The nucleus of a Premiership Team

[BAM! (shhhh)]

He thought that he had the team , and that it just had to age a bit.

No, that's what people like yourself would like to believe.

Don't you ever get sick of hating for the sake of hating?

I know GT ruined your simplistic dream but it's really not healthy to focus it on it daily.

Fact is we've been the poster child for teams topping up since GT was given the arse but I suppose you support those decisions simply because they didn't involve Grant Thomas?

You really are one sad individual.

Ok, so GT didn't top up with recycled players? McGough, Ackland? Guerra? get real FFS.

And where was RL supposed to draft the guns from???

Wiht pick #9... Armo IIRC... and McEvoy. And everyone stated that the drafts were very shallow. Let's weigh it up against the draft picks available to each coach. Not defending either GT or RL, but, please at least be balanced about this.

If we look at the ages of the players you name when we got them, they were hardly picked up as "top up" type players. While they were picked up in part to adress deficiencies, they were all guys who looked to be good fits for the opportunities we had. McGough's probably the biggest dissapointment of the bunch, as his clearance work was AFL level when we got him, but when we played him in our midfield, which worked very differently to Collingwood's, it really brought his poor disposal under a spotlight.

If we look around the league and see Clinton Jones and Sam Fisher on our own list, and guys like Priddis, Dalziell, Alwyn Davey and Harry Taylor all slotting into AFL teams quickly, I think we get a picture of what we were trying to do at the time. Good skillsets in mature bodies, that should make their initial impact in a shorter timeframe - but certainly aren't being taken as finished products.

As for Armo coming from a shallow draft, it's the first time I've heard that - if we take a look at the '06 draft, it's shown astounding depth very early. Westhoff was a late pick. The infamous Jesse White of Sydney (the 19th man on the field) was taken even later. Kyle Reimers was just the friendly side of pick 50, and it's easy to find players up and down that draft to rate it's depth as fantastic. That isn't to say we should already have a star from our 1st rounder - I've got no problem with Armo, and think he'll be just fine, but we've had our chance to draft some pretty talented players.

Point is, in the fair and balanced review you ask for, you get something very different from the oft-posted view that our recruitment was driven into the ground going for quick fixes (I'm sure had we wanted to we could have picked up veterens ala Fremantle). It certainly doesn't suddenly start looking better/more youth focused at the '06 draft table. The Saints DID and still DO have a dearth of new blood making an impact for the side. It's not and never has been because we didn't go looking for it, rather, we have not seen improvement come from those outside of the core group until recently. Extrapolating further and seeking culprits can certainly be fun, but isn't the open and shut case I generally read about.

[WayneJudson42]

He thought that he had the team , and that it just had to age a bit.

No, that's what people like yourself would like to believe.

Don't you ever get sick of hating for the sake of hating?

I know GT ruined your simplistic dream but it's really not healthy to focus it on it daily.

Fact is we've been the poster child for teams topping up since GT was given the arse but I suppose you support those decisions simply because they didn't involve Grant Thomas?

You really are one sad individual.

Ok, so GT didn't top up with recycled players? McGough, Ackland? Guerra? get real FFS.

And where was RL supposed to draft the guns from???

Wiht pick #9... Armo IIRC... and McEvoy. And everyone stated that the drafts were very shallow. Let's weigh it up against the draft picks available to each coach. Not defending either GT or RL, but, please at least be balanced about this.

If we look at the ages of the players you name when we got them, they were hardly picked up as "top up" type players. While they were picked up in part to adress deficiencies, they were all guys who looked to be good fits for the opportunities we had. McGough's probably the biggest dissapointment of the bunch, as his clearance work was AFL level when we got him, but when we played him in our midfield, which worked very differently to Collingwood's, it really brought his poor disposal under a spotlight.

If we look around the league and see Clinton Jones and Sam Fisher on our own list, and guys like Priddis, Dalziell, Alwyn Davey and Harry Taylor all slotting into AFL teams quickly, I think we get a picture of what we were trying to do at the time. Good skillsets in mature bodies, that should make their initial impact in a shorter timeframe - but certainly aren't being taken as finished products.

As for Armo coming from a shallow draft, it's the first time I've heard that - if we take a look at the '06 draft, it's shown astounding depth very early. Westhoff was a late pick. The infamous Jesse White of Sydney (the 19th man on the field) was taken even later. Kyle Reimers was just the friendly side of pick 50, and it's easy to find players up and down that draft to rate it's depth as fantastic. That isn't to say we should already have a star from our 1st rounder - I've got no problem with Armo, and think he'll be just fine, but we've had our chance to draft some pretty talented players.

Point is, in the fair and balanced review you ask for, you get something very different from the oft-posted view that our recruitment was driven into the ground going for quick fixes (I'm sure had we wanted to we could have picked up veterens ala Fremantle). It certainly doesn't suddenly start looking better/more youth focused at the '06 draft table. The Saints DID and still DO have a dearth of new blood making an impact for the side. It's not and never has been because we didn't go looking for it, rather, we have not seen improvement come from those outside of the core group until recently. Extrapolating further and seeking culprits can certainly be fun, but isn't the open and shut case I generally read about.

agree... I think Which year was touted as a shallow draft, was it last year?

I also hope that you don't look at the depth of a draft with hindsight.

I still believe that the respective ladder positions and subsequent higher picks made life easier for the former.

Based on your logic about GT's recruiting, I'd also assert that RL has done the same with Schneider, Dempster and Charlie, has he not? Still young players who will have a quicker impact whilst the kids develop. King and Clarke being the exceptions.

So, they are both culprits of bad decisions, or both have the same vision. IMO

[Teflon]

not and never has been because we didn't go looking for it, rather, we have not seen improvement come from those outside of the core group until recently. Extrapolating further and seeking culprits can certainly be fun, but isn't the open and shut case I generally read about.

Thats the part Im most critical of over the past 5 years.

Outside those core group of players who was coming on in 05 and 06????

Bugger all.

I think its also damning the length of time we have had some players on the list to determine if they are gonna cut it or not - Brooks? ferguson? geez even Gwilts really only getting a go under Lyon FFS! That to me is unforgivable - you dont rest on your laurels and assume you have the "core" so everything else will follow....Geelong didnt..they IMPROVED players and added (father son helps certainly) but across the team for them youd have to say many of their players who you mightve previously thought as "ok" have gone up another gear.

Ours stopped.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

agree... I think Which year was touted as a shallow draft, was it last year?

I also hope that you don't look at the depth of a draft with hindsight.

I still believe that the respective ladder positions and subsequent higher picks made life easier for the former.

Based on your logic about GT's recruiting, I'd also assert that RL has done the same with Schneider, Dempster and Charlie, has he not? Still young players who will have a quicker impact whilst the kids develop. King and Clarke being the exceptions.

So, they are both culprits of bad decisions, or both have the same vision. IMO

I suspect both have had the same vision. If you look at the examples I gave above where it's worked, I don't think it's necessarily a bad vision either. The difference is mainly in the eyes of a certain subset of Saintsational posters (the parallel that can be drawn between Guerra and Schneider for example does not suggest a shift in recruiting strategy). I'm pretty happy to write off King and Clarke as low cost gap plugging moves, rather than really "topping up" - we've been plugging the gap since Knobel, looking for someone to put their hand up, and we've certainly tried a lot of guys... that they haven't knocked of the plugs isn't the fault of the attempt.

as for shallow/weak drafts, we'll always judge in hindsight, but my memory is that the '06 was touted beforehand as being the best since '01, and the '07 was supposed to be pretty even, just without the top end of '06 (i.e. the top 3 of '07 were really highly rated, but would have been top 10 picks in '06, not necessarily top 5... there were arguments around was Kreuzer better than Leuenberger, was Cotchin as good as Selwood, etc. etc... I don't pretend to know the answer to any of these questions before they're all well established and I've seen them a lot... then I'll pretend to know it all! ).

With the benefit of hindsight, we definitely know that 03-05 were pretty ordinary drafts. Not because of our results, but because of results across the board.

I can see where the idea that it was our recruitment that stuffed us came from, but if we take the results across the board in tandem with the philosophy we were going for, and the result Teflon outlines above (long development times), I don't think the story is one of "resting on their laurels", rather one of young players failing to take the next step as older guys retired giving them the chance... including the so-called "top-up" players.

Has there been a problem with recruitment/development? Absolutely, but it's a problem of results, not the problem of effort that at times seems to be a saintsational consensus (IMO of course).

[BigMart]

"The team is too similar to this one so we won't make the 8"

funny - aren't we currently in the 8....and have underachieved....losing one or two we SHOULD have one.....

We have beaten

Hawthorn 2nd
Kangaroos 4th
Sydney 5th

were with Geelong 1st for a half.....and smashed the Bulldogs 3rd for a quarter.....

so we can mix it with the best on our day.......and lose to the worse on other days.....

is it consistency or personnel

[Con Gorozidis]

The The early Draft Picks gave us the opportunity, and we "fluffed" it big time by not managing the resource which should have given us the foundations.

Good post...

We needed to keep building....instead we went for back -ups that were not up to it.

yep. how does milne get in the "3rd tall" category?

we fluffed it by stopping player development and "topping up" on duds.

there are no short cuts to success. no messiah coaches. no secret "game plans". all the things talked bout on the site are flights of fantasy fueled by hope and wishful thinking.

the only way to win a premiership is to develop teams from the ground up. and never waiver from that. GT waivered when he thought he was already there in 04 05 and ballsed it up from then on. now we are in no-mans land and with 2 new teams entering the comp i dont like the odds on replenishing and exiting no-mans land. GT is a fraud and a BS artist.

[BigMart]

Milne gets into the third tall category.....because it is not about height, it's about the role he plays......

when Rooey is the only target, milne becomes a target rather than a crumber off the target.....milne often plays as a 'hit up' forward

[saintsRrising]

Milne gets into the third tall category.....because it is not about height, it's about the role he plays......

when Rooey is the only target, milne becomes a target rather than a crumber off the target.....milne often plays as a 'hit up' forward

Definately.

Particularly in this age of uncontested fotball where it is about kicking to aplayer in space.

Trouble is that our delivery is often shoddy so that Milne who has found space is instead forced into a contested ball situation where he often has a taller oponent who can exploit it. This is why Milne cannot sustain playing as a market target. Cameos are finr though.

I think that in the last couple of games too that there as been a subtle shift with Schneider staying closer to goals and Milne playing a bit further up the ground, though both roam.

[congorozides]

id still like the pics used on brooks, raph, watts and a few others back.

im glad we are now at least looking to use the nsw scholarship scheme. thats a positive RL has bought to the club.

[vacuous space]

id still like the pics used on brooks, raph, watts and a few others back.

Geelong would probably like the picks they used on Ezra Bray and Kane Tenace back. Maybe Travis Varcoe too. They also picked Charlie Gardiner and Cameron Thurley early in the second round. Every team makes mistakes at the draft.

[Con Gorozidis]

id still like the pics used on brooks, raph, watts and a few others back.

Geelong would probably like the picks they used on Ezra Bray and Kane Tenace back. Maybe Travis Varcoe too. They also picked Charlie Gardiner and Cameron Thurley early in the second round. Every team makes mistakes at the draft.

yep.
although some of those guys are ok. its not all about drafts. player development. fitness etc etc etc.

some of our boys are going backwards or not improving.

[plugger66]

id still like the pics used on brooks, raph, watts and a few others back.

im glad we are now at least looking to use the nsw scholarship scheme. thats a positive RL has bought to the club.

Pretty sure that system started when GT was there.

[joffaboy]

I find it highly amusing that the revisionists here with memories like goldfish seem to think that all we had to do was turn up on GF day 2004 and the premiership was ours.

Just for the one with memory loss.

R20 Gabba 2004 - a devestating 45 point loss against the Lions. Just wait to the finals everyone said - we'll show them.

First Final Gabba - 2004. A humiliating 80 point loss. We were getting done by over a hundred points at one stage.

SO we had been floggd twice in three weeks by the Lions but all we had to do was beat Port and we had the 04 flag.

yeah right

Nucleous of a premiership team - pfft. Not even the nucleous of a GF team.

[saint66au]

Interesting point JB....but I reckon Brisbane at the G wold have been a different kettle of fish to those games at the Gabba...

the 2nd Prelim was a wet cold slog..Geelong had em on toast at certain parts of the game..and time proved that it did take a lot out of them ( the MCC agreement forcing them to Melb would not have helped either)

I still reckon we would have beaten Brisbane in 04, but Geelong? might have actually been a tougher game had we and they got through.

But yes..revisionist it all is. ..unless someone wants to build a TARDIS so I can go back and slip something in Gavin Wanganeens 3/4 time drink

[Con Gorozidis]

Interesting point JB....but I reckon Brisbane at the G wold have been a different kettle of fish to those games at the Gabba...

the 2nd Prelim was a wet cold slog..Geelong had em on toast at certain parts of the game..and time proved that it did take a lot out of them ( the MCC agreement forcing them to Melb would not have helped either)

I still reckon we would have beaten Brisbane in 04, but Geelong? might have actually been a tougher game had we and they got through.

But yes..revisionist it all is. ..unless someone wants to build a TARDIS so I can go back and slip something in Gavin Wanganeens 3/4 time drink

im still trying to find a way to slip something in darren jarmans drink...

[spert]

That was then and this is now. Our main failure as a club has always been the inability to put faith and resources into building for the future -we have a history of trying to get the quick fix with recycled players. Geelong spent time allowing a core group of younger players to develop into the core of their recent premiership team. We have a great group to develop in Armo, Eddy, Allen, McEvoy, Geary, Steven etc for starters. I have no doubt Lyon will make progress with this group over summer and will build towards a stronger team in 2009 with some careful recruiting. The last thing we need is destabilisation at board level, with white-ants looking for another quick fix.

[To the top]

Joffaboy, the wheels came off half way thru 2004 - for a raft of reasons.

So quoting the results from the end of 2004 is out of context in terms of the development of a sustainable and resiliant list - and 2004 is a reference point only because you could say focus was diverted earlier than that.

Sitting next to the St Kilda bench for the Carlton game in 2004, when we were lauded for kicking 30 goals, you could see the players were physically spent and that the reason was not exhaustion.

They were struggling with symptoms which became the catalyst for long-term injuries.

Maguire was the prime example, obviously struggling with a groin complaint but being put back onto the ground, coming off again just before the end - and we had kicked 30 goals.

Look at the records and you will see how many struggled from that game onwards.

It was not that game per se (and Carlton were pretty damn poor), it was the aggregation of 14 weeks of a campaign - and they had had enough that far in.

Did not Thomas have a "feel good" indicator, which dived so they went to the pictures? Why would it dive in one week, and particularly coming off a 30 goal game?

We "ran" on the upper echelon of our playing list and the eye was not on the ball - the eye was not continuing to stategically address our options.

And, at the risk of being called repetative, the fruit of the folly is that, with a dearth of key defensive options, in 2008, we do not have a St Kilda listed player capable of playing either CHB or full-back at Casey - and we have to resort to R. Clarke and Gwilt.

Our options for key defensive posts are Hudgden (age?), S. Fisher who is a sensational flanker, Gilbert who is developing and will make it, Blake as a spare parts solution, R. Clarke and Gwilt, who are 189cm and 188cm respectively. Then there is Maguire where finger, toes and everything else are crossed that he can resume as a dominant CHB.

So, exactly what did we do to address the loss of Penny? And particularly when Maguire's problems are thrown in - because he struggled from mid-2004. Plus, Gehrig had moved forward by that time and Hall had gone.

As I said elsewhere, mid 2004 is only a reference point because the recruiting focus is never jettisoned in regards structuring your List and having viable options, particularly for key positions and ruckmen.

I still believe we have the nucleus going forward, but we have a reliance of each of Armitage, Steven, Howard, Allen and McEvoy producing the goods, and we need another half dozen as well, including a couple of key position defenders and some ruck options.