Is Alan Richardson doing a good job?

[SideshowMilne]

Sandy isn't being used right. To move forward big Al needs to reward the best players at Sandy and vice versa drop those underachievers. At least one of Lee, Minch or Hickey should have played today.
In addition to selfishly play 3 ruckman at Sandy last week very nearly cost us/Sandy the win last week. Winning culture, even if only at Sandy is good culture.

[Jacks Back]

Hickey in the 2nds. White in the 2nds. Minch in the 2nds.
Comes out in the media and makes a virtue of not playing Paddy until hes ready - but then contradicts himself by playing Paddy when hes not ready.
Persists with some kind of weird man love with Saad week in week out - despite ongoing poor performance.

He does need to stop playing favourites. Some players, like Saad, are just not good enough for AFL. He needs to have a good look at a number of players but making only one change after a 70 point thrashing is a bit much.

[saintspremiers]

Bring on 2017 when we will may be competitive again. Time machine required!

[Con Gorozidis]

Sandy isn't being used right. To move forward big Al needs to reward the best players at Sandy and vice versa drop those underachievers. At least one of Lee, Minch or Hickey should have played today.
In addition to selfishly play 3 ruckman at Sandy last week very nearly cost us/Sandy the win last week. Winning culture, even if only at Sandy is good culture.

Hear Hear. Well said. Nailed it.

[thejiggingsaint]

"time machine required"? I'd settle for a chance for an extra decade or two! I'm seventy years old on Thursday, and being brutally honest, although I'm in (touch wood) good health and fitness, my chances of seeing that second premiership being won are slim. Am I bitter? NO! Sad? a wee bit Ready to throw my hand in? ARE YOU CRAZY!

[8856brother]

The Sandy situation will hurt us this year. With us playing so many Sunday games it means one or two emergencies wont be playing any footy at all on many weekends. Makes it hard for blokes on the fringe to maintain form when they are sitting on their bums all weekend when they should be playing footy.
Will the guys who travelled to NZ but did not play be coming home today and playing tomorrow? Will be hard for example for the club to bring in Acres next week if he hasn't played this weekend.

[samuraisaint]

The way we finished off today was very disappointing. Especially so when you consider Carlton's outs and the fact that they had two first gamers in today. The total collapse in games and our inability to run out games is a massive, massive concern. What is going to happen when we actually play somebody decent?
Wright and Dunstan need a run at Sandy, and Hickey needs to come in. Desperately. We need to find another tall to play up forward. We are almost becoming uncompetitive and I worry about the second half of the year.

[samuraisaint]

Bring on 2017 when we will may be competitive again. Time machine required!

2019.

[WinnersOnly]

Agree with above, AR continues to show poor decisions at the selection table and I also believe his match day coaching is ordinary bordering on poor!

[Con Gorozidis]

Bring on 2017 when we will may be competitive again. Time machine required!

There are no guarantees this will be the case.
It doesnt 'just happen'. We need smart decision makers at the club.
I am not sure we have them.
We have highly dubious assistant coaches and for some reason we recruited a recruiting guy from Carlton - who have the worst recruitment in the league.

[yallingup saints]

Taking Paddy off was ridiculous . Replacing a tall with a small and thus making us void of direction going forward.

Who replaced Weller in the middle today? Tom Curren ?? From where I was sitting he seemed to play that decoy forward eddy was so infamous for . They spoke about the clearance work of Carlton all week and an area we had to focus on. I hope he didn't play in the guts coz if he can manage 4 touches for the day its time we gave some of the kiddies a go.

Letting Savage get tagged out of the game was a disgrace too. Why not put him in the middle to at least try to stop the bleeding.

I thought he was doing a good job till qtr time last week. Not sure he has a plan b in his repertoire. .

[Con Gorozidis]

Are we tanking for a PP?
Playing with that small fwd line in the 2nd half was completely insane (especially when Saad is a passenger and relies on crumbs from packs )
Fwd line with Lonie, Curren, Saad ?? WTF?
If Paddy couldn't play a full game dont play him OR play another tall as well (White/Hickey)
Honestly who can defend that?

[FQF]

Selections are worrying. Very worrying.

[Bluthy]

We became conservative: Richo

http://www.saints.com.au/news/2015-04-2 ... tive-richo

See this was my problem at selection. The reality was Carlton was a better team and the odds were against us winning. So if we really needed a win then we had to roll the dice. Playing so many protective defenders doesn't encourage taking the game on. And playing a guy delisted at the end of the year in 3 of the first 4 games isn't exactly bravely forward looking. If he wants his team to take the game on then they need to be brave at the selection table. I'll cut Richo some slack because he is learning like everyone else. I think there is a lesson to learn here. The best coaches are bold. They have a plan and they go for it - they crash and burn or fly. Even if we don't win another game Richo will be safe this year so he's in a position to take some risks and be experimental. If he's not going to be bold now when we have virtually nothing to lose, will he be later when the stakes start to rise?

[Con Gorozidis]

We became conservative: Richo

http://www.saints.com.au/news/2015-04-2 ... tive-richo

See this was my problem at selection. The reality was Carlton was a better team and the odds were against us winning. So if we really needed a win then we had to roll the dice. Playing so many protective defenders doesn't encourage taking the game on. And playing a guy delisted at the end of the year in 3 of the first 4 games isn't exactly bravely forward looking. If he wants his team to take the game on then they need to be brave at the selection table. I'll cut Richo some slack because he is learning like everyone else. I think there is a lesson to learn here. The best coaches are bold. They have a plan and they go for it - they crash and burn or fly. Even if we don't win another game Richo will be safe this year so he's in a position to take some risks and be experimental. If he's not going to be bold now when we have virtually nothing to lose, will he be later when the stakes start to rise?

He seems to to think he can 'steal a few wins' by playing people like Schneider, Dempster, Geary and Saad week in week out. Players who ARE NOT part of our future.

Hes is just kidding himself if he thinks he can do that. You cant have a bob each way. He needs to embrace the re-build or f*ck off.

[Moods]

We became conservative: Richo

http://www.saints.com.au/news/2015-04-2 ... tive-richo

See this was my problem at selection. The reality was Carlton was a better team and the odds were against us winning. So if we really needed a win then we had to roll the dice. Playing so many protective defenders doesn't encourage taking the game on. And playing a guy delisted at the end of the year in 3 of the first 4 games isn't exactly bravely forward looking. If he wants his team to take the game on then they need to be brave at the selection table. I'll cut Richo some slack because he is learning like everyone else. I think there is a lesson to learn here. The best coaches are bold. They have a plan and they go for it - they crash and burn or fly. Even if we don't win another game Richo will be safe this year so he's in a position to take some risks and be experimental. If he's not going to be bold now when we have virtually nothing to lose, will he be later when the stakes start to rise?

He seems to to think he can 'steal a few wins' by playing people like Schneider, Dempster, Geary and Saad week in week out. Players who ARE NOT part of our future.

Hes is just kidding himself if he thinks he can do that. You cant have a bob each way. He needs to embrace the re-build or f*ck off.

That's crap Con. How many kids do you want in there? You HAVE to have some experienced players playing with the kids, or we not only lose, but we lose by over 100 points EVERY week. The bottom line is that our midfield is decimated and is getting smashed every week. I will grant you Saad, but the rest have to stay afaic.

[Bluthy]

We became conservative: Richo

http://www.saints.com.au/news/2015-04-2 ... tive-richo

See this was my problem at selection. The reality was Carlton was a better team and the odds were against us winning. So if we really needed a win then we had to roll the dice. Playing so many protective defenders doesn't encourage taking the game on. And playing a guy delisted at the end of the year in 3 of the first 4 games isn't exactly bravely forward looking. If he wants his team to take the game on then they need to be brave at the selection table. I'll cut Richo some slack because he is learning like everyone else. I think there is a lesson to learn here. The best coaches are bold. They have a plan and they go for it - they crash and burn or fly. Even if we don't win another game Richo will be safe this year so he's in a position to take some risks and be experimental. If he's not going to be bold now when we have virtually nothing to lose, will he be later when the stakes start to rise?

He seems to to think he can 'steal a few wins' by playing people like Schneider, Dempster, Geary and Saad week in week out. Players who ARE NOT part of our future.

Hes is just kidding himself if he thinks he can do that. You cant have a bob each way. He needs to embrace the re-build or f*ck off.

I will say this Con. We desperately needed at least one win and our most winnable games were in the first third. If we went through the season with no wins then the heat on the club would have been enormous. So it justifies playing whoever to get a win. With that win under our belt now I would like to see them be a bit more forward looking with selection. No more Schneider. Lets stop looking back with rose coloured glasses and make cold decisions about what they can do, and most importantly can't do, on the field today.

I get the feeling Richo will have learnt a painful lesson out of the last 2 weeks. With big games at stake and losing some stars, he fell back to playing it safe with lots of cover. But God hates a coward. He needs to show confidence in the next generation. Playing Paddy was a good step in that direction. Would like to see more of it. Remember he played new draftees billings, Dunstan, Eli and ACres from the outset last year. He needs to keep getting games into the young players because there is still a big cliff coming losing Rooey, Joey, Fisher, Dempster, Ray, Gilbert over the next few years. If he doesn't have talented players with games under their belt to take over then we be left with average try hard players to try and hold the breech.

Port were very selective with what older players they kept because they wanted to get AFL games into each years new draftees before the next came along like a conveyor belt. They now have a really even spread of games in the talented young players. If you put talented players on the field, they soon become competitive. Melbourne was a bizzare case because the players were virtually told to lose and it infected the club like a cancer. You can't be too spooked by a club that genuinely tanked and destroyed all morale and desperation in their players.

[Con Gorozidis]

We became conservative: Richo

http://www.saints.com.au/news/2015-04-2 ... tive-richo

See this was my problem at selection. The reality was Carlton was a better team and the odds were against us winning. So if we really needed a win then we had to roll the dice. Playing so many protective defenders doesn't encourage taking the game on. And playing a guy delisted at the end of the year in 3 of the first 4 games isn't exactly bravely forward looking. If he wants his team to take the game on then they need to be brave at the selection table. I'll cut Richo some slack because he is learning like everyone else. I think there is a lesson to learn here. The best coaches are bold. They have a plan and they go for it - they crash and burn or fly. Even if we don't win another game Richo will be safe this year so he's in a position to take some risks and be experimental. If he's not going to be bold now when we have virtually nothing to lose, will he be later when the stakes start to rise?

He seems to to think he can 'steal a few wins' by playing people like Schneider, Dempster, Geary and Saad week in week out. Players who ARE NOT part of our future.

Hes is just kidding himself if he thinks he can do that. You cant have a bob each way. He needs to embrace the re-build or f*ck off.

That's crap Con. How many kids do you want in there? You HAVE to have some experienced players playing with the kids, or we not only lose, but we lose by over 100 points EVERY week. The bottom line is that our midfield is decimated and is getting smashed every week. I will grant you Saad, but the rest have to stay afaic.

Well if we hadnt faffed around wasting 2011, 12, 13, 14 having a bob each way we might have some better 22 yos by now and therefore not get thrashed.
How long do we keep kicking the can down the road?
How do you explain the following

Paul Seedsman 23yo 40 games
Josh Thomas 23 32
Ben Sinclair 23 46
Jamie Elliott 22 56
Jarrod Witts 22 27
Marley Williams 21 41
Taylor Adams 21 46
Jack Crisp 21 22
Ben Kennedy 21 20
Brodie Grundy 21 26
Tom Langdon 20 23
Tim Broomhead 21 11

Tell me how Collingwood got so many games into so many kids? Just explain it to me.

If your answer is they kept a few senior players in the side - then my question is how have they won so many more games than us in the last 3 years?

So either we arent good at developing kids OR our experienced players are terrible.
Which one is it? It has to be one (or both). Cant be none.
Ill remind you the Pies won the 2010 flag and then made a pre-lim in 2012.
Ill also remind you they have 4 top 10 draft picks who are yet to play a single game.

[bergholt]

I get the feeling Richo will have learnt a painful lesson out of the last 2 weeks. With big games at stake and losing some stars, he fell back to playing it safe with lots of cover. But God hates a coward. He needs to show confidence in the next generation. Playing Paddy was a good step in that direction. Would like to see more of it. Remember he played new draftees billings, Dunstan, Eli and ACres from the outset last year.

Nah, Acres didn't play until Round 7. This year we've had three debutants and a 1 gamer so far - Lonie, Sinclair, Paddy and Membrey. Three of them have played every game. Doesn't feel too different to last year for mine.

Except that last year's first four rounds we averaged 80+ games of experience. This year's first four rounds we've averaged around 60. That's a lot less experience in the side overall. Not sure how you can say he's playing it safe and not trying the kids.

Curren's 22 and has now played 25 games. He's not exactly a veteran, and he's the sort of guy we need to find out about this year. Along with these guys who we need to sift and keep or discard this year:

Roberton, Delaney, Weller, Simpkin, Hickey, Saad, Siposs, Ross, Longer, Curren, Webster, Saunders, Murdoch, Shenton, Lee, Minchington, White, Markworth

Most of these guys are 22+ and have played less than 50 games. We need to know if there's any point keeping them. They have question marks for various reasons. The only way we're going to make sensible decisions on them is to give them games, critique them on how they're playing, and then give them more games to see if they improve.

That's the purpose of this year. As part of that, younger guys will get games (Dunstan, Billings, Templeton, Acres, Membrey, McCartin, Goddard, McKenzie, Lonie, Sinclair, Pierce, Payne). But largely their improvement is going to be about time and pre-seasons, not about the difference between playing 10 and 15 games this year.

Great result is if we're confident in a third of the question mark guys, we've dumped a third and kept another third for one more season; and also got 5-10 games average into the kids. I reckon we're exactly on track for that at the moment.

[gringo]

We became conservative: Richo

http://www.saints.com.au/news/2015-04-2 ... tive-richo

See this was my problem at selection. The reality was Carlton was a better team and the odds were against us winning. So if we really needed a win then we had to roll the dice. Playing so many protective defenders doesn't encourage taking the game on. And playing a guy delisted at the end of the year in 3 of the first 4 games isn't exactly bravely forward looking. If he wants his team to take the game on then they need to be brave at the selection table. I'll cut Richo some slack because he is learning like everyone else. I think there is a lesson to learn here. The best coaches are bold. They have a plan and they go for it - they crash and burn or fly. Even if we don't win another game Richo will be safe this year so he's in a position to take some risks and be experimental. If he's not going to be bold now when we have virtually nothing to lose, will he be later when the stakes start to rise?

He seems to to think he can 'steal a few wins' by playing people like Schneider, Dempster, Geary and Saad week in week out. Players who ARE NOT part of our future.

Hes is just kidding himself if he thinks he can do that. You cant have a bob each way. He needs to embrace the re-build or f*ck off.

That's crap Con. How many kids do you want in there? You HAVE to have some experienced players playing with the kids, or we not only lose, but we lose by over 100 points EVERY week. The bottom line is that our midfield is decimated and is getting smashed every week. I will grant you Saad, but the rest have to stay afaic.

Well if we hadnt faffed around wasting 2011, 12, 13, 14 having a bob each way we might have some better 22 yos by now and therefore not get thrashed.
How long do we keep kicking the can down the road?
How do you explain the following

Paul Seedsman 23yo 40 games
Josh Thomas 23 32
Ben Sinclair 23 46
Jamie Elliott 22 56
Jarrod Witts 22 27
Marley Williams 21 41
Taylor Adams 21 46
Jack Crisp 21 22
Ben Kennedy 21 20
Brodie Grundy 21 26
Tom Langdon 20 23
Tim Broomhead 21 11

Tell me how Collingwood got so many games into so many kids? Just explain it to me.

If your answer is they kept a few senior players in the side - then my question is how have they won so many more games than us in the last 3 years?

So either we arent good at developing kids OR our experienced players are terrible.
Which one is it? It has to be one (or both). Cant be none.
Ill remind you the Pies won the 2010 flag and then made a pre-lim in 2012.
Ill also remind you they have 4 top 10 draft picks who are yet to play a single game.

Collingwood more did what Geelong did and had spots for 4 or 5 kids that showed promise every year. Since then they have traded away several of their better players for draft picks and establishing players. They are managing a rebuild without the pain better than us.

[bergholt]

Tell me how Collingwood got so many games into so many kids? Just explain it to me.

If your answer is they kept a few senior players in the side - then my question is how have they won so many more games than us in the last 3 years?

So either we arent good at developing kids OR our experienced players are terrible.

Neither. There's three broad groups - veterans, core and kids. Our core is terrible, that's been our problem. Collingwood's was pretty good. Look at 2012:

Collingwood 50-150 games: Brown, Reid, Wood, Beams, Sidebottom, Goldsack, Wellingham, Toovey, Krakouer, Pendlebury, Shaw, Thomas, Lumumba, Cloke
St Kilda 50-150 games: Armitage, Geary, McEvoy, Polo, Gwilt, Clarke, Jones, Gilbert, Peake, Dempster, Gram, Ray

Compare those two groups for class and number. The Pies group is at least twice as good. That's why they were able to get experience into kids while winning games, because they had these guys to buffer them. And they could let some of these guys go for good return: Lumumba for Varcoe, Thomas for pick 11, Shaw for Adams, Wellingham for 17, Beams for Crisp + 5 + 25. We didn't get as much in return for McEvoy, Polo, Gwilt, Clarke, Jones, Peake and Gram.

As has been said before, the seeds of our current predicament were sown a long time ago, when for whatever reason we ended up with very few good players from 9 years of drafting, between 2001 and (hopefully) 2011. Given that, I don't see what else you're hoping for.

[karnaby]

bergholt, thank you. Both of your last two posts resonate with sound reasoning and good sense.

For anyone who didn't take in what was written I would like to suggest that they go and re-read both of those posts.

[plugger66]

bergholt, thank you. Both of your last two posts resonate with sound reasoning and good sense.

For anyone who didn't take in what was written I would like to suggest that they go and re-read both of those posts.

Exactly. This is where stats do actually work.

[karnaby]

Mick destroyed him today.

I can't recall Richo making a positive move. Steven was well beaten and should've been plonked in the forward 50. We needed to try something different in the middle. Why not whack Lonie in for a few centre bounces? He was easily our cleanest player.

At the start of the second quarter Lonie came off the back of the square certainly for the first two bounces and I thought the third bounce as well. I believe that each time he charged forward to the centre. Unfortunately the first two went the other way and resulted in goals.

AR made a call. It just failed to work out for us.

As to your earlier point about Paddy being subbed - I was mystified, I thought he gave us a target and structure. I strongly doubt that he learnt any more sitting on the bench watching than he would have to have continued participating.

[gringo]

I think on reflection that when we start well the confidence to play bold attacking footy keeps them moving forward quickly. The pressure comes and they all of a sudden get stodgy and conservative and start turning the ball over with their slower ball movement.