Our backline coach SOS

[Mr Magic]

I had an interesting conversation last night with someone who is at the Club regularly.

We were talking about all things Saints of course and I asked him what the players thought of the assistant coaches?

Without denigrating any of the other assistants, he said that SOS is revered by the backline players.
He has obviously connected with them and they have full trust in what he is trying to teach/show them.

How are our backmen faring as against previous years?
Can anybody note a difference from previous seasons?
Better or worse?

[rodgerfox]

Interesting.

I read an opinion somewhere when we hired that Lyon, that he would fail as a coach.

He would fail because he was brining a Sydney'esque game plan to the club. A game plan which requires absolute effort, commitment and intensity for 4 quarters every weekend, for 22 weeks a year.

Apart from needing a fit list to do this, you needed to really respect your coach.

The opinion of the author was that the game plan was rubbish, and that Roos was an ordinary coach, and that what made the players listen to him was that he was somewhat of a club legend. Some players had played with him, idolised him as player and hung on every word he said.

The thoughts were that Lyon, although delivering the same message, would not be able to get it across, simply because the message was shiit and he didn't have the aura to make players stop and listen to it.


Based on this (whether you give it any creedance or not) it is understandable that players would listen to SoS. He could be selling polished dog turds, and people would buy them.

But then what about Barker? What about Rock?

Overall, does our coaching panel have that immediate respect before even saying a word?

[Goody]

Ive often wondered why we have Barker as our forward coach.
All I remember of him as a player was he was injured a lot and was not an above average kick for goal.
I know that not all great players become great coaches but I would have thought there was better people out there than Barker to train our forwards.
At the moment our forwards are under achieving and we really havent got a forward where you feel comfortable on a set shot 40m out. I know all players miss but of late I havent felt confident with Roo, Kosi or Milne going for a set shot. The G-Train I do, but his opportunities have been limited.
Our backline I love, its underrated but is more than capable.
Then there is our midfield???

[saint66au]

I actually think our backline has been very cohesive this year.

I especially notice this cohesion during contested ball situations. If we can get our hands on it out of pack, theres a real sense of the players knowing where their teammates will be. A chain of 5-6 quick handpases always finds targets, with a player running to space on or outside 50.

Less effective are our clearances from behinds. I actually think its a big mistake to have Dal kicking out from FB if at least half the time he's just going to chip it to Max or Chipper or Fish in a pocket. As soon as he's done that his tagger is all over him and he's out of the play deep in defence. If we are going to use elite kickers like him and BJ, we have to huddle or provide clear targets for them on or outside 50.

People scream at them to "man up", but when the ball is coming down at 500mph courtesy of lack of forward/midfield pressure it makes it very hard

I know its been said before, but the plethora of behinds we've kicked this year are NOT helping. Kick a goal and the next thing you have is a stop-play contest in the centre, with purportedly one of the leagues best midfields there to contest it. Kick a behind and you hand the opposition control of the footy. With our lack of pressure inside our own 50, we are killing ourselves doing this...and putting more pressure on our backline than there needs to be.

[Mr Magic]

I know its been said before, but the plethora of behinds we've kicked this year are NOT helping. Kick a goal and the next thing you have is a stop-play contest in the centre, with purportedly one of the leagues best midfields there to contest it. Kick a behind and you hand the opposition control of the footy. With our lack of pressure inside our own 50, we are killing ourselves doing this...and putting more pressure on our backline than there needs to be.

Very interesting point.
I hadn't given that issue much thought before.
Although I think of the 3 games I've seen, we seem to have manned up /zoned up pretty well from kick-ins. I don't remember too many times that the opposition have 'run' the ball all the way back to their goals without us touching it? I wasn't at the Bulldogs game so I don't know if it happened then?

[markinUSA]

This is an interesting thread, thank you for starting it. SOS certainly was a very good footballer. I don't think he was "fullback of the century", but he was certainly very good. I loved watching Plugger tear him a new one when we played the Blues!

On a related point, I was watching the coach's box, and I didn't recognize all the people in there. Is SOS there? I couldn't see him, but (not being at the game) I only ever get to see the brief flashes that come up on the TV. I have seen the girl who is our statistician (being female, she stands out in the group), and Ross of course, but I haven't been able to recognize the others.

Can anyone help?

[SENsei]

SOS got one of the competition's worst backman in Lewis Roberts-Thomson to play like the best CHB in the comp in their premiership year.

He hasn't got back that form.

Interesting comments on SOS from Mr Magic's source. Have heard similar.

[saintsRrising]

I think our backline is doing well enough.

Sam Fisher continues to grow as a player. His defensive skills have vastly improved in the time SOS has been there. Whether this is natural growth froma real talent, and/or SOS's influence I do not know.




However I think Grammy needs some real 1 on 1 with SOS on spoiling etc..

[saintsRrising]

Interesting.

I read an opinion somewhere when we hired that Lyon, that he would fail as a coach.

He would fail because he was brining a Sydney'esque game plan to the club. A game plan which requires absolute effort, commitment and intensity for 4 quarters every weekend, for 22 weeks a year.

Apart from needing a fit list to do this, you needed to really respect your coach.

The opinion of the author was that the game plan was rubbish, and that Roos was an ordinary coach, and that what made the players listen to him was that he was somewhat of a club legend. Some players had played with him, idolised him as player and hung on every word he said.

The thoughts were that Lyon, although delivering the same message, would not be able to get it across, simply because the message was shiit and he didn't have the aura to make players stop and listen to it.

I think the OP was asking about our assistants, not Ross.

[rodgerfox]

Interesting.

I read an opinion somewhere when we hired that Lyon, that he would fail as a coach.

He would fail because he was brining a Sydney'esque game plan to the club. A game plan which requires absolute effort, commitment and intensity for 4 quarters every weekend, for 22 weeks a year.

Apart from needing a fit list to do this, you needed to really respect your coach.

The opinion of the author was that the game plan was rubbish, and that Roos was an ordinary coach, and that what made the players listen to him was that he was somewhat of a club legend. Some players had played with him, idolised him as player and hung on every word he said.

The thoughts were that Lyon, although delivering the same message, would not be able to get it across, simply because the message was shiit and he didn't have the aura to make players stop and listen to it.

I think the OP was asking about our assistants, not Ross.

Sure, I was just using the example of players respecting coaches and assistants based on their reputations and/or playing ability.

I was referring to Barker in particular, but used the Lyon situation as an example.

In SoS' case, he certainly would have had that advantage with our group.

[meher baba]

I agree that, as far as one can tell from the way he talks in interviews and the way that the backline is playing, SOS seems to be the most successful of our assistant coaches.

I thought the backline stood up wonderfully well last season given our terrible injuries. SOS must surely have made a contribution to this outcome.

It's a bit hard to judge how the other two are going: the midfield and forward line are not playing well, but is that their fault or is it a result of our game plan?

[spert]

SOS is doing a good job with the backs, but we need another big bodied back down there to compete with gorilla forwards. Max or SFisher are not that kind of player and I don't know if Goose will ever come back to any of his early-career form. Kozi maybe needs a spell deep in the backline. I'm more worried about the woeful forward structure- if we fix that, we will be right up there come finals time.

[bozza1980]

The backline have done really well this year, even late last year they were impressive.

As a lot of people have posted if our forward structure can start to work or a working forward structure is found, things could turn around quickly.