How much adjusting to new coaching changes?

[Winmar7Fan]

Ok we have a new coach hence new game plan and structure.

So how long could the transition be from old programing of RL structure and to what effect could we be possibly looking at?

Could we just continue on at the level we were and Improve from there or are we possibly going to take a step down and be a bit lost for a period like we did with RL in his first season to adjust?

I suppose it depends on how similar Watters structure is or if it is a total revamp

Thoughts?

[Dis Believer]

Not a lot of transition time IMO. The initial change under Ro$$ Lyin was massive, bringing that ultra defensive approach in was revolutionary to our players.

I think "tweaking" rather than complete overhaul will be the order of the day, some different personnel in some spots etc, and I don't think we will be looking at them only really getting going with it late in the season as happened in Lyin's first season.

[Junction Oval]

The defensive set-ups are in place. The "tweaking" will be around how we can score more freely. The coaching trick will be to score more, without taking too much away from our defense structure. It will be a question of "balance."

[Teflon]

The defensive set-ups are in place. The "tweaking" will be around how we can score more freely. The coaching trick will be to score more, without taking too much away from our defense structure. It will be a question of "balance."

TBH This is one of the key reasons I was keen to see Watters get the nod.

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score - I suspect they use their mid scoring options and dont rely solely on Cloke/Dawes even Krakour (see Roo/Kosi/Milne for us..) to do it all. Big part of that is increasing midfield depth........we MUST move away from the standard "saints fab 4" model we always seem to glorify and have 8/9/10 options to go through with hopefully not a to dramatic drop in quality when say a Hayes steps out......tough ask..

What I am hoping is that Watters if nothing else opens up our avenues to goal - attacks should come from any player anywhere able to take the shot. Lyon IMHO struggled massively offensively.
Our ball movement speed/fluency also must improve.......to do this we have to improve our foot skills and hence where the kids will come in. IF some of them can at least be decent linkage players this year into attack hitting a target we'll go ok - Im talking Ledger/Cripps....sadly I cant see mush else coming through really bolstering midfield stocks....lets hope Saad is as flash as hes made out.

[clarky449]

TBH i dont expect our team to come out and start kicking 15+ goals every game so i hope people dont expect that. I think it will take time to develop. This is a team that has had the defensive restricting gameplan in their mindset for years now.

[stevie]

Well, 'Scotty' has two syllables as opposed to the one of 'Ross', but apart from that, shouldn't be too hard of a transition.

[Dr Spaceman]

Expect it to be a lot quicker and a lot easier than Grant to Ross.

[bigcarl]

Well, Lyin' was a poor communicator and it took him two seasons to persuade our guys to play his "risk-free" brand of football.

Very costly those two years when we should have been contending for premierships.

But Watters, being a good communicator and an ideas man, should be able to manage it over the off season.

I expect we'll be playing his game style from Round 1 on.

[R. Harvey 3 votes!]

I am expecting us to take maybe half a season to adjust fully, whereas I am expecting Fremantle to take almost 2 years, like took us under Ross!

[Dr Spaceman]

I am expecting us to take maybe half a season to adjust fully, whereas I am expecting Fremantle to take almost 2 years, like took us under Ross!

Two years for Freo to adapt?

Now that would be pleasing

[HitTheBoundary]

It's more fun to kick goals than it is to defend.

I think the players will catch on quick.

[Dr Spaceman]

It's more fun to kick goals than it is to defend.

I think the players will catch on quick.

Tommy Walsh said the other day he likes kicking goals.

No wonder Ross wouldn't play him!

[R. Harvey 3 votes!]

I am expecting us to take maybe half a season to adjust fully, whereas I am expecting Fremantle to take almost 2 years, like took us under Ross!

Two years for Freo to adapt?

Now that would be pleasing

Well it almost took us two years, in 2007 we missed the finals and I know we made the prelim in 2008 but that was only after we had a steven bradbury type finish to grab 4th with only 13 wins.

Fremantle will not make the finals next year.

[bergholt]

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score...

i think you mean they had but they got found out.

up to round 20 against port, they averaged 123 a game. after round 20 they averaged 87. (four home and away games including one against us, and three finals.) massive difference when it mattered. i'm not sure their gameplan is necessarily one to emulate too slavishly.

[saintbrat]

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score...

i think you mean they had but they got found out.

up to round 20 against port, they averaged 123 a game. after round 20 they averaged 87. (four home and away games including one against us, and three finals.) massive difference when it mattered. i'm not sure their gameplan is necessarily one to emulate too slavishly.

and weren't the saints seen to be one of the first to find a way through- although we didn't succeed the thrid man up at centre bounces was repeated by other teams as a way to get the fast break and avoid the Pie clutter in the centre.

[Heidelberg_Saint]

The defensive set-ups are in place. The "tweaking" will be around how we can score more freely. The coaching trick will be to score more, without taking too much away from our defense structure. It will be a question of "balance."

TBH This is one of the key reasons I was keen to see Watters get the nod.

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score - I suspect they use their mid scoring options and dont rely solely on Cloke/Dawes even Krakour (see Roo/Kosi/Milne for us..) to do it all. Big part of that is increasing midfield depth........we MUST move away from the standard "saints fab 4" model we always seem to glorify and have 8/9/10 options to go through with hopefully not a to dramatic drop in quality when say a Hayes steps out......tough ask..

What I am hoping is that Watters if nothing else opens up our avenues to goal - attacks should come from any player anywhere able to take the shot. Lyon IMHO struggled massively offensively.
Our ball movement speed/fluency also must improve.......to do this we have to improve our foot skills and hence where the kids will come in. IF some of them can at least be decent linkage players this year into attack hitting a target we'll go ok - Im talking Ledger/Cripps....sadly I cant see mush else coming through really bolstering midfield stocks....lets hope Saad is as flash as hes made out.

Agree.

[crippa2sipa]

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score...

i think you mean they had but they got found out.

up to round 20 against port, they averaged 123 a game. after round 20 they averaged 87. (four home and away games including one against us, and three finals.) massive difference when it mattered. i'm not sure their gameplan is necessarily one to emulate too slavishly.

and weren't the saints seen to be one of the first to find a way through- although we didn't succeed the thrid man up at centre bounces was repeated by other teams as a way to get the fast break and avoid the Pie clutter in the centre.

That is my recollection precisely, bratty

[Teflon]

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score...

i think you mean they had but they got found out.

up to round 20 against port, they averaged 123 a game. after round 20 they averaged 87. (four home and away games including one against us, and three finals.) massive difference when it mattered. i'm not sure their gameplan is necessarily one to emulate too slavishly.

who suggested emulating their game plan?

we are talking about Watters ability to take ther best elements from the best coaches hes played under and adapting that to St Kilda. Malthouse and Collingwood have been the best past few seasons. We need to learn.

I dont recall Pies % end of year....Im tipping it was far healthier than St Kildas's??

I know they have won 1 flag in last 2 yrs and played in this years GF while we went out backwards week 1.

I reckon we could learn something about balancing defense/attack from them. I also wouldnt put their last 4 games scores "for" as a sole proof tnheir game plan aint working......many other factors go into getting it right come end of the season and Malthouse alluded to that himself.

[Teflon]

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score...

i think you mean they had but they got found out.

up to round 20 against port, they averaged 123 a game. after round 20 they averaged 87. (four home and away games including one against us, and three finals.) massive difference when it mattered. i'm not sure their gameplan is necessarily one to emulate too slavishly.

and weren't the saints seen to be one of the first to find a way through- although we didn't succeed the thrid man up at centre bounces was repeated by other teams as a way to get the fast break and avoid the Pie clutter in the centre.

yes..and that helped us a treat while we rejoyced in a nothing H/A "good effort" but ultimately a loss to the Pies while they went on to contest the flag.........and once again we went back to struggling to kick 8 goals a game...

Geez......once again, its not about Collingwood - doesnt matter who it is.....its about take the best elements of what other good sides and learning along the way. No question Collingwood scored more heavily than us for the past few years AND managed to eclipse our defensive efforts at the same time - what can we take from that cause we MUST do both.....and especially improve offensively.

[PJ]

The transition will be like putting on a clean pair of undies.

Fresh, comfortable and certain to put a smile on your face.

[Royston]

Not a lot of transition time IMO. The initial change under Ro$$ Lyin was massive, bringing that ultra defensive approach in was revolutionary to our players.

I think "tweaking" rather than complete overhaul will be the order of the day, some different personnel in some spots etc, and I don't think we will be looking at them only really getting going with it late in the season as happened in Lyin's first season.

Important that Kingsley is retained as an assistant. With all other assistants moving on we need someone on the coaching staff with an intimate knowledge of our game plan to enable us to retain the defensive strategies/structures while Watters and the new appointees weave into it the attacking changes/strategies.

[InkerSaint]

Ok we have a new coach hence new game plan and structure.

So how long could the transition be from old programing of RL structure and to what effect could we be possibly looking at?

It's not as if the team has had one "program" and now need to "switch" to another.

http://www.saints.com.au/news/newsartic ... fault.aspx

"The game changes and moves so quickly now that even in a three to six month period, a game-plan evolves and changes and we want to be at the forefront of that.

"...You've got to stay ahead of the game. We'll take some of what's been great, and with input from a number of parties, we'll add some different layers to it as well."

This is not new, not even under Ross Lyon.

The ability to not only maintain discipline and adhere to a gameplan, but adapt and incorporate changes along the way is what separates good teams from the rest.

Having said that... off-field stability is crucial to on-field success. Whether the Saints have had (or will have) enough stability to focus on the job at hand remains to be seen.

[busso mick]

Pies have mastered defense WITH the ability to score...

i think you mean they had but they got found out.

up to round 20 against port, they averaged 123 a game. after round 20 they averaged 87. (four home and away games including one against us, and three finals.) massive difference when it mattered. i'm not sure their gameplan is necessarily one to emulate too slavishly.

and weren't the saints seen to be one of the first to find a way through- although we didn't succeed the thrid man up at centre bounces was repeated by other teams as a way to get the fast break and avoid the Pie clutter in the centre.

yes..and that helped us a treat while we rejoyced in a nothing H/A "good effort" but ultimately a loss to the Pies while they went on to contest the flag.........and once again we went back to struggling to kick 8 goals a game...

Geez......once again, its not about Collingwood - doesnt matter who it is.....its about take the best elements of what other good sides and learning along the way. No question Collingwood scored more heavily than us for the past few years AND managed to eclipse our defensive efforts at the same time - what can we take from that cause we MUST do both.....and especially improve offensively.

The overall stamp of the Collingwood defense is their ability to rebound quickly to set up an attack. Quite often when teams turned it over against Collingwood in their forward line it came back the other way with speed and usually resulted in a score. Blokes like O'Brien, Shaw, Davis and Toovey were attacking defenders and were prepared to run hard to make options for the next attack forward. Our defence is very tight and systematic but not what you would call a quick rebounding defence. I feel that this is the area we can improve dramatically to increase our scoring options, and one I feel that Watters will address between seasons.

[gringo]

Agree with most. collingwoods quick rebound and have a go on goal then back yourselves to win back the ball back would be more fun to watch anyway. Ross was trying to develop the collingwood model himself -just gave us a head start. play on quick from a mark instead of chip back until the best option became available. It exposed some of our players but we will get better at it. I'm really looking forward to what we will be doing Game plan wise.

[borderbarry]

The transition will be like putting on a clean pair of undies.

Fresh, comfortable and certain to put a smile on your face.


That depends what was wrong with your old pair of undies....