Did Scott Watters...

[SainterK]

Sacrifice this year for the greater good?

I'll admit I didn't think the fall would be so sudden, thought we'd be similar to last year.

However I am growing suspicious that much of this year was about resigning to the fact that we could either set ourselves for 10 or so wins, or blooded the kids in the hope of accelerating their development with perhaps a chance in 2014-2015 of sneaking in the eight...with guys like joey, dempster, dal, fish, gilbo, gwilt, ray, Schneider, gears, Armo etc still around to compliment...before the next real challenge in the years following that 2016 onwards?

Otherwise the structuring and weird selection was just that, weird?

[battye]

I also didn't think the fall would be so sudden, but I don't think it was manufactured. I think we just finally hit the wall; after climbing the mountain twice plus losing some good players in the last few years plus all of our stars being around 30 or older, it all just caught up to us.

I don't think there's a chance of us sneaking in the 8 any time soon unfortunately. I reckon next year will be a long year... we've just lost a few key players, our stars are another year older and - Steven aside - there's not a great deal of talent coming through. I think as supporters we fall into the trap of overrating some of our kids; guys like Wright, Curren, Ross, Lee etc show promising signs, that's about it. The reality is they've only played a handful of games and are still at the stage where they could go either way. None of them have hit the ground running to such a degree that you just know they are going to be guns.

Given we'll get a high draft pick this year, hopefully we will pick up a player who will hit the ground running. That plus the natural development of the young players we do have, taking into account we'll lose more stars in the coming years... I reckon 2016 or 2017 is the earliest we might have a breakout "2004-esque" year.

[Saint wagga]

Think they had similar plans to last year, try and sneak in the 8 whilst blooding kids half baked again! But early losses was what changed the focus. Look at the team rd 1. Not many kids. And to be honest I don't think any knocked the door down hard enough to demand selection anyways. The signals from coach and players were mixed for a 6-8 week period. Not until it was turning into a stinker of a season did the focus change solely to blooding youth whilst trying stay competitive. I guess it was tough for a young coach to shift that amongst the playing group filled with battle scarred veterans. Once it became clear to everyone, playing group included, that there was no clinging to that great generation, I think the public direction/message was a lot clearer. For me this was actually a turning point, and now it's full steam ahead towards building a new nucleus that will take us back to he finals...weather watters or any of the golden age generation are still playing when that happens again, time will tell...but it's begun...early this season, not 24 months ago as watters loves telling people

[Wayne42]

Think they had similar plans to last year, try and sneak in the 8 whilst blooding kids half baked again! But early losses was what changed the focus. Look at the team rd 1. Not many kids. And to be honest I don't think any knocked the door down hard enough to demand selection anyways. The signals from coach and players were mixed for a 6-8 week period. Not until it was turning into a stinker of a season did the focus change solely to blooding youth whilst trying stay competitive. I guess it was tough for a young coach to shift that amongst the playing group filled with battle scarred veterans. Once it became clear to everyone, playing group included, that there was no clinging to that great generation, I think the public direction/message was a lot clearer. For me this was actually a turning point, and now it's full steam ahead towards building a new nucleus that will take us back to he finals...weather watters or any of the golden age generation are still playing when that happens again, time will tell...but it's begun...early this season, not 24 months ago as watters loves telling people

Watters claims it began 24 months ago because that's when he started evolving the list, we the supporter didn't see or care about the evolution until it started impacting on the make up of the team that took the field.

Good on him for doing it, the previous bloke didn't understand the concept of player development.

[Trev from the Bush]

No doubt in my mind from early in the season that SW & Co realised that sticking with the status quo mght snare us a positition in somewhere between 10th and 13th but such a result would only delay an inevitable downward spiral. He chose to experiment and blood new and inexpierenced players.

This has hurt us at during the season and has cast doubt (in the minds of many on this forum, anyway) as to whether Watters can coach and made many question his gameplan.

What the club has achieved has been: a) valuable game time into first year players; b) allowed three of our champions to retire with dignity; c) develop and experiment with a game plan that can carry us up the ladder in the next two seasons; d) free up enough space in our salary cap to make us a top-table player come trade week (and leave negotating room to keep our rising stars); e) gained us our earliest draft pick in more than a decade; f) stopped us from bottoming out completely; and g) given supporters enough faith to renew our memberships in 2014 and keep the Club out of the red ink.

Full pre-seasons and conditioning into Lee, Hickey, Ledger, Murdoch, Wright, etc plus the natural development of Newnes, Curren, Roberton and Simpkin will help greatly next season. A fully fit Sam Fisher and more smart recruiting and trading (ie, some body size in defence) will see us in good condition.

As disappointing as our season appears, based on ladder position, I have felt far more optimistic in the latter half of the year than I felt in the first half. The fact that we won our past two matches by an aggregate of 20 goals should give some motivation to the team for 2014.

While it is an easy cop-out to suggest Freo paid us no respect you cannot deny an 8 goal win over Gold Coast was pretty good considering its 83 pont win today.

Watters is no dill.

[samuraisaint]

This.
Plus keeping Lenny around for another season is absolutely vital in keeping us at least competitive next year, while our first and second year players get that strength and conditioning they will need. That is why Melbourne are still so rubbish. They will improve too with Toumpas, Hogan and Viney to play next year, but still fragile bodied thereby ensuring that they are once again easy beats next season. Hope we play them twice.

[Devilhead]

I thought SW managed our younger playing groep beautiffully this season - bringing them in and out for a few games here and there at a time - he didn't overplay them on the big stage but gave them enough time to a get a great feel about what senior footy is all about - also to the young players credit they all impacted games at one time or another - this year would have given them shedloads of confidence going forward and with another pre-season behind them hey will only improve as there bodies and minds adapt fully to the pressures of senior footy - its all about development and I reckon SW has dome a great job given the circumstances he finds himself in.

Obviously we may lose a few younger players as not all are ever going to make it but they be replaced with another batch of future guns - most likely more promising then the young players exiting (given our draft picks) which is super exciting for the club.

Looking at results this year - we finished with 5 wins 17 losses and a healthy percentage of 82.6% given our win/loss ratio.

We lost 6 games by under 3 goals and there were numerous games where we got beat due to one bad quarter of footy -there were 4 or 5 games where we were in touching distance (under 3 goals down) at 3 quarter time but lost by a bigger margin.

Given our sustained injury list (many senior players out for long periods of time), the age of our older guns and the amount of young players that debuted our finishing position isnt a surprise.

Looking forward to seeing further improvement next year from our younger players as the confidence in their ability grows.

[dragit]

No he didn't... We are just a pretty ordinary side who happened to also have a bit of bad luck.

Which games do you think we didn't try to win by way of creative coaching?

We didn't leave any decent mature players out of the side in favour of youth.

[Greg T]

Not sure he did.
Was disappointed for the whole year.
Why did it take 3 retirements to get the side cracking for the final game of the year.
SW to me doesn't seem to inspire this lot.
Next year will be interesting , but a lot will depend who's comes and who goes.
Milne will be a noticeable absentee for sure...

[SaintPav]

OMG.

[SainterK]

No he didn't... We are just a pretty ordinary side who happened to also have a bit of bad luck.

Which games do you think we didn't try to win by way of creative coaching?

We didn't leave any decent mature players out of the side in favour of youth.

There was a good chunk of games where he played 3-4 small forwards and about 6-8 less mids than their opponent

[SainterK]

Not sure he did.
Was disappointed for the whole year.
Why did it take 3 retirements to get the side cracking for the final game of the year.
SW to me doesn't seem to inspire this lot.
Next year will be interesting , but a lot will depend who's comes and who goes.
Milne will be a noticeable absentee for sure...

Sounds harsh, but honestly who cares if Roo, Len, Dal etc aren't enamoured with him.

He needs to inspire Geary, Armo, Newnes, Wright, Ross etc...

[Greg T]

Not sure he did.
Was disappointed for the whole year.
Why did it take 3 retirements to get the side cracking for the final game of the year.
SW to me doesn't seem to inspire this lot.
Next year will be interesting , but a lot will depend who's comes and who goes.
Milne will be a noticeable absentee for sure...

Sounds harsh, but honestly who cares if Roo, Len, Dal etc aren't enamoured with him.

He needs to inspire Geary, Armo, Newnes, Wright, Ross etc...

Yea fair enough!
So what games this year did you think he instilled his inspiration into?
Sorry,I'm just not into him at all.....

[dragit]

No he didn't... We are just a pretty ordinary side who happened to also have a bit of bad luck.

Which games do you think we didn't try to win by way of creative coaching?

We didn't leave any decent mature players out of the side in favour of youth.

There was a good chunk of games where he played 3-4 small forwards and about 6-8 less mids than their opponent

Totally agree with that, he picked some ordinary sides but I don't think he was trying to throw games in the first 10 rounds…

That small forward shenanigans was just disgraceful… particularly after seeing Curren & Ledger towards the end of the season.

But I can't recall Watters leaving out decent experienced players during the year, when the young guys played, we didn't have a lot of choice.

[bigcarl]

He left out Blake in favour of Stanley

[dragit]

He left out Blake in favour of Stanley

Blake was kept as pure back-up… plus he was injured for a good part of the year

If Stanley had been running around for Sandy, kept out by Blake we'd have burnt Seaford to the ground.

[bigcarl]

i can see the rationale of why he did it, but Blake, even in the twilight of his career, offered more to an undermanned defence.

He also left out Ray and Jones for a number of matches.

Okay, so he wanted to give more kids a crack at it, that's fine. I'm just pointing out that he did leave out decent experienced players.

[defacto]

cant believe some people still cant see that the club has its sights firmly on 3/4 years time and that they know they need high class players that means finishing near the bottom.

the club even gave a friggin presentation to our own supporters and there are still numpties with their head in the sand, refusing to accept what is really going on

[Zed]

I reckon they will play the first half dozen games next year as if they are battling for a finals spot ie pick best possible teams. If after round 6 it appears we are not going to play finals it will revert to development. You always start the season with finals as a goal.

2015 will be tough. I expect Lenny , Roo, CJ, Fisher will all bow out at the end of next year. As it currently stands all are in our best 18 next year. They may convince Roo to go around agaon in2015 but that will depend on how his knee holds up. Hopefully by the end of next year Tom Lee has hit his straps and Spencer has played a handful of senior games.

Unfortunately ive given up on Stanley or Sipposs actually delivering on their promise.

[bigcarl]

cant believe some people still cant see that the club has its sights firmly on 3/4 years time and that they know they need high class players that means finishing near the bottom.

the club even gave a friggin presentation to our own supporters and there are still numpties with their head in the sand, refusing to accept what is really going on

I think we can all see that. I was just correcting Dragit's assertion that Watters did not leave out any decent, experienced players this year.

[BakesFan]

we're in the box seat to trade and draft this year through both picks and salary cap. (and probably next year as well)

I think SW deserves to rebuild this list and develop them into to a Finals threat.

I'm tipping 2015 will see us knocking on the door of the 8 (and possibly getting in).... and 2016 will see us emerging as a real threat.

[defacto]

cant believe some people still cant see that the club has its sights firmly on 3/4 years time and that they know they need high class players that means finishing near the bottom.

the club even gave a friggin presentation to our own supporters and there are still numpties with their head in the sand, refusing to accept what is really going on

I think we can all see that. I was just correcting Dragit's assertion that Watters did not leave out any decent, experienced players this year.

wasnt having a go at your mate

more towards some of the posters in the following thread:
http://saintsational.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82526

[bergholt]

Yea fair enough!
So what games this year did you think he instilled his inspiration into?
Sorry,I'm just not into him at all.....

How do you measure inspiration? Results on field? In that case I think this year you would have been disappointed even if it was Alan Jeans as coach, Jock McHale and Leigh Matthews as assistants, with Allan Killigrew as special motivation consultant.

Sometimes you just don't have the cattle. This year that's the case. Next year will be the same. It's all very well having high expectations but there's a limit to how much is actually possible. If all goes really well then we'll be in a position to start pushing back up the ladder in late 2015 - realistically, 2016 is the first year we'll have a real base of experience and class that we can then build on.

That's at least two full years of mostly losses to go, sorry. Blame Watters if it makes you feel better, but I just can't see how anyone else could do much better.

[bigcarl]

cant believe some people still cant see that the club has its sights firmly on 3/4 years time and that they know they need high class players that means finishing near the bottom.

the club even gave a friggin presentation to our own supporters and there are still numpties with their head in the sand, refusing to accept what is really going on

I think we can all see that. I was just correcting Dragit's assertion that Watters did not leave out any decent, experienced players this year.

wasnt having a go at your mate

more towards some of the posters in the following thread:
http://saintsational.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82526

no worries, cheers

[dragit]

i can see the rationale of why he did it, but Blake, even in the twilight of his career, offered more to an undermanned defence.

He also left out Ray and Jones for a number of matches.

Okay, so he wanted to give more kids a crack at it, that's fine. I'm just pointing out that he did leave out decent experienced players.

Jones & Ray played 19 each so they weren't left out of much… They are both fringe players and from memory they were dropped because they were playing ordinary footy…

Blakey was looking pretty slow and was getting towelled up before getting injuries… If he was still up and about they would probably hold onto him for another year… but he's clearly finished.

At any rate, all 3 would be lucky to get a game at about 14 other clubs, so it's not a big call to choose a kid over them.