The Ross Lyon Record

[perfectionist]

Only four coaches have coached St Kilda in more than 100 games. They are:

Allan Jeans: 332 games, 58.28% winning ratio, 3 GFs and 1 Premiership
Grant Thomas: 124 games, 51.63% winning ratio, no GFs
Ross Lyon: 121 games, 64.46% winning ratio, 3GFs, no flags
Stan Alves: 115 games, 48.46% winning ration, 1 GF, no flag

In the time that I have been following the Saints (i.e. since 1960), there have been 13 coaches (other than those who stood in through illness, like Eric Guy and Allan Davis). Darrel Baldock stopped largely for health reasons. Of the rest, only two of them have left at a time of their choosing i.e. they weren't sacked - Allan Jeans and Ross Lyon.

[jackal]

And how would it hurt if the Dockers won a flag with Rossy as a coach...not sure if i can support them in Derbies anymore lol

Only four coaches have coached St Kilda in more than 100 games. They are:

Allan Jeans: 332 games, 58.28% winning ratio, 3 GFs and 1 Premiership
Grant Thomas: 124 games, 51.63% winning ratio, no GFs
Ross Lyon: 121 games, 64.46% winning ratio, 3GFs, no flags
Stan Alves: 115 games, 48.46% winning ration, 1 GF, no flag

In the time that I have been following the Saints (i.e. since 1960), there have been 13 coaches (other than those who stood in through illness, like Eric Guy and Allan Davis). Darrel Baldock stopped largely for health reasons. Of the rest, only two of them have left at a time of their choosing i.e. they weren't sacked - Allan Jeans and Ross Lyon.

[Legendary]

Outstanding coach, outstanding record.

The facts speak for themselves.


Our best since Jeans.

[perfectionist]

The Freo people kept on referring to 63%. That sold Ross short. It's 64.46%, while Mark Harvey's is 40.21%

[Dr Spaceman]

I thought this thread was about Ross releasing a cover version of Denis Leary's old hit "I'm An Asshole"

[sainter104]

in 3 years time when lyon get sacked by the dockers his win loss ratio would have dropped to around 50

[clisaint]

Outstanding coach, outstanding record.

The facts speak for themselves.


Our best since Jeans.

Yep, far and away our second best coach ever. That says a lot about us as a club.

[samoht]

You're only as good as your last game and we lost an important game on home soil.

His record in important games stinks.

I don't know about the end of an era - certainly the end of the negative tagging era at St Kilda under Gross Lyon.

[samwell]

would be interested how that % stacks up against all coaches with 100+ games - would imagine he'd be right up there......

[Johnny Member]

The Freo people kept on referring to 63%. That sold Ross short. It's 64.46%, while Mark Harvey's is 40.21%

Lyon never had to rebuild though.

Have a look at the other coaches in history that have taken over a team for whatever reason, that didn't need to rebuild or weren't in the early stages of a rebuild.... Allan Joyce, Chris Scott.

It's rare for a coach to take over a team with a young talented core that's just played in the finals for the 3rd year in a row.

And as with Scott and Joyce, you absolutely should hit the ground running and have a great strike rate compared to the others who cop a graveyard and have to build it fro the ground up.


The stat is totally misleading.

[Johnny Member]

in 3 years time when lyon get sacked by the dockers his win loss ratio would have dropped to around 50

But as per my post above, he should have a great strike rate at Freo.

They've played finals, have already had another coach do the hard yards - so the new coach should naturally step in and comfortably take them through a certain level of success.

[samoht]

If Freo improves it wont be due to Gross Lyon .. they were decimated by injury this year.

Harvey did well considering this fact.

If they have a fit side next year anyone could coach them to a good year (with their list) and I hope credit doesn't automatically go to RL

[plugger66]

If Freo improves it wont be due to Gross Lyon .. they were decimated by injury this year.

Harvey did well considering this fact.

If they have a fit side next year anyone could coach them to a good year (with their list) and I hope credit doesn't automatically go to RL

Well those in charge obviously disagree with you.

[Johnny Member]

If Freo improves it wont be due to Gross Lyon .. they were decimated by injury this year.

Harvey did well considering this fact.

If they have a fit side next year anyone could coach them to a good year (with their list) and I hope credit doesn't automatically go to RL

Well those in charge obviously disagree with you.

Clearly! And according to them in the presser (and I'm surprised no one took them to task over it), it took them about 4 hours to realise that Harvey was no good!

So they either lied, or they sacked a coach on 4 hours think time!

[clarky449]

Lyon is a very very good coach one that we lost, i just hope we get someone who can coach like he did.

[samoht]

Lyon is a very very good coach one that we lost, i just hope we get someone who can coach like he did.

Malthouse went from a premiership coach to a wooden spoon coach to a premiership coach - the only factor was the players and luck.

A good Coach is a coach that's blessed with luck (injury wise) and good players . Full Stop,

[perfectionist]

...A good Coach is a coach that's blessed with luck (injury wise) and good players . Full Stop.

Yep. Stan and Grant had the list but not the injury luck. Ross had the injury luck but not the list. Both are generally required.

[clisaint]

...A good Coach is a coach that's blessed with luck (injury wise) and good players . Full Stop.

Yep. Stan and Grant had the list but not the injury luck. Ross had the injury luck but not the list. Both are generally required.

Stan also left Jamie Shanahan on Darren Jarman for far too long. It's not just luck.

[Scollop]

Perfectionist; Legendary et en

It's difficult to sack a guy with Lyons record, and maybe it was difficult for the board to demand change from him when the team came so close with him at the helm. He's a stubborn prick and and he thinks he is the messiah...that is bs and Freo will find out soon enough...

Allan Jeans was a legend and a great teacher. Ross Lyon doesn't come within a dag covered pube length whisker of Jeansies skills in motivating and lifting his players to great heights. Our boys should be credited for their hard work and efforts over the last five years in enduring this prick's management style and coaching. All the background and foundations for the team that lying Lyon inherited was carefully constructed by those that came before him.

I'm going repaet 'meher barber's post for all to have another read; WARNING: ESSAY-LENGTH POST. NO ONE IS COMPELLED TO READ IT IF THEY DON'T WANT TO.

I never worshipped Lyon like some on here. I initially hated his style of coaching, his high-pitched, convoluted way of talking and his tendency to blame everyone other than himself when things went wrong. I wanted him to go away.

Then, as 2008 passed into 2009 and 2010 I was, like everyone else, highly impressed.

He did well, but I think many posters on here spiralled into a wish-fulfillment fanstasy in which Lyon "bled" for the club; wasn't a horrible mercenary like GT (who got the club to increase his salary and then took it to court), "In Lyon We Trust" and all that bulldust.

Lyon came as a gun for hire and left as a gun for hire. Personally, I don't really care what the coach, players and even the administrators think or feel about the club as long as they are good at what they do and give the greatest effort that they possibly can. Lyon brought those qualities to the club in spades.


* * * * * * * *


I believe that we have now reached the end of an era which began in 2000-01 when the Butterss-Thomas-Waldron regime came into power. The records of all three men are somewhat tainted in hindsight, but I still believe that collectively they were the best thing that ever happened to our club. They developed a long-term plan to make us into one of the top clubs and keep us up there. And - after a troubled start with the hiring and sacking of Blight and the strange circumstances under which GT was appointed - we saw that strategy begin to bear fruit from the 2004 streak onwards.

We were unlucky in 2004: the crowd invasion for Frasers' 100th goal, a few bounces of the ball late in the game, prevented us from making the GF. (These things happen: in the 2009 PF, our luck went the other way: a rather dodgy free kick to Riewoldt off the ball, a missed gettable shot on goal by Gia, and some enormous courage from Raph Clarke got us over the line. Then, a few similar bits of bad luck and missed opportunities robbed us of a GF win.)

In 2005, injuries - particularly those sustained by key players during the "whispers in the sky" game at Freo - killed us after a heroic effort in the QF and the first 3/4 of the PF. It appears that many on the Board interpreted the loss to the Swans differently and decided that we needed to change from our more attacking game plan to the more "scientific" defensive style developed by Eade and then Roos at the Swans.

At the end of another indifferent season with still more injury problems, they had their chance to strike and strike they did. Butterss and GT had fallen out and so our President did nothing to stop it from happening. Archie Fraser, who seems to have been a bit of a troublemaker, guided the knife to GT's back and then, a year later, into the back of Butterss as well.

In Lyon, the Board got just the coach they were looking for: a scientist with a strong emphasis on defence. A couple of seasons were perhaps wasted while Lyon and the team got used to each other (we can obviously never know for sure how we would have gone if we'd stuck with GT) and then, bang, we were travelling better than ever: albeit perhaps in an overall slightly weaker comp than in 2004-06 (but then, our team was also probably slightly weaker: no Gehrig, Hamilll or Harvey; albeit BJ, Joey, Fisher and Lenny reached the peak form of their careers in 2009-10, as did Milne to some extent, and other lesser players such as Mini in 2009 and Gwilt in 2010. And Schneider and Gardi strengthened us in important areas.)

The injury situation got better: perhaps Misson helped a bit (although, like GT, I don't really believe conditioners make that much difference to the overall injury toll). However, I think the big factors were Lenny and then BJ coming back from their serious injuries. And we stopped playing guys like X, Hamill and Gehrig and - for a while - Ball and Kosi, who were never even close to fully fit. GT, whose heart clearly rules his head, too often made the mistake of letting guy swho weren't right run onto the park for big games. Lyon rarely if ever did that.


* * * * * * * *


In my view, Lyon achieved as much in 2009-10 in terms of quality of output as any coach could ever hope to achieve. Tudor and SOS were obviously also important factors: we can never be sure quite how important. But Lyon always came across as the guy in control. He's tough and shrewd and determined.

Like GT before him, Lyon had a plan and he largely stuck to it. It was a vastly different plan: some would say better than GT's. Certainly, Lyon's plan was totally in tune with what the then Board was trying to achieve when it sacked GT: ie, moving to a more scientific, defensive approach a la the Swans which they believed at the time to be best practice and therefore most likely to get us a flag. And, after all, we had only won one of the buggers in over a century, so this was obviously a more important goal for us than for many other clubs.

However, I personally remain somewhat disappointed that the club moved away from the 2000-01 vision of striving to become one of the top sides and stay there. 2004 was the first time I ever saw the club metaphorically walking with a swagger and looking the rest of the football world straight in the eye: even in the late 60s/early 70s we presented more as an underdog club that had had some success. But, in the mid-2000s, we took on the AFL establishment and got up their collective noses. We ran out on the field and utterly crushed some of the glamour clubs like the Blues, Pies and Hawks: ground them into the dirt.

We moved away from that vision in 2006 for a range of reasons: some good (wanting desperately to win a flag, GT really not being up to it technically as a coach, etc.) and some bad (the Butterss-GT feud, Archie Fraser's machinations, the AFL and football media's collective attitude towards GT).

The result was that we almost got there: as close as you can possibly get without making it. In the decade since GT took over at the end of 2001, 7 clubs have played in GFs and 6 have won one or more. We are the sole exception, and we managed to draw one. I'll never regret that and I'll always be highly complimentary to Lyon for the huge role in getting us almost all the way there. And to Butterss-Waldron-GT-Bevo and others for assembling the list and instilling the faith: it wasn't simply the case that we had enough high draft picks to inevitably get to the top: the Blues, Tigers, Freo and the Demons have had a lot of high draft picks and haven't come close yet.

* * * * * * * *

But Lyon (aided by Drain and Peake, Nettlefold and others) now leaves a legacy of too many recycled "role players", wasted draft picks, damaged morale, and style of football which is as boring as batshit to watch.


It's time for the club to try to turn the clock back to 2003-04 and, failing that, right back to 2001-02 and a total rebuild. We need to go back to the goal of long-term success as a club. Not so much to win a GF next year or the year after (although that would be great), but to strive long-term to be seen as one of the AFL's glamour clubs: the boys from the beachside who play a dynamic, attractive and winning style of football. Retain the tough defence that Lyon taught us, but bring back some of the desire to crush our opponents that GT brought to the club. Go back to recruiting the best available talent, not just players to fill "roles".

The club needs to be daring, confident and aggressive: a bit lairy, a bit Frankston, a bit Shane Warne (indeed, I'd consider trying to get Warne involved in some way).

I don't know who the right coach for that mix would be. Not Malthouse: too old now, IMO. Scott Burns or Leigh Tudor might be all right. It's a pity the Scott brothers aren't triplets. The club needs to be patient and to make sure they find the right guy. But they shouldn't try to be too safe. And certainly nobody who has had anything to do with the Swans!!

Go Saints! Onwards and upwards!!

[spert]

Yabby was our best coach and the rest have failed.

[Apples]

Great Summary Scollop, just about sums my thinking exactly......

[Moods]

You're only as good as your last game and we lost an important game on home soil.

His record in important games stinks.

I don't know about the end of an era - certainly the end of the negative tagging era at St Kilda under Gross Lyon.

You are delusional, or you don't know your footy? Which is it.

At Ross's time at the club we lost only one game we were expected to win - last Saturday night.

WE were actually renound under Lyon to win the big games. if he taught us nothing else, it was to perform in big games.

The 09 GF we were very much outsiders to win. the 2010 GF's were were MASSIVE underdogs and nearly snatched it.

How many of us expected to win the qual final last year? I mean really expected us to?

How many expected the improvement that we showed in 09?

Bag the guy for his integrity, morality, values whatever, but attack his as a coach and I reckon your post loses credibility.

[Sainternist]

I thought this thread was about Ross releasing a cover version of Denis Leary's old hit "I'm An Asshole"

Well said, Doc!

[samoht]

You're only as good as your last game and we lost an important game on home soil.

His record in important games stinks.

I don't know about the end of an era - certainly the end of the negative tagging era at St Kilda under Gross Lyon.

You are delusional, or you don't know your footy? Which is it.

At Ross's time at the club we lost only one game we were expected to win - last Saturday night.

WE were actually renound under Lyon to win the big games. if he taught us nothing else, it was to perform in big games.

The 09 GF we were very much outsiders to win. the 2010 GF's were were MASSIVE underdogs and nearly snatched it.

How many of us expected to win the qual final last year? I mean really expected us to?

How many expected the improvement that we showed in 09?

Bag the guy for his integrity, morality, values whatever, but attack his as a coach and I reckon your post loses credibility.

We won 19 games in a row - yet lost the big one vs Geelong.
RL is a "good coach" (let's pretend for a minute that the players have nothing to do with it and kow tow to the great man )during the season - but is found wanting in the big games.

When we look at his record why should the games that count be downplayed, they are the games that should be highlighted.

His record stinks in big games !

Instead of winning 20 games in that season ,, wouldn't it have been better to have won 12 and just snuck into the finals - and then won the 4 big ones ?
What's the point of being the minor premier ?

[meher baba]

Only four coaches have coached St Kilda in more than 100 games. They are:

Allan Jeans: 332 games, 58.28% winning ratio, 3 GFs and 1 Premiership
Grant Thomas: 124 games, 51.63% winning ratio, no GFs
Ross Lyon: 121 games, 64.46% winning ratio, 3GFs, no flags
Stan Alves: 115 games, 48.46% winning ration, 1 GF, no flag

In the time that I have been following the Saints (i.e. since 1960), there have been 13 coaches (other than those who stood in through illness, like Eric Guy and Allan Davis). Darrel Baldock stopped largely for health reasons. Of the rest, only two of them have left at a time of their choosing i.e. they weren't sacked - Allan Jeans and Ross Lyon.

Out of interest, what does GT's record look like if you take out the first 30 or so games when we were tanking? Must be closer to 60%