The Lyon Era Draft Abyss

[SaintPav]

We were only slight underdogs in the 09/10 grannies.

Does anyone remember the pre match odds?

No we wern't. Colon wood were big favourites in 2010. We were probably paying $3 or more for a win.

Punters gave us a better chance in 09 and paying about $2.25 to 2.50.

[st_Trav_ofWA]

the thing with the Lyon era at freo is there is a genuine feel that the Dockers have hired Lyon to coach that is all all the drafting and trading ect is handled by Lloyd and Bond .. obviously Ross has a say in it but i think he has less pull in that regard at freo then he did at the saints ... thats where i think Freo will prob get a better shot at it then we did under Ross ...

[SaintPav]

the thing with the Lyon era at freo is there is a genuine feel that the Dockers have hired Lyon to coach that is all all the drafting and trading ect is handled by Lloyd and Bond .. obviously Ross has a say in it but i think he has less pull in that regard at freo then he did at the saints ... thats where i think Freo will prob get a better shot at it then we did under Ross ...

Plus they are better resourced that we ever were. Ross is also a much better coach after having cut his teeth with us and has learnt from the experience...obviously.

[saintsRrising]

the thing with the Lyon era at freo is there is a genuine feel that the Dockers have hired Lyon to coach that is all all the drafting and trading ect is handled by Lloyd and Bond .. obviously Ross has a say in it but i think he has less pull in that regard at freo then he did at the saints ... thats where i think Freo will prob get a better shot at it then we did under Ross ...

I think that while Lyon had some involvement with trading at the Saints....that he had no real involvement with drafting.

[Teflon]

From 2004 until 2011 the club played in seven finals series, five prelims, 3 grand finals including a drawn grand final and apart from some horrendous luck which could have seen us go back to back, this has been the most successful period of the club.

It doesn't help when you have sub standard training facilities compared to the Cats and Pies.

GF are incredibly hard to win. While we stuffed up the second quarter of the 2009 GF, you need a bit of luck as well.

We were underdogs in both the 09 and 10 GF.

We would have won 04 if we got there. Again, no luck.

GF are hard to win. You need luck. We stuffed up execution in 09 but overall, the club did not stuff up.

Utter apologist tripe

FACTS are the club couldnt get the job done on the biggest stage 3 times.
FACTS are the clubs list is now a mess
FACTS are Geelong, Swans (and Pies now to lessor extent) have not only WON on the biggest stage in recent times but they have also demonstrated that redevelopment of a list WHILE you are at the top of your game can and should be the benchmark in performance - we've not only missed this learning but grossly failed on any measure of sustained success.

When a side wins 19 in a row in 2009 the opportunity to continue to push to draft well and bring these kids on in a winning team culture is what list-wise sets us apart from these other succesful sides.

Blaming training facilities, poor bounces, 1 bad qtr of football or just plain bad luck not only completely misses the real reasons why we failed but also seeks to mask any core learning's we can hope to take forward from this "succesful era"...

[BigMart]

Bit like the 97-99 abyss

Hayes
Blake
Baker
not much else

2006-2009
Armitage
Stsnley
Steven
McEvoy

[Teflon]

Bit like the 97-99 abyss

Hayes
Blake
Baker
not much else

2006-2009
Armitage
Stsnley
Steven
McEvoy

just more "bad luck"...

[SaintPav]

From 2004 until 2011 the club played in seven finals series, five prelims, 3 grand finals including a drawn grand final and apart from some horrendous luck which could have seen us go back to back, this has been the most successful period of the club.

It doesn't help when you have sub standard training facilities compared to the Cats and Pies.

GF are incredibly hard to win. While we stuffed up the second quarter of the 2009 GF, you need a bit of luck as well.

We were underdogs in both the 09 and 10 GF.

We would have won 04 if we got there. Again, no luck.

GF are hard to win. You need luck. We stuffed up execution in 09 but overall, the club did not stuff up.

Utter apologist tripe

FACTS are the club couldnt get the job done on the biggest stage 3 times.
FACTS are the clubs list is now a mess
FACTS are Geelong, Swans (and Pies now to lessor extent) have not only WON on the biggest stage in recent times but they have also demonstrated that redevelopment of a list WHILE you are at the top of your game can and should be the benchmark in performance - we've not only missed this learning but grossly failed on any measure of sustained success.

When a side wins 19 in a row in 2009 the opportunity to continue to push to draft well and bring these kids on in a winning team culture is what list-wise sets us apart from these other succesful sides.

Blaming training facilities, poor bounces, 1 bad qtr of football or just plain bad luck not only completely misses the real reasons why we failed but also seeks to mask any core learning's we can hope to take forward from this "succesful era"...

Of course we could have done better in recruiting etc. We were hopeless in that area and others but I'm not into hindsight or casual thinking.

I'm not an apologist and I've criticized the club plenty of the last couple of years.

We don't know yet if that period will not leave it's mark on the club and who is to say we have not learned from it.

I was talking about the claim that we hadn't achieved anything during this time. We didn't achieve the ultimate success but we were successful.

[BigMart]

Last sentence is a contradiction in terms?

[Greg T]

From 2004 until 2011 the club played in seven finals series, five prelims, 3 grand finals including a drawn grand final and apart from some horrendous luck which could have seen us go back to back, this has been the most successful period of the club.

It doesn't help when you have sub standard training facilities compared to the Cats and Pies.

GF are incredibly hard to win. While we stuffed up the second quarter of the 2009 GF, you need a bit of luck as well.

We were underdogs in both the 09 and 10 GF.

We would have won 04 if we got there. Again, no luck.

GF are hard to win. You need luck. We stuffed up execution in 09 but overall, the club did not stuff up.

Utter apologist tripe

FACTS are the club couldnt get the job done on the biggest stage 3 times.
FACTS are the clubs list is now a mess
FACTS are Geelong, Swans (and Pies now to lessor extent) have not only WON on the biggest stage in recent times but they have also demonstrated that redevelopment of a list WHILE you are at the top of your game can and should be the benchmark in performance - we've not only missed this learning but grossly failed on any measure of sustained success.

When a side wins 19 in a row in 2009 the opportunity to continue to push to draft well and bring these kids on in a winning team culture is what list-wise sets us apart from these other succesful sides.

Blaming training facilities, poor bounces, 1 bad qtr of football or just plain bad luck not only completely misses the real reasons why we failed but also seeks to mask any core learning's we can hope to take forward from this "succesful era"...

Great Post Teflon,
Sadly lacking the winning structure that should of come within this successful period.
Absolute truth in this statement.
Maybe you should be on the board

[Teflon]

I havent read a post on this thread stating "we achieved nothing in this time"....

Ofcourse we achieved something - for a while there this club was feared by opposition supporters and had a newfound respect. Is that success?? ...depends on your measure of success......its not enough for mine as only a flag delivers that.

You dont need to be into hindsight/casual thinking to have realised we werent rejuvenating our list under the Lyon era - it was well documented and "role"players discussed to death at the time.

[meher baba]

There were some poor decisions after our excellent run in 2000-02, but it's always easy in hindsight. Some decisions looked ok at the time - eg, Barry Brooks or Lovett - but quickly went bad. Two particularly poor choices - Fergus Watts and Jesse Smith - had an aura of nepotism about them, which was pretty poor. The way some players' careers were managed was rather hard to fathom: Howard, Miles, Armitage and Eddy all come to mind.

I still think Matthew Drain was a problem: he always seemed to be too obsessed with proving what a great deal maker he was. I believe that, with list-building, slow and steady wins the race.

And, of course, Luke Ball leaving was a bad look: but that wasn't list management, that was between him and the coach. And, to be brutally honest, we needed to hang onto the coach more than we needed to hang onto Luke (but then, later on, we stuffed up in trying to retain the coach too!!).

It's been a funny few years.

[SaintPav]

There were some poor decisions after our excellent run in 2000-02, but it's always easy in hindsight. Some decisions looked ok at the time - eg, Barry Brooks or Lovett - but quickly went bad. Two particularly poor choices - Fergus Watts and Jesse Smith - had an aura of nepotism about them, which was pretty poor. The way some players' careers were managed was rather hard to fathom: Howard, Miles, Armitage and Eddy all come to mind.

I still think Matthew Drain was a problem: he always seemed to be too obsessed with proving what a great deal maker he was. I believe that, with list-building, slow and steady wins the race.

And, of course, Luke Ball leaving was a bad look: but that wasn't list management, that was between him and the coach. And, to be brutally honest, we needed to hang onto the coach more than we needed to hang onto Luke (but then, later on, we stuffed up in trying to retain the coach too!!).

It's been a funny few years.

I agree and everything is easy in hindsight.

The poor decision making goes way back to GT and back even further. How far do we want to go back?

The recruiting of Fergus Watts was a doozie. A coach who is in charge of player contracts recruits the son of the CEO who is responsible for the hiring/firing of the coach.

There were poor off field management structures in place which saw different functions not clearly seperated. This didn't help and most likely didn't lead to the best desicion making. In the Saints defence, other clubs probably had similar structures at the time.

It appears much more sophisticated these days. Decision making needs to be managed properly as the risk and the money involved is huge. It's completely different now and hopefully, the club has learned from its past mistakes.

We'll always compare poorly to the well resourced clubs. For example, we just go out and spend $400K on the best assistants or the best recruiters. Like it or not, it makes a big difference.

[BigMart]

What was actually wrong with recruiting Watts?!

Traded pick #17 2005
For 197/95 power forward, pick #14 in 2003
2 years development at Adelaide
Recently kicked 10 in a SANFL Final
Adelaide were filthy to lose him at all

Broken ankle in hi second game ended his career, otherwise he may have been a premiership saint.

[Dr Spaceman]

What was actually wrong with recruiting Watts?!

Traded pick #17 2005
For 197/95 power forward, pick #14 in 2003
2 years development at Adelaide
Recently kicked 10 in a SANFL Final
Adelaide were filthy to lose him at all

Broken ankle in hi second game ended his career, otherwise he may have been a premiership saint.

I actually agree with you BM.

No idea as to whether Watts would've made it however far too easy, in hindsight, to simply put it down to an act of nepotism.

[stinger]

Great post munga and sceptic.
A lot of this must come down to player development as well and when you look at it from the players perspective the stkilda footy club must have been a career wrecker for quite a few players back then. At least that part seems to have changed for new players coming to the club.

and i will read them too...when my head clears of all this bullsh!t surrounding milne.......really depressing.....

[BigMart]

I can tell you that he could seriously play...

Very similar style to Tom Hawkins...

He basically played 2007 in the VFL on one leg after missing he entire 2006 with his ankle rooted..... I think he kicked 40-50 goals with a few good bags and was significant even if severely hampered

Sad thing is that the two key forwards spearheaded Casey into the finals in 07 were
A crippled Watts at FF.... Now 28yo
A young Jarrod Allen, who got crippled..... Now 25yo
Both could clearly play and would have made it bar injury.....,

Along with Penny, cruelled...... Now 32yo
Maguire... Now 29yo
Two Key Defenders

Also
Brooks, knee injury, never much good after... Now30yo
Kosi, back, ankle, head, quad, ......... Now 30yo

[Teflon]

Correct Mart - choosing Watts was understandable

What gets me with the "oh hindsight is easy" rubbish is: at what point as a club do you actually learn from your stuff ups??

Case in point - under Thomas we were a basket case for player conditioning.
We rectified under Lyon through Misson
And went and appointed the dud who successfully destroyed the Dogs last year??

This is one example but the point is: IF you keep getting the wrong duds in the door don't expect success. Is that all about money??? Not IMHO - it has a lot to do with the clubs processes in attracting and getting the right people

[saintbrat]

Bains from a couple of weeks ago
http://www.saints.com.au/video/2013-06- ... ture-stars


Hello Terry....

[SaintPav]

What was actually wrong with recruiting Watts?!

Traded pick #17 2005
For 197/95 power forward, pick #14 in 2003
2 years development at Adelaide
Recently kicked 10 in a SANFL Final
Adelaide were filthy to lose him at all

Broken ankle in hi second game ended his career, otherwise he may have been a premiership saint.

I actually agree with you BM.

No idea as to whether Watts would've made it however far too easy, in hindsight, to simply put it down to an act of nepotism.

Spaceman. every call is in hindsight.

[skeptic]

I've seen so many players over the years that I really thought would have made it or at least been serviceable GOPs that either weren't played enough, fell away, battled injury etc and this dates back to pre Lyon.

Off the top of my head:

Brent Guerra: The highlight reel king in 04... fell away just as quickly and we didn't do anything with him

Allan Murray: Started strongly in his first few games and good enough to be FF for Casey for 2 years. Didn't play many games over 4 years though was usually solid in most of them but quickly dropped until Mick McGuane saw something in him and gave him his 1 and only serious push in his final season. He played 5-6 games in a row in a make or break stretch in which he failed and never got another look in.

Barry Brooks: Looked the goods until he did his knee. Never looked the same player, didn't get much of a push again and RL wrote him off quickly

Matt Ferguson: after a promising start as a back, lost his spot, barely played more than a few games in 6 years and I remember a late game Vs Melbourne where he kicked 0.5 and took a few screamers. Delisted a few games later

Leigh Fisher and Fergus Watts: both never seemed likely after injury

Shane Birss played a number of good games in 2yrs but was inconsistent and clearly didn't fit the Lyon mould

Raph Clarke: huge prospect, so exciting to get this hugely attacking, brilliant forward flanker... pretty much lost every bit of flair he had with us. GT played him for 6-7 games in a row directly after a huge injury layoff and pretty much destroyed the guy's self-confidence. Opponents ran rings around him whilst he was too unfit to keep up and that's when the Raph bashing started. His career can ultimately be described as mediocre

Xavier Clarke: never really got going

Matt Maguire: looked great... then had a dismal year or so pre breaking his leg... never recovered for us

Luke Ball went from gun to average as did Kosi

Tom Lynch never really got started

Not one of these players really played to their potential with us... and there are quite a few good players there. Some were injured, others played inconsistently and so forth. I can't help but think if these guys were taken by Geelong over that period of time would they have done better?

I honestly think the blame on our drafting is overrated

We have a host of players right now ala Armitage, Simpkin, McEvoy to name a few that we all think should be better than what they are

[plugger66]

Our drafting was pathetic. It is simple to blame it because it is there in front of you who we got. We know have about 3 or 4 years with 3 players left on our list. carlton probably have as many when they were banned from the early rounds. Money was obviously an issue but getting peake was very bad decision.

[gringo]

I still think we did some really bad forward planning but then compounded it by doing no development. We went after draft picks in that mid sized forward/ utility size then dumped them at Sandy or Casey and didn't give them any instruction or contact with the senior coach.

The development is just as important as the drafting. We are starting to catch up but along way behind teams like Geelong, Collingwood and the Eagles.

[Freebird]

I hate it when fools quote hindsight...
We give up 2 round pick for Ackland not considered top 5 rucks at Port
We give up 3rd round pick McGough who could not get a game with a team whose mids were at the time considered poor and delisted
We give up 1st and 2nd round pick for Brooks because we needed a ruckman but he was considered a good pack mark but not high standard ruckman
We give up pick 26 (Howard) for a long shot that was unlikely to be drafted
etc
etc

Nothing to do with hindsight....very poor decisions and I would not have been the only one wanting to smash something when I heard our draft calls over the years

Fkn pathetic

[skeptic]

Freebird, you need to put your post into context... it was considered a weak draft

We give up 2 round pick for Ackland not considered top 5 rucks at Port

We just lost Trent Knobel and needed a ready made ruck. Cain had a reasonable 2005 though fell away fairly quickly after that though Carlton thought he was worth a punt to.
So look at the draft. Ackland went at 33, the only AFL grade players that went between him and the drafting of McGough that weren't father son are Mark LeCras at 37 who was not what we needed at the time and Ivan Maric at 40 but he was only a kid and again not what we needed.

Hindsight shows that both would have been a better choice but that doesn't mean the decision was wrong at the time

We give up 3rd round pick McGough who could not get a game with a team whose mids were at the time considered poor and delisted

After that pick came Chris Knights at 56, and Matthew Egan at 62 before we got the next prized player which was Gwilt at 63. Hardly disastrous decisions as you've made out. Only other players worth mentioning are Chris Bryan and Daniel Pratt went as the last 2 players + Danyle Pierce and Heath Grundy went in the rookie draft

We give up 1st and 2nd round pick for Brooks because we needed a ruckman but he was considered a good pack mark but not high standard ruckman

I don't think thats true. I think they thought he could ruck as did we all until he was injured

We give up pick 26 (Howard) for a long shot that was unlikely to be drafted

I don't think the club thought he was a long shot nd unlikely to be drafted