Tanks for the wins Richmond and Carlton

[saintspremiers]

A few of the numbnuts on here think we did quite well winning 7.5 out of last 11 games.

May I remind you that we only just beat CarlTANK, who were tanking when we played them (yes, KB, teams DO tank!) and the Tigers, who according to Wallace didn't really want a win either.

Also factor in a lousy draw against the pathetic Footscray, which could've easily been a loss, and things could've been far uglier than what we got...(although we would've got a slightly better draft pick as compensation, small benefit, but something).

....oh, and don't forget that 2 point win over Adelaide that could've easily gone the other way also.

A pathetic season all round.

97% is a shyte percentage and shows our lack of finishing powers.

God help us without our Flat Track Bully next year!

[Spinner]

ANyone else feel sorry for Richmond......


When as the last time the team finishing Last wont reciece the number 1 pick?

[Dan Warna]

concur that our season was ordinary.

what part of it was poor strategy and tactics, injury, tactical nous, implementation by players, player egos, lack of understanding, lack of drilling, poor motivation, player fitness, player selfishness, etc etc will I guess be worked out next year.

another season like 07 in 08 will mean we definately need to address the coaching issues.

I guess the best input would be understanding what the players think and understanding what we did wrong.

its not impossible to concieve we could ahve easily been in a position with 14 wins or more, had we not blown WCE, footscray, collingwood, early round game against hawthorn, sydney amongst others.

to consider that a trash side like richmond are even within 10 points of us is laughable.

or that carlton got so close.

we have to identify what went wrong and address it. this is more important than the actual recruiting.

getting players to the club and serving up some of this rubbish we copped this year will not turn us around.

[saintspremiers]

indeed Dan, good post, the reason I focussed on the last half of the season is the first half was ruined with injury, the second half wasn't.

The second half we had had time to adapt to RL's game plan.

Time to turn the heat on the players who were either lazy, unfit or unmotivated.

Get rid of them!

I'm looking forward to RL being brutal and acting without sentiment and getting a few more players on their bikes than has occured in recent seasons.

Big Fraze, being the deadset honest character he is, couldn't commit himself to 2008 and pulled the pin. Time for some more honest players to step forward also rather than being ditched....I don't mind if they try and source a trade with another club through their manager - better that than trying to cling onto something that isn't there.

Should be fun!

[Animal Enclosure]

FITNESS!

Get as fit as ironmen.

[rogerwa]

sorry saintspremiers ..i copied your thoughts almost word for word re carl rich foots in another thread before i'd come across yours

agree with you..if we take our hat off & start celebrating those so called wins we are stuffed

[Unforgiven]

Big Fraze, being the deadset honest character he is, couldn't commit himself to 2008 and pulled the pin.

Yeah I thinl Fraser did this very well by the club, lots of respect for him.

[saint66au]

indeed Dan, good post, the reason I focussed on the last half of the season is the first half was ruined with injury, the second half wasn't.

The second half we had had time to adapt to RL's game plan.

Time to turn the heat on the players who were either lazy, unfit or unmotivated.

Get rid of them!

I'm looking forward to RL being brutal and acting without sentiment and getting a few more players on their bikes than has occured in recent seasons.

Big Fraze, being the deadset honest character he is, couldn't commit himself to 2008 and pulled the pin. Time for some more honest players to step forward also rather than being ditched....I don't mind if they try and source a trade with another club through their manager - better that than trying to cling onto something that isn't there.

Should be fun!

Interested to see who you think should be stepping forward...Cmon...name names heheheh

Agree about Fraser 100%...quality clubman

[noreason41]

All of our wins after round 11 were pretty ordinary. Our biggest win was 30 points against a lackluster Fremantle.

Round 12 - We beat West Coast by 23 points. This was a West Coast team that won just 3 games between rounds 7 and 15. 3-6 isn't a team in form.

Round 13 - We beat 16th placed Richmond, who had won just one game for the year by 17 points.

Round 15 - We beat Adelaide by 2 points. This was an Adelaide team that had won just 2 of their past 6 games; again not a team in form.

Round 16 - We beat Hawthorn. Was a fair game, both teams had good records coming into the game.

Round 17 - We limped over the line over Carlton by 10 points. This Carlton team had lost all of their past 5 games by a grand total of 379 points.

Round 18 - We drew with the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs 2 games coming into this game were 75 and 87 point losses. After this game, they lost by 42, 34, 84 and 64 points. Their last 7 games resulted in 2 points, which came from us.

Round 20 - We beat Fremantle by 30 points.

[Otiman]

That's a pathetic way of thinking about it.

If we lose, we are crap
If we win, we are crap, but not as crap as the opposition.

[markinUSA]

I have a question: Spinner asked a question above - which no one has really talked about. Spinner said "When as the last time the team finishing Last wont recieve the number 1 pick?"

What's up with this? I've not heard anything about it. How is the No.1 draft pick being allocated this year? Can someone explain please? I haven't heard ANYTHING about this before.

Thanks
Mark

[Otiman]

I have a question: Spinner asked a question above - which no one has really talked about. Spinner said "When as the last time the team finishing Last wont recieve the number 1 pick?"

What's up with this? I've not heard anything about it. How is the No.1 draft pick being allocated this year? Can someone explain please? I haven't heard ANYTHING about this before.

Carlton are getting the "super priority pick" for winning 4 games or less in each of the last two seasons. This means they get Picks 1 and 3. Richmond finishing bottom gets Pick 2, and the "regular priority pick" at the start of the second round (Pick 17). I am not sure if Carlton also gets a 2nd round priority pick.

[Carl Mynott]

Draft order up to pick 21 at this point in time....

1. Carlton
2. Richmond
3. Carlton
4. Melbourne
5. Bulldogs
6. Essendon
7. Freo
8. Brisbane
9. Saints
10. Sydney
11. Adelaide
12. Collingwood
13. Kangaroos
14. Hawthorn
15. West Coast
16. Port
17. Geelong
18. Richmond
19. Richmond
20. Carlton
21. Melbourne

[battye]

We better make the most of #9.

[bungiton]

I'd give up pick nine in a flash at the trade table if it landed us either a proper ruckman or a midfielder of note.

It's an interesting point really, with the list we have these two deficiencies are a standout and wont be addressed in this years draft. Seriously I'd like to see a bigger effort into rookie listings and going hard at a few midfilders in the draft. Obviously these picks wont really have an immediate effect.

If seaby was a trade for pick 9 I'd take it, I don't see many midfielders being bandied about at the trade table, si we're going to have to find em and breed em ourselves.

As soon as Sir Robert Harvey retires I would instantly instal him as midfield coach, with the license to take all of our midfielders with him every time he goes for a casual jog.

[saintspremiers]

Ok, so we are now six months on.

According to Libba, we were indeed handed the Carlton game on a platter.

Re our recruiting/list management etc....look how much more positive things are now than then?

Who would've thought it would be possible last September eh???

[joffaboy]

Ok, so we are now six months on.

According to Libba, we were indeed handed the Carlton game on a platter.

Re our recruiting/list management etc....look how much more positive things are now than then?

Who would've thought it would be possible last September eh???

Yeah it changed somewhatfrom the first post.

Bungiton would be happy with the trades of King and Schneider (ruckman and mid) plus a forward and back and still kept #9

Could really tell Carlton were tanking against us. We were 7 or so goals up and stopped and Carlton would have run over us if they had wanted to, but didn't

I think our fitness is better and I have a much better feeling about this year (so far).

[barks4eva]

edit: apologies dan, I just noticed your post was written in September.

we have to identify what went wrong and address it. this is more important than the actual recruiting.

The actual recruiting was one of the main reasons why things went wrong to begin with, so I find your post quite ironic.


Don't worry the reasons why things went wrong as they started to in 2006, are being addressed.

Seriously I don't understand how anyone can not see that things have improved already, the processes are in place, there has been a mini rebuild, the players are the fittest they've ever been due to the toughest off season training they've ever done, there is now a professionally run football department with quality individuals heading up their specific roles, Drain, Misson etc...Ross Lyon has had 12 months to now develop some relationship with the players and this has happened, everyone is now on the same page and working together.

I'm truly mystified as to how people can not see that this will translate into a much improved performance, by still taking a somewhat sceptical, wait and see approach.

The problems with the list, the lack of fitness, the poor conditioning etc...etc... identified by Lyon when he arrived coupled together with the instability, are why things went the way they did in 2007, it's freaking obvious.
Within one month of his appointment he said there were no quick fixes and that it would take at least 12 months to rectify the situation, translated as clean up the mess that was left behind.

New board, a professional football department for the first time in the club's history, a mini rebiuld with some very good recruiting and we are now back on track, make no mistake about that.


Actual recruiting and improved fitness levels are the things that address what went wrong to begin with.

[Huzzad]

I'd give up pick nine in a flash at the trade table if it landed us either a proper ruckman or a midfielder of note.

It's an interesting point really, with the list we have these two deficiencies are a standout and wont be addressed in this years draft. Seriously I'd like to see a bigger effort into rookie listings and going hard at a few midfilders in the draft. Obviously these picks wont really have an immediate effect.

If seaby was a trade for pick 9 I'd take it, I don't see many midfielders being bandied about at the trade table, si we're going to have to find em and breed em ourselves.

As soon as Sir Robert Harvey retires I would instantly instal him as midfield coach, with the license to take all of our midfielders with him every time he goes for a casual jog.

Mmm because our midfield has such woeful players like Dal Santo, Hayes, Montagna and Ball. No real talent there. We obviously won all our games on the coat tails of Rob Harvey.

[st_Trav_ofWA]

for the record CARLTON AND RICHMOND DIDNT TANK GAMES !!!!! they were actually that SH*T !!!!

[saintspremiers]

for the record CARLTON AND RICHMOND DIDNT TANK GAMES !!!!! they were actually that SH*T !!!!

well done Trav, not only are you on Harby's Xmas card list, but now Dimwit's also......good effort

[To the top]

We beat Richmond by 10 points in the last game of 2007 - and it may be that, as we could not make the finals, intensity dropped but it was Thompson's and Gehrig's last game.

This just shows how much we need to improve to be competative this year, because 2007 was particularly poor.

Given Hudgden and Maguire to the key defensive posts, Gardiner and King to the rucks, Kosi to the forward line, Hayes, Goddard, X Clarke and Ball to the mid-field and R. Clarke to a utility position we would hope to see a significant improvement, because that is what is required.

Plus there is Schnieder who, you would suggest, will be in our best 22.

So there we have half the team who were either not with us last season or who had a season severely impacted upon by injury.

Fingers crossed!

Grinding out a 10 point win against Richmond in the last game of 2007 was really the absolute and critical summary of a very ordinary 2007, following an ordinary second half of 2004, a variable 2005 (double chance but an away final) and an under performing 2006 (where we needed to win a string of late games to make the finals).

For 2008, we have to get early wins on the board so we are not yet again in the middle of the pack chasing a position in the finals come 2/3rds of the way thru the season, as we have been for the last 3 seasons - let alone challenging for the double chance.

And we have to be knocking off the top sides - from Round 1.

That is where we start from, and that is the challenge no matter what is being said.

2008 is THE year to stand up - and to set the tone for the future of the club.

And that covers everyone from President to boot studder (with no dis-respect to the boot studders!).

[riccardo]

I thought we were fortunate to win those games at the time, to be honest.

But thats life, I have yet to see concreate evidence of any tanking, maybe they are just, as stated, that awful they couldn't win, wether they were trying to or not.

[saintsRrising]

We beat Richmond by 10 points in the last game of 2007 - and it may be that, as we could not make the finals, intensity dropped but it was Thompson's and Gehrig's last game..

Remember also that Thommo was told by Ross that he would only be given a "farewell" game if we could not make the finals.

The game was a dead rubber.

[Otiman]

I have yet to see concreate evidence of any tanking.

And herein lies the benefits of tanking. It's intangible, and impossible to prove.

All it would take was a board meeting (or even a one on one meeting) with the Senior Coach, with something implied in a statement like "If you were to lose all of your games for the remainder of the season, we wouldn't look at it as a blight on your record, and your job is safe" *wink*. Now that is not tanking, it's reassuring a coach of his position with a rebuilding side, but from the board and coaches point of view they're both aware of the required situation without having talked about it.