Completely outcoached

[rodgerfox]

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

One loss and everyone's burning their bra's

You've changed your tune.

18 months ago we were going to win the flag because we had the best list in the comp and the best president in the business. Now that we had a brilliant coach, we were over the line.

Not to mention Rix would be the AA ruckman.


It's probably best you resort to bagging GT in every post - cause when you post about footy you look very foolish.

[Mr Magic]

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

One loss and everyone's burning their bra's

You've changed your tune.

18 months ago we were going to win the flag because we had the best list in the comp and the best president in the business. Now that we had a brilliant coach, we were over the line.

Not to mention Rix would be the AA ruckman.


It's probably best you resort to bagging GT in every post - cause when you post about footy you look very foolish.

O.K. RodgerFox, I'll bite.

SInce you seem to know how/what/where/why everything is going wrong, how do we fix it?

[rexy]

Seems to me there are 3 groups of people.

People who dont rate RL.

People who do rate him and beleive the players are not performing/good enough.

People like me who think we have a good list who were out played and a good coach who was out coached on Friday night.

My question is who needs to turn it around first for us to improve, as a leader I would hope that Ross has asessed Fridays game and said this is where I went wrong as well as this is what you guys did wrong.

I dont beleive in coincidences and it would be a coincidence if 22 guys stopped playing well after quarter time, at the same time I agree that the players are on the ground and can have the biggest impact on a defeat.

In my eyes the style of Footy we have played from the NAB cup final on is contrasting to the one we played in the first 3 rds of the NAB cup. In that time we have either changed our style intentionally due to the injection of regular senior players OR those regular senior players who all came together from the NAB final do not follow instruction as well as the fringe guys.

[To the top]

Well Roger Fox, remember 2004 and Sydney being the first side to beat us, followed by Footscray beating us at the MCG?

Footscray chipping the ball around, short leads and, low and behold, Darcy completely by himself 30 metres out from goal, having drifted unmarked down the flank whilst our guys ran from mark to mark.

It was announced to all and sundry that here was the way to negate and beat St Kilda.

Adelaide, Geelong, Port Adelaide, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Sydney, Footscray - all those "ugly" hang onto the pill at all costs type games we have lost.

Not lost, been smashed because we could not get our hands on the pill.

And still it remains the way to negate and defeat St Kilda.

Why?

Because we can not win the ball in the contests.

[saintsRrising]

I dont beleive in coincidences and it would be a coincidence if 22 guys stopped playing well after quarter time,

Well it was not 22....but yes a goodly portion of it.

Coincidence????


I have seen many many games where fortunes have suddenly changed.... the infamous Hawks reversal being the worst that I have witnessed that the saints have been involved with..


One of my most glorious memories was of a half a quarter was one day at Moorabbin where the Dons were soundly beating us....but then suddenly in the last quarter we slammed on 7 goals in about 10 0r 15 minuts to almost win.

The Dons went from all conquering to headless chooks likea swicth had been flicked.

Onlya skill error by a Saints player stopped our run for the Dons to steady.


such games happen every year....remember the swans rolling the Dons in sydneya few year back????

In my eyes the style of Footy we have played from the NAB cup final on is contrasting to the one we played in the first 3 rds of the NAB cup. In that time we have either changed our style intentionally due to the injection of regular senior players OR those regular senior players who all came together from the NAB final do not follow instruction as well as the fringe guys.

I have noticed the difference too.

You may be right on the instructuctions or....was it just the coaches experimenting?? After all the NAB are treated as practice games.

[barks4eva]

Seems to me there are 3 groups of people.

People who dont rate RL.

People who do rate him and beleive the players are not performing/good enough.

People like me who think we have a good list who were out played and a good coach who was out coached on Friday night.

I'm in another group, people who rate RL, realize the game has changed and due to piss poor recruiting for over five years we have one of the slowest lists in the AFL.

Sure we have some real genuine quality, BUT we will continue to be vulnerable until we address our achilles heel, a lack of pace and a pedestrian midfield.

Our most recent drafting is setting us back on course, but it will take some time to remedy the absolute mess that the previously amtuerishly run football department left behind.

The changes are significant within the football department and our recent recruiting, fitness and match conditioning are a quantum leap from where we were and eventually this will translate into results.

The processes are in place, and when things turn for the better we will be very much on course.

Seriously we are slow and that is the underlying problem as no game plan will be effective in the modern game without the key personnel to implement it.

Why IMHO we need to start playing some kids.

In my eyes the style of Footy we have played from the NAB cup final on is contrasting to the one we played in the first 3 rds of the NAB cup. In that time we have either changed our style intentionally due to the injection of regular senior players OR those regular senior players who all came together from the NAB final do not follow instruction as well as the fringe guys

Seriously let's be honest, you only have to compare the first quarter to the rest of the game, last saturday to see contrasting styles.

That first quarter was blitzing, winning the hard balls, kicking long and quick to three tall forwards, was as good as it gets.

Obviously though with us 7 goals to 1 up, RL had some strong words to the boys at quarter time and chastized them for disobeying his game plan and instructed them to follow team rules by being second to the ball, drop the intensity, slow things down and chip the ball around, well that's what you'd think if you believe some of the clowns on here.

[saintspremiers]

[

In my eyes the style of Footy we have played from the NAB cup final on is contrasting to the one we played in the first 3 rds of the NAB cup. In that time we have either changed our style intentionally due to the injection of regular senior players OR those regular senior players who all came together from the NAB final do not follow instruction as well as the fringe guys

Seriously let's be honest, you only have to compare the first quarter to the rest of the game, last saturday to see contrasting styles.

That first quarter was blitzing, winning the hard balls, kicking long and quick to three tall forwards, was as good as it gets.

Obviously though with us 7 goals to 1 up, RL had some strong words to the boys at quarter time and chastized them for disobeying his game plan and instructed them to follow team rules by being second to the ball, drop the intensity, slow things down and chip the ball around, well that's what you'd think if you believe some of the clowns on here.

barks I disagree with you a bit re the first term - whilst 7 goals to 1 is excellent, we could've played better. I thought at quarter time I'd just witnessed a completely crap performance by Footscray, and a good one by the Saints.....I couldn't believe how terrible the Scray's were......depends on your perspective I guess.....

But I do agree with you re our slow midfield.

[rexy]

I know you are not pinpointing me with your last paragraph (or at least hope you are not), however this does not address the issue Barks. Regardless of whether our list is premiership material or not RLs job is to do everything in his power to win games of footy now, he may have a list as long as your arm of personell changes, fitness levels, training regimes etc that he still needs to implement before he beleives we are at our best but, on Friday night could he have done more to resist the Doggy onslaught and get us 4 points, you have listed some things in other posts. Kosi to CHB, inject more youth and speed with the likes of Armitage, move Gram on to a wing where his deficiencies over head are not as obvious etc. None of these things were done which either means that RL did not think of them or he did but dismised them as bad ideas. Sure as hell hope the reason is not that he thought "oh stuff it, our list is to slow and GTs a muppet so theres no point trying to win this one, we cant win the flag anyway."

Im not having a crack at RL the man or the coach, just an un emotional crack at the performance of a side that he LEAD last Friday.

[To the top]

Very clever, Rexy.

The side he LEAD last Saturday.

He led a leaden side!

But seriously, the way to negate our big forwards, who ARE hard to match up on if they are allowed to play as forwards and compliment each other is to deprive them of opportunities, and you do that by depriving our mid field of the ball, and when we gain control in defence ensuring man on man defence denies us the opportunity to run the ball and to get it into our forward 50 quickly you can negate our forwards.

Last year, when depleted I acknowledge, we played Brooks alongside Gehrig (which should have been done more often) but, in the first quarter Hawthorn's 6 to 8 around the ball style stopped us from having one F50 entry - and the ball never got to Gehrig or Brooks.

Fiora kicked our only score (a goal) from outside 50.

Brooks was replaced on the ground at quarter time, returning in the last 10 minutes, was lampooned and dropped, never to play again.

Gehrig had his reputation to fall back on.

The performances that day by both Gehrig and Brooks were not down to Gehrig or Brooks - the ball never got to them to even allow them to contest.

Such is the life of a forward when your mid-field can not get their hands on it.

I would like to see a few rotations including Riewoldt around the ground, with Koschitzke nominally at CHF and Gardiner and/or King working in the goal square, with a couple under them.

[barks4eva]

I know you are not pinpointing me with your last paragraph (or at least hope you are not), however this does not address the issue Barks. Regardless of whether our list is premiership material or not RLs job is to do everything in his power to win games of footy now, he may have a list as long as your arm of personell changes, fitness levels, training regimes etc that he still needs to implement before he beleives we are at our best but, on Friday night could he have done more to resist the Doggy onslaught and get us 4 points, you have listed some things in other posts. Kosi to CHB, inject more youth and speed with the likes of Armitage, move Gram on to a wing where his deficiencies over head are not as obvious etc. None of these things were done which either means that RL did not think of them or he did but dismised them as bad ideas. Sure as hell hope the reason is not that he thought "oh stuff it, our list is to slow and GTs a muppet so theres no point trying to win this one, we cant win the flag anyway."

Im not having a crack at RL the man or the coach, just an un emotional crack at the performance of a side that he LEAD last Friday.

Agreed I always find your posts/thoughts to be interesting, so I definitely was not pinpointing you.

I'd like to see a bit more flexibility with the structure and have wanted to see this for a long time.

Something could have been radically altered last Saturday after half time and if something was done, I didn't notice it.

Just one example is Jason Gram, I mean FAIR DINKUM how long do we all have to wait until it dawns on the coaches we've had that Gram is NOT a defender.

I seriously believe he could be one of the most damaging wingman in the game but currently he's still misused and a liability in defence IMHO.

BUT having said that, I still definitely believe the club is on the right track long term with Ross Lyon as our coach.

[Shaggy]

After so many fade outs under RL it is blatantly obvious that our current list doesn't have the requisite stamina for RL's game plan.

So what comes first? Does the list get changed to adapt to the game plan or does the game plan get adapted for our list.

I believe we have a team capable of winning the premiership. I believe we would have won in 2005 if not for freak injuries at year end.

IMO RL needs to design a game plan that works for our list ... not the other way around.

[rodgerfox]

Well Roger Fox, remember 2004 and Sydney being the first side to beat us, followed by Footscray beating us at the MCG?

Footscray chipping the ball around, short leads and, low and behold, Darcy completely by himself 30 metres out from goal, having drifted unmarked down the flank whilst our guys ran from mark to mark.

It was announced to all and sundry that here was the way to negate and beat St Kilda.

Adelaide, Geelong, Port Adelaide, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Sydney, Footscray - all those "ugly" hang onto the pill at all costs type games we have lost.

Not lost, been smashed because we could not get our hands on the pill.

And still it remains the way to negate and defeat St Kilda.

Why?

Because we can not win the ball in the contests.

I completely agree about winning contested ball, infact I made a thread on it the other day.

As for the smashing we received, I still think you're grossly exaggerating this.

In 05, we were in front at 3/4 time of a prelim whilst having 7 of our best players missing, and many more on the field injured.

In 06 we only lost our forst final after losing 4 key players during the game, whilst also missing Lenny, Goose and having Ball unable to run - 3 of our best contested players. This was after having 14 wins for the year - including wins over Sydney, Hawthorn and Geelong.

So I'm not sure where you're getting this 'smashed every year' thing from? Perhaps you believe what you read on this forum too much and have forgotten that we were infact a very good side.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

So, let me get this straight...

it's a good thing that the Saints sunk down the ladder last year, and are looking shakey in this one? It's a good thing that you can even suggest that the list full of "young guns" that made consecutive prelims needs rebuilding as those guys enter their primes... because now the guy who was running the football dept when we got these guys is gone?

I like what I've seen of Westaway so far, I like the setup of seperating the jobs that used to be done by one man... but it doesn't even nearly make me happy about the decline in the play of St. Kilda over the last 2 years (3 really, but it's easier to drwa a line for 2005-6 than from 2006-7 with injuries).

Well that's what poor recruiting over a 5 year period will do to ya.

It's a good thing that off field the right structures and processes are now finally in place and as a result of this, things will turn for the better.

Afterall we only sunk from 8th to 9th as a result of the inherited neglect and incompetence.

This was Lyon's first off season to right the ship and get the place in order.

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

One loss and everyone's burning their bra's

I'd hate to be in the trenches with some of you lot, FAIR DINKUM

I am simply dumbfounded by the level of hate you have for Grant Thomas Barks (have you read Animal Farm? Rename Snowball GT and it becomes a saintsational primer).

It really seems you're arguing that it's a good thing we changed coaches because now we know they're not as good as they looked while Grant Thomas was coaching.

There was and still is plenty to not like about GT, but if you're building the bugbear of Thomas to relevance on recruiting, just remember recruiting was not why he was fired. He was fired because he couldn't get the job done. Not for 2011 or 2012, but for 2007 and for 2008, while the list we have are in their primes.

You're right, it si only round 3. No need to panic yet. However, should this season be another dissapointment ala 2007, I believe that if we forgive that kind of underperformance by making a boogeyman of the last guy we are sadly deluded.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

The players lost the game, but Friday night, Eade helped give his guys a chance to win, and Lyon didn't do likewise.

Or the players couldn't/wouldn't execute the instructions given. Coaching gets far too much credit on here ... it's the players who win games more so than coaches. And lose them too ...

Eade basically gave his onballers a reminder to get in first, and concentrate on winning the contested possessions; they did, we didn;t, and that's all she wrote. Our inability to win contested ball all over the ground gave us poor attacking options, poor defensive options, and made us look like hacks. Which for 3 quarters on Friday night we were.

As I've said, Eade did more than give his onballers an instruction to win the contested ball. He shifted his entire setup to focus on getting his men where he wanted them, ad it worked.

It's not the only thing or even the main thing, but it's more than Lyon was able to achieve. I don't know that anyone's saying Lyon lost that game single handedly, but Eade had a good impact and at best, Lyon didn't. Rate it a little if you like, I rate it a lot (IMO the coach is a very important contributor to team fortunes), but not to rate it at all is naive.

[spert]

I remember some Geelong supporter mates getting stuck into Bomber earlier last season for being a coach with no imagination and they should start looking for a better coach, toss out some players, get rid of Ling, Steve Johnson etc etc etc...boy did they change their tunes later in the year.
Let just put all this to rest and wait and see by half way through the season how things are going.

[rodgerfox]

I remember some Geelong supporter mates getting stuck into Bomber earlier last season for being a coach with no imagination and they should start looking for a better coach, toss out some players, get rid of Ling, Steve Johnson etc etc etc...boy did they change their tunes later in the year.
Let just put all this to rest and wait and see by half way through the season how things are going.

He doesn't have imagination.

He has a very good list of players with the perfect balance of maturity - both mentally and physically. And he had the luxury of having them all for an entire year.

He has the same game plan he had 5 years ago, it's just now they're able to consistently carry it out for him.

[Life Long Saint]

I'd hate to be in the trenches with some of you lot, FAIR DINKUM

No need to worry about that...I reckon you'd have been the victim of "friendly fire" a long time ago

[Beej]

IMO RL needs to design a game plan that works for our list ... not the other way around.

I think it's too late to get back to the drawing board and create a whole new game plan. He could tinker with it at the most but coaches live and die by their philosophy on how to win a game of footy.

Jimmy Bartel was On the Couch the other night and he said that it wasn't until their win against Adelaide in the middle of last year when he honestly believed the Cats could win the flag.

He said the Geelong players knew that no matter what the score was, if they backed their game plan and believed in it, they would come out on top.

That's what it's all about - the players believing in the game plan.

A coach can try to sell his plan but his players aren't going to buy into it until they begin to see results.

Our players would all know that when they're on they're extremely difficult to live with. But imagine how disillusioning it would be for them knowing that as soon as a side finds their way into a game and then manages to get on top that there is nothing the coach and his assistants can do to stop the momentum and regain the ascendancy.

[To the top]

RogerFox, the first objective in any season is to finish in the top HALF of the ladder because then you play finals footy - at least one game as in 2006.

The next, and a more meaningful objective, is to finish in the top 4 because then you get a second chance to compete in a Preliminary Final.

Then it becomes an "on the day" competition, with no second prizes.

And a little bit of luck, like a GOP player playing out of their skin, does not go astray.

Unlike you I do not rate Preliminary Final apearances in 2004 and 2005 as indicative of the competiveness of this side now.

Where you start from in regards every season is benchmarking the previous year's premier as being 10% better, from self confidence alone.

So every other club must be a minimum of 20% better - that is 4 players better - as a minimum.

The past is the past.

That 20% can come from significant improvement from GOP's (not the Grand Old Party of Bush!) such as the improvement shown by Montagna last year, or the introduction of a running 194cm defender such as Gilbert.

And you turn your players seeking that 20% - as a minimum.

It is cut throat - and there is no place for sentiment - because there is no room for sentiment.

We may have been good enough to reach Preliminary Finals in 2004 and 2005 - and with some injuries - but that counts for jacks crackers in 2008.

Every year is a new year.

And you fail if you think that you were good enough, but just a tad unlucky, the previous year.

At the end of the day you were not good enough - and changes have to be made - even by premiership sides.

Because the competition is hunting them - and if they stand still they are gone.

So where is our 20% minimum improvement to come from in 2008?

Who have we introduced to make us better - and specifically make us better by addressing deficiencies which have seen us continually put in very poor performances against "possesion footy" sides.

In those games the scoreboard may not say we were smashed - but on the park we were smashed because we never looked like we were in the contest - because we could not get our hands on the pill - and when we did we were static and immediately under pressure.

One consistent in these games is that Gehrig does not have an impact - because he is not getting the delivery he needs - and the reason?

So we are back to stage 1 - and where we need the 20% minimum improvement to remain competative with the rest of the competition.