Scollop wrote:History will judge him. There are some, like the player of the century, that have their doubts about Lyon. I'd be taking his opinion before I listen to hacks and journos that rate him. Lethal rated the Saints list and he should know because he coached against them. Others perpetuate a myth about Lyon taking over an ordinary list.
Ross failed to develop our list. Maybe he had the best intentions with his philosophy of recycled players, but the results show that he did not improve the team enough. Lyon's legacy is going to be as an ordinary coach with a great game plan (inherited from Roosy). Ross failed to motivate, encourage and develop juniors into seniors. Name one forward that he has developed in 5yrs...can you name a backman that Lyon debuted as a senior AFL player and that Lyon himself had developed in 5 yrs? No you cannot.. The board made the right decision to appoint Pelchen and the board new that Lyon had failed our club.
Full of errors as already pointed out by one poster with your misrepresentation of Matthews views.
Lyon did not take over an ordinary list... again distortion on your part. However I certainly believe that while Lyon took over a relatively good senior team with a stellar core, that it had had some major deficiencies and that the total list lacked depth and was bereft of
young talent when Lyon inherited it. Moreover quite a few key players were injury ravaged (Hamill, Maguire, X )or were older and about to retire (Thommo etc). It was a team was ripe to have had the next generation injected into it...but the reality was that the cupboard was bare of good talent. We had fallen behind in the "recruiting wars".
A key reason for this was a number of years of very poor recruiting of younger players. It is very hard to develop young players when the list is basically bereft of them.
If you think not then please make a list of all the gifted young players that were not developed. No instead you will have list of players like Howard, Sweeney, Cahill and the like. Indeed and I have been harsh on GT in his final years, but I now understand that part of GT's problem (and he had others) was the lack of quality kids that our under-performing recruiting team was delivering.
Lyon hit upon a strategy to make best use of the players he had, and could get easily. In this he was not original having come from the Swans where a "Moneyball" like strategy was in place. Where Lyon did innovate was in his gameplan, which for a while left other teams floundering. It made the most of our strengths, and masked our weaknesses......as well as importantly making the most of the players we had, or could easily trade for.
If one looks honestly at the kids we have drafted, one can see a sharp improvement over the last two seasons..one of which was when Lyon was Coach. however this is not due to the coach in Lyon, or Watters...but rather is the result of our Recruiting Department finally getting back to a competitive AFL standard after having been been AWOL for many years.
Lyon was put in place to take the team to the next step (I think that was the term announced at the time)...which is exactly what he did.
He did not win the job on a platform of a complete rebuild from the ground up.
Scollop wrote:
an ordinary coach with a great game plan (inherited from Roosy).
Your clear lack of understanding of the different gameplans of the Swans and the Saints is probably why you think Lyon a poor coach, while Matthews rates him as a coach.
Lastly: I hate the way Lyon departed the club. Was immoral in my view. But that does not alter that on the whole, and no one is perfect, that he coached the Saints very well.
Flying the World in comfort thanks to FF Points....
have a look at the recruiters...rather than the coaches...and I include GT in that.