Brent Guerra on "Open Mike"

[tony74]

Didn't think much of him then. - Think less of him now

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/h ... 6881198777

[bergholt]

"we probably could have won a few flags over 2004-5"

A few flags in just two years would have been pretty great.

[SainterK]

His game would of got him a red vest....

[Cairnsman]

Pass the popcorn.

I wonder if Grant will come on here to discuss.

He would probably want a fee these days.

[Con Gorozidis]

Didn't think much of him then. - Think less of him now

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/h ... 6881198777

Grant 'Luke Ball comes around for Sunday BBQs' Thomas?
Flog.

[kosifantutti]

The article is about Brent Guerra just in case you couldn't work it out from the thread title.

I reckon he spent the whole of 2005 diving on the footy and hoping for a free kick that never came. And he blames the coach!

[Spinner]

Agree.

GT was sacked two years too late.

[oh when the]

Guerra's decision making process cost us the 2004 prelim.

[saintspremiers]

Goo became a champion player and premiership hero for the Hawks. He can say what he likes.

We couldn't manage him but Clarko could. Our loss.

GT's game plan was flawed but it was more our player management and injury prevention that cost us flags under GT

[spert]

Who cares...move on

[BigMart]

He maybe right... Or

It might have been because it was the first finals series for StK and 4th straight for Port... Who won 3 straight Minor Premierships in 2004.

Injuries in 2005 were the major factor
It was a major upset to get past Afelaide... Ran out of steam.

[meher baba]

Thomas certainly had his faults as a coach, but he nurtured a promising young group of players from the bottom to the top of the table. The subsequent experiences of other clubs which did well in the draft for a couple of years indicates that this is easier said than done.

Thomas failed to take them all the way and, later on, Lyon couldn't quite finish the job either. Clarkson on the other hand was able to take it all the way.

Both Thomas and Lyon were unlucky with the bounce of the ball and with injuries to key players at crucial times.

Would a "better game plan" have taken us through in 2004, 2005 or 2006 (surely nobody is suggesting that we should have won in 2002 or 2003)?

Maybe in 2004: although we all but won the PF (and, IMO, would certainly have won if Gehrig had kicked his 100th goal a week earlier). But I still reckon we'd have lost the GF: people seem to forget that the Lions had thrashed us a couple of weeks earlier, we had subsequently had a titanic battle to beat the Swans and then a similar battle against Port. Hard to believe that we wouldn't have run out of legs.

In 2005, I reckon it was the loss through injury of Kosi, Fisher and Hamill before the PF plus further injuries to Dal and others during the game that did us in. Even so, we were ahead until very late in the piece, so the game plan looked fine to me. The frustrating bit is that we too would surely have beaten the Weagles next week due to their total inability to convert midfield dominance into goals. (Despite their tremendous list in the mid-2000s, the Weagles were extremely lucky to come away with a flag. The flip side of our situation, where we were extremely unlucky to miss out.)

If Hamill and Kosi had remained fully fit through 2005 and 2006, and if we had had a reasonable run with other injuries, we'd have won flags in both those years IMO and you'd all think GT was a fabulous coach and a club legend. Was poor player management the cause of Hamill's and Kosi's problems, and should we blame GT for this? Maybe: but I think the way the two men played the game certainly contributed to their propensity to become injured.

As for Guerra: after a great 2004, he completely lost the plot on and off the field. Any club would have delisted him. He got his act together at the Hawks. Is Thomas to blame for this? I don't know the answer. In relation to poor player behaviour, GT seemed to adopt a system of giving guys a couple of chances and then cutting them adrift. Who can truly assess the rights and wrongs of this? Barry Hall was cut adrift by GT and then played a key role in winning the Swans a flag in 2005. But in a properly-run competition (eg, most football codes in most parts of the world) the Swans would have lost the 2005 largely due to Hall's indiscipline forcing him to watch the GF from the sidelines.

Alternative realities are easy to construct, but raise many complex questions.

I am not into the culture of blame and still GT was great for the club, as was Lyon and as - I hope - will be Richo.

[meher baba]

Didn't think much of him then. - Think less of him now

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/h ... 6881198777

Grant 'Luke Ball comes around for Sunday BBQs' Thomas?
Flog.

Genuine question: what is/was wrong with Luke going to BBQs at GT's house? What moral standard does this breach exactly?

[skeptic]

You should post here more often MB

[BigMart]

I do agree GT should have stepped aside in 2002/2004 at some stage

In that time, experienced coaches
Rodney Eade, Dennis Pagan, Terry Wallace, Garry Ayers,

Promising Young Coaches
Alaister Clarkson, Dean Laidley, John Worsfold

All got other Jobs

And were /are better credentialed and skilled at coaching than GT?
He said he would step aside if there was someone better available ..... Didn't happen

I like what GT did in his time... But after 02 or 03 it should have ended... And he stayed on as football operations manager
GT would have made a great president also IMO
He had a place as a manager at the footy club,.... But should have allowed a better footy tactician to coach.

[tony74]

Didn't think much of him then. - Think less of him now

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/h ... 6881198777

Sorry, just to clarify-
Didn't think much of Brent Guerra.

[meher baba]

PS. If you want to talk about something truly ordinary, how about the way the Tigers and Blues are playing the moment. All dreams of a surge towards a premiership must be put on ice for some years to come.

How devastating for the supporters of both clubs. The Tigers fans have my sympathy...

[meher baba]

I do agree GT should have stepped aside in 2002/2004 at some stage

In that time, experienced coaches
Rodney Eade, Dennis Pagan, Terry Wallace, Garry Ayers,

Promising Young Coaches
Alaister Clarkson, Dean Laidley, John Worsfold

All got other Jobs

And were /are better credentialed and skilled at coaching than GT?
He said he would step aside if there was someone better available ..... Didn't happen

I like what GT did in his time... But after 02 or 03 it should have ended... And he stayed on as football operations manager
GT would have made a great president also IMO
He had a place as a manager at the footy club,.... But should have allowed a better footy tactician to coach.

Agree, although he wasn't anywhere near as bad a coach as some on here suggest.

Once he and Butterss and some other board members fell out with each other, the option of moving to a management role (and - bizarre as the scenario now seems - bringing in Lyon as coach) was dead. I think GT just hung on to the job he had for as long as he could.

It is clear now that the list was stronger in 2005 than it has been since (or possibly ever before): by 2010-11 we had lost Hamill, Harvey and Gehrig and Kosi was a reduced figure. We needed a highly strategic coach in Lyon to do as well as we did. So the transition from an old style coach in GT to a new style one in Lyon was a necessary move. I admit I was wrong about this at the time.

[BigMart]

Yes,

He was not a bad coach... In fact he had many strengths .... His interpersonal skills and management skills are very good.

He would have actually complemented Lyon.

Lyon is ice cold and unwavering, not emotive.. Good quality for a senior coach IMO... Plus his tactical supremacy
GT is political and personable/empathetic .... A good manager
Richo is touted as a wonderful developer of talent... A teacher style coach

[meher baba]

You should post here more often MB

Thanks. Living in Tassie as I do and lacking the time to fly across to watch games live, I've been feeling a bit cut off from the action.

But -even allowing for the limited perspective you get watching the game on the box - I really like what I'm seeing so far this season. I reckon we're on the upswing again after 3 crap seasons.

[stinger]

Didn't think much of him then. - Think less of him now

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/h ... 6881198777

that guy's disgraceful prformance in the 2005 prelim loss to shytney was the reason he got delisted ..not his wild life style....he was a sniper and a prick of a person......think we lost the 04 prelim when the saints fans invaded the ground......2005 we just ran out of fit players...nothing to dp with thomas you lying little turd....


don't you just love it when little sh!ts like him rewrite history to suit themselves...

[meher baba]

Yes,

He was not a bad coach... In fact he had many strengths .... His interpersonal skills and management skills are very good.

He would have actually complemented Lyon.

Lyon is ice cold and unwavering, not emotive.. Good quality for a senior coach IMO... Plus his tactical supremacy
GT is political and personable/empathetic .... A good manager
Richo is touted as a wonderful developer of talent... A teacher style coach

I've spent a lot of time at the top or near the top of a variety of organizations, and you can usually pick the true leaders: the ones you can say have "got it". And you can also usually pick the duds.

It was obvious from the start that GT had this leadership quality. And it was pretty clear that Watters, for all his hard work, didn't: Malthouse's backhanded compliment about Watters being a much kinder person than Lyon perhaps pointing at a tendency towards weakness.

I was initially wrong about Lyon: I was disturbed by his tendency to blame the players when they performed poorly. But it became clear after a while that this was a reflection not of an unwillingness on his part to take responsibility, but of his enormously high standards and expectations. He sure is a tough, unforgiving dude. Perhaps a bit too much so: we must always remember that, no matter how good he has been, he hasn't quite got there yet: although he really did everything right in 2009 and the players ultimately let him down (in 2010, we were clearly inferior to the Pies and were lucky to get close IMO and then just couldn't quite ride our luck all the way).

Richardson, from what I've seen of him, looks more like a leader then any of them.

And it's reflected on field. There's a purpose there that we haven't seen since 2010.

[saintspremiers]

Great summation MB.

Myself, plugger, stinger, JB and BM will post less if you post more.

[wally]

My memory from back then was there wasn't enough room for Milne & Guerra.
Guerra was very good at shirtfronts which wouldn't be tolerated today.
When Hamill ,the enforcer/aggressor failed to recover from his knee I thought
Guerra seemed to not go the ball so much as try to be the tough guy.

[Dave McNamara]

Thomas certainly had his faults as a coach, but he nurtured a promising young group of players from the bottom to the top of the table. The subsequent experiences of other clubs which did well in the draft for a couple of years indicates that this is easier said than done.

Thomas failed to take them all the way and, later on, Lyon couldn't quite finish the job either. Clarkson on the other hand was able to take it all the way.

Both Thomas and Lyon were unlucky with the bounce of the ball and with injuries to key players at crucial times.

Would a "better game plan" have taken us through in 2004, 2005 or 2006 (surely nobody is suggesting that we should have won in 2002 or 2003)?

Maybe in 2004: although we all but won the PF (and, IMO, would certainly have won if Gehrig had kicked his 100th goal a week earlier). But I still reckon we'd have lost the GF: people seem to forget that the Lions had thrashed us a couple of weeks earlier, we had subsequently had a titanic battle to beat the Swans and then a similar battle against Port. Hard to believe that we wouldn't have run out of legs.

In 2005, I reckon it was the loss through injury of Kosi, Fisher and Hamill before the PF plus further injuries to Dal and others during the game that did us in. Even so, we were ahead until very late in the piece, so the game plan looked fine to me. The frustrating bit is that we too would surely have beaten the Weagles next week due to their total inability to convert midfield dominance into goals. (Despite their tremendous list in the mid-2000s, the Weagles were extremely lucky to come away with a flag. The flip side of our situation, where we were extremely unlucky to miss out.)

If Hamill and Kosi had remained fully fit through 2005 and 2006, and if we had had a reasonable run with other injuries, we'd have won flags in both those years IMO and you'd all think GT was a fabulous coach and a club legend. Was poor player management the cause of Hamill's and Kosi's problems, and should we blame GT for this? Maybe: but I think the way the two men played the game certainly contributed to their propensity to become injured.

As for Guerra: after a great 2004, he completely lost the plot on and off the field. Any club would have delisted him. He got his act together at the Hawks. Is Thomas to blame for this? I don't know the answer. In relation to poor player behaviour, GT seemed to adopt a system of giving guys a couple of chances and then cutting them adrift. Who can truly assess the rights and wrongs of this? Barry Hall was cut adrift by GT and then played a key role in winning the Swans a flag in 2005. But in a properly-run competition (eg, most football codes in most parts of the world) the Swans would have lost the 2005 largely due to Hall's indiscipline forcing him to watch the GF from the sidelines.

Alternative realities are easy to construct, but raise many complex questions.

I am not into the culture of blame and still GT was great for the club, as was Lyon and as - I hope - will be Richo.

Excellent post MB! Nailed it!


One slight correction IMHO... re Brent Guerra and "after a great 2004, he completely lost the plot on and off the field"
I can't comment about off the field, but on field, his first ten-odd games were better than just great(!) He then proceeded to loose the plot on-field... and definitely 'earned' his delisting.

Those ten games aside, I do not rate Guerra's AFL-level footballing ability!

Loved to take out unsuspecting blokes... gee how hard is it to belt a bloke who isn't looking at you...? But ok, live by the sword... then be prepared to die by the sword(!) Not the Goo. As MB pointed out, it there was a contest to be won, a hard ball to be got... he always fell over to 'excuse' himself from the contest... weak as...!

'Success' with the skid marks(?) Always the loose go-to man in defence there. Prefect role for him! (Of course though, he still took the opportunity to snipe the unsuspecting, still kept diving to avoid competing!)

One of the most overrated players ev-ah!!!


Oh, and Brent, since you clearly know heaps about footy (I'm being totally genuine here), I mean, my critique above does at least show that you were very capable of working out a 'game plan' that allowed you to have a long and decorated (though disingenuous) career... so fill us in... what was this game plan that GT should have adopted that would have made all the difference???

Yet another critic, who then fails to point us towards a solution(!) Brent, you really writing for the masses more often, as certainly your 'style' would sit well with some fellow Saintsationalists.





And one question, MB, or anyone else?
Was BBBB 'cut adrift' by us, or was he poached by the Swines and their AFL $300mil slush fund, uhm, I mean, cost of living in Sin City allowance?