Saints official delistings

[borderbarry]

There you go then!

[mad saint guy]

Raph was a wingman/half forward as a junior. Got to St Kilda and struggled to get the footy when playing forward of the ball - he's not a great overhead mark, struggled to beat a defender and he's no good on the lead. He started to find a lot more of the footy at half back and developed very strong defensive skills. He would still make a reasonable spare/medium defender at a club in need of one, but his errors are just too costly to warrant continued selection for St Kilda, particularly since we've already got the likes of Gilbert, Gram, Steven and Jones filling up the shank quota.

[borderbarry]

Raph is not in their class for poor kicking. Nobody knocks him for his kicking.

[gringo]

Raph was a wingman/half forward as a junior. Got to St Kilda and struggled to get the footy when playing forward of the ball - he's not a great overhead mark, struggled to beat a defender and he's no good on the lead. He started to find a lot more of the footy at half back and developed very strong defensive skills. He would still make a reasonable spare/medium defender at a club in need of one, but his errors are just too costly to warrant continued selection for St Kilda, particularly since we've already got the likes of Gilbert, Gram, Steven and Jones filling up the shank quota.

Or we had forwards galore under GT and someone needed to go back so Fish and Raph got stuck back there.

[borderbarry]

Does anybody think we will have any more delistings/retirements before the end of Trade Period on 26.10.12, or probably List Lodgement 1 on 31st october?

[Old Mate]

Does anybody think we will have any more delistings/retirements before the end of Trade Period on 26.10.12, or probably List Lodgement 1 on 31st october?

I think we'll wait and see if any get picked up in the free agency window

[SainterK]

Raph was a wingman/half forward as a junior. Got to St Kilda and struggled to get the footy when playing forward of the ball - he's not a great overhead mark, struggled to beat a defender and he's no good on the lead. He started to find a lot more of the footy at half back and developed very strong defensive skills. He would still make a reasonable spare/medium defender at a club in need of one, but his errors are just too costly to warrant continued selection for St Kilda, particularly since we've already got the likes of Gilbert, Gram, Steven and Jones filling up the shank quota.

Or we had forwards galore under GT and someone needed to go back so Fish and Raph got stuck back there.

This is closer to the truth I believe, found it hard to get a regular gig behind Hamill etc...

[mad saint guy]

Raph is not in their class for poor kicking. Nobody knocks him for his kicking.

I said

but his errors are just too costly to warrant continued selection

He generally has decent skills, but he regularly makes 1-3 crucial mistakes in simple situations each game. Getting run down, flying at a contest and taking out himself and team mates, dodgy handballs etc. He is error prone.

[mad saint guy]

This is closer to the truth I believe, found it hard to get a regular gig behind Hamill etc...

Hamill played 18, 12 and 9 games in the three seasons they were both at the club and we were screaming out for another HF. Heath Black left in 2004, Guerra fell out of favour in 2005 and was delisted and our other forwards were Roo, Gehrig, Kosi and Milne. All except Milne had significance injury troubles as well. Players like Alan Murray were gifted games because we needed another forward so badly. Hell, Brett Voss and Troy Schwarze were moved forward at times. There were spots wide open in the GT era. Raph was just no good playing in front of the ball.

[gringo]

This is closer to the truth I believe, found it hard to get a regular gig behind Hamill etc...

Hamill played 18, 12 and 9 games in the three seasons they were both at the club and we were screaming out for another HF. Heath Black left in 2004, Guerra fell out of favour in 2005 and was delisted and our other forwards were Roo, Gehrig, Kosi and Milne. All except Milne had significance injury troubles as well. Players like Alan Murray were gifted games because we needed another forward so badly. Hell, Brett Voss and Troy Schwarze were moved forward at times. There were spots wide open in the GT era. Raph was just no good playing in front of the ball.

Brett Voss was a great booming kick on goal and pretty accurate why wouldn't he go forward. Schwarze obviously wasn't rated as highly as raph as they let him go. I honestly can't remember one game where he was played forward of the ball to try him out. Remember Raph pretty much lost about 4 years of footy nursing his body through injury. He was always a reason we were going to get better- Xav and Raph where like the potential guns that could never get on the park. He really only strung games together under Ross Lyon. He would have played his 50th game under Ross.

[ralphsmith]

Xavier - Daylight - Raph.

Xavier was AFL standard. Raph is VFL standard.

Sometimes hard to pick when both players could dominate at junior level.

Xavier excelled at the highest level, Raph flounders at the highest level.

Both have had injury problems galore.

[SinCitySainter]

Raph has Afl level skills with Vfl level decision making. That's what make him so dominant at Sandy while normally struggling at the senior level.

[borderbarry]

Am I the only one who has seen Raph play some very good games for us? And he would probably be close to our most courageous player as well. As well as the way he backs into packs, the fact that he is out on the ground at all shows a lot of courage. What other AFL player has been epileptic? None that I know of. He must be facing the possibilty of throwing an epileptic fit every time he gets crunched.

[Joffa 5]

Am I the only one who has seen Raph play some very good games for us? And he would probably be close to our most courageous player as well.

+1

[CURLY]

Am I the only one who has seen Raph play some very good games for us? And he would probably be close to our most courageous player as well. As well as the way he backs into packs, the fact that he is out on the ground at all shows a lot of courage. What other AFL player has been epileptic? None that I know of. He must be facing the possibilty of throwing an epileptic fit every time he gets crunched.

Yep agree totally. Cops far to much critism due to getting run down here or there. Most of the run downs where during Lyons coaching where basically there was no option further up the ground. Love his work overhead.

[tweedaletomanning]

Am I the only one who has seen Raph play some very good games for us? And he would probably be close to our most courageous player as well. As well as the way he backs into packs, the fact that he is out on the ground at all shows a lot of courage. What other AFL player has been epileptic? None that I know of. He must be facing the possibilty of throwing an epileptic fit every time he gets crunched.

+ 1

Pretty sure him and rooey got us into the granny in 09

[gringo]

Short memories, your only as good as your last game in this comp.

[St Ick]

Am I the only one who has seen Raph play some very good games for us? And he would probably be close to our most courageous player as well. As well as the way he backs into packs, the fact that he is out on the ground at all shows a lot of courage. What other AFL player has been epileptic? None that I know of. He must be facing the possibilty of throwing an epileptic fit every time he gets crunched.

+ 1

Pretty sure him and rooey got us into the granny in 09

I agree, even in the few games he played this year he took some awesome marks backing into the pack getting crunched, if he learnt the Jason Blake hot potato play he would be fine.

[battye]

Raph is treated pretty unfairly on here I reckon. He's no Sam Fisher, but I think he's a fairly decent half back flanker - probably who has been one step away, for his whole career, from being a starting 18 player.

Thanks to Polo and especially Peake for their service to St Kilda.