On the Couch and the old hoary chestnut bottom six debate

[Red]

Rodger you should be horrified as there is no way a Dempster, Jones,

Gardiner, King etc are ever going to be even in the top half dozen at this

side. They all have their limitations. If you look at most players we have

traded for it's to play a role not to be a star.

A team wins on depth. If you improve your overall depth you are more

likely to win. You need the brilliance of your stars but you need players

who can do their job.

[stinger]

wankers.........bet healy goes and has a really good wash after sitting for an hour with those two turds.......

[supersaints]

Seems to me the bottom 6 stuff is all crap, its about having all your best or most of your best players un-injured and in some sort of form. We have not even seen Geelongs bottom six play because they have not had enough injuries for two seasons. The year they did have half a dozen injuries to their better players they missed the finals................

[Con Gorozidis]

Raph Clarke, Clinton Jones, Andrew McQualter, Robert Eddy, Sam Gilbert, James Gwilt and David Armitage all played on Saturday night. None have played 50 games of AFL football.

Between them, on September 1 they had 5 finals between them. Now they have 25 finals between them.

Except for Jones, I don't think any of them are 23 years old.

While I do believe that we would have done better with other players in the side instead of Gwilt, Eddy & McQualter, I believe Clarke was our player of the finals, Jones did a job on Leon Davis who cut us up earlier in the season, Gilbert got beat early but kept working and will be very good, and Armitage had 7 tackles.

Who doesn't believe pretty much everyone of these players will be significantly better next season? Throw in Allen, McEvoy, Steven & Howard, and there is plenty to be optimistic about.

big whoops. hawks had heaps of kids without finals experience also.

[sunsaint]

So when Walls was singling out NDS on saturday night saying he had to start having an impact on the game, was he classing him as top 6 or bottom?
The fact was two of our top 6 had no impact, Kosi & NDS.
This "bottom 6 are no good at StKilda" has been bandied around for decades. I can remember this being the case in the Lockett era. The "Fab four" etc.
It's hard to believe that this doctrine would survive over the course of what? Six+ coaches, an equal number of administrations, the changing face of drafts and salary cap computations.
With air time to fill, the so called experts fluctuate between, "maybe we have overestimated the list" and the good old "bottom six are no good".

[groupie1]

Isn't it a bit early to write Eddy off?

I can't believe RL would have persisted with selecting him ahead of Armitage, Birss, Fiora, even Leigh fisher and X Clarke these past 6-7 weeks unless he saw some future in him.

I'm not sure he belongs in the 'bottom 6' debate. He's in a different category - the 'young blokes' category, and should be discussed with Armitage (who I'm concerned about, personally), Geary, Howard and the like.

Personally, and not that it's my business, Eddy looks to me like a Goddard/Hayes-like solid midfielder with a big heart, whose main problem is not being able to keep on his feet - naturally lacking in waistline strength. I like the look of him as a footballer.
But then, I also had big plans for Raph.

[ThePunter]

I really do get the feeling that many believe this is the only St Kilda side that could win a premiership

B S Fisher Hudghton S Fisher
HB Goddard Hudghton Goddard
C Gram Hayes Dal Santo
HF Montagna Riewoldt Schneider
F Milne Riewoldt Milne
Foll King Ball Hayes
Int Dal Santo Gram Koschitzke Ball

I have faith in the blokes I named in my earlier post. I believe they will improve, especially the really young blokes like Eddy and Armitage.

We have a special in Jack Steven who will play next year. Some of you are writing off McEvoy after one season and one senior game. That is simply not reasonable. He'll be bigger and better next season. Howard started to look better in the 2nd half of the season from what I saw.

And then you have Riewoldt, Ball, Dal Santo, Montagna, Gram, Goddard & Koschitzke, of which none will be 27 years old during next season. Goddard won't be 24 until May.