a tad ... "elite" is best of the best, not just very good. And "gun" is at least very good, just under elite. IMO we have 1 elite, (Roo) and a couple of guns; Lenny and Max. Everyone else named has the potential to be at that level, but is not there yet.
One of the key things being debated in this thread is whether or not we can consider players having "off" years to be elite. Clearly, this will have an impact on the standings. Regardless of this however, it's not the only factor in the Saints being 9th.
1) Not being damaging enough on the scoreboard - the Saints conversion rate is under 50%, which cannot be attributed to whether or not Lenny, Dal, or anyone in the defense is elite.
2) Extremely poor at protecting leads, finishing out games, etc. Injuries and form have surely meant it's difficult to call the Saints defenders elite, but on past form, it's likely that Hudghton and Maguire will have better '08s than '07s, and Goddard will be back in (in fact, barring re-injury, one would expect to be debating the inclusion of at least Hudghton and Goddard at this time next year). Again, this really doesn't impact on the elite status of mids.
I'd say both those things are more important to the Saints being 9th than whether or not Lenny, Dal or Harvey can be counted amongst the elite. If we're really discussing guns and elite players on the Saints, we also need to discount the general view that the Saints injuries are nothing but an excuse... it's the old chestnut of the Saints list being overrated or not, and whether or not you believe that the Saints are top 4 when healthy on paper, St. K has done an excellent job this year of displaying that AFL games are not played on paper.
I'm surprised so many people look at this year as being a good measuring stick for the Saints list. I look at last weeks game against the Eagles, and while as a Saints supporter, I can't expect them to make much noise after this week (if they make finals) because I don't know whether they'll rip out a Q1 v WCE, or a Q4 v Coll from quarter to quarter... but if I'm an opponent, I'd be terrified of them stringing together 3 or 4 of the good quarters. I think it's very hard to say on this years form how good/bad the Saints are, and hard to measure individual players... and so you'd just be doing the AA selectors thing where Riewoldt's the only chance. I think that's no truer a statement than "4 elite and 8 guns".