Ross Lyon recruiting finally getting smelly?

[BigMart]

SR

Being an AA
Past or previous
I think it means that you can play the game a bit... Doesn't it

Everyone uses it when convincing of the capabilities of Carlisle.. Even though he never actually was ... And has had 3 years of non achievement since.

[saintsRrising]

Lyon arrived with 9 AA players and left us with no new ones.

Slice and dice it anyway you like.

Again this goes back to quality of the recruiting.. but who were the 9 AA's there when he arrived?

The difference is that you believe Lyon was responsible for all of our picks. I do not.


PS: AAs after Lyon arrived
Joey by the way won his AAs in 2009 and 2010 as did BJ
Milne in 2011 and 2012.
Fisher in 2008

So by my count that is 4 new AA's that were not AA's when Lyon arrived.

[saintsRrising]

Fact is, regardless of all the other f*** ups at the club, the team was still good enough to be on the big stage on GF day for successive seasons - but out of 8 quarters, Lyon only coached well in 2 of them. And it was that that cost us a flag.

Well this was a thread on recruiting and not on coaching, and yes using top ups got the team to be good enough to be on the big stage on GF day for successive seasons.

[saintsRrising]

SaintsRising ...
The Hawks and Geelong have standards.... they have exclusively targeted quality (established) players and have done well as a result of that - they have not bottomed out/fallen away the way we did.

Oh...and don't forget that when Lyon arrived that our salary cap was well and truly maxed out for seasons to come. So it is a bit hard to lure guns when you have nothing to offer.

[Johnny Member]

Fact is, regardless of all the other f*** ups at the club, the team was still good enough to be on the big stage on GF day for successive seasons - but out of 8 quarters, Lyon only coached well in 2 of them. And it was that that cost us a flag.

Well this was a thread on recruiting and not on coaching, and yes using top ups got the team to be good enough to be on the big stage on GF day for successive seasons.

For someone who clearly rates their own opinion on foity, that is an extraordinary thing to claim.


Baffling really.

[Scollop]

Lyon's flawed recruitment philosophy during his time with us held back our team development and unlike Collingwood who had a relative young team in 2010 ours was one of the oldest.

In 2011 after we started poorly and looked like missing finals he gave a few of the youngsters a sniff but there was the little matter of a contract extension on his mind and the last thing he wanted was for the team to be losing while he was negotiating - self interest trumped doing the right thing for the Saints long term.

Tommy Lynch, Rhys Stanley, and even Sipposs and Cripps were starved of opportunities to develop and feel a sense of belonging. Armo, Steven and Gears were in and out and some guys in the twos were going stale and losing hope - Hutchings is one that comes to mind that may have had a chance to play but Lyon was more interested in playing his recycled rejects - the ones that at least could get out on the park like Polo and Gamble. Who could forget his other gambles in Jesse Smith and Pattison?

He's got a long term contract but we all know that he didn't start out this year with a plan to rebuild the Dockers. Lyon only acts when his hand is forced and according to some in the media like Damien Barrett he'll be looking to trade and bring in ready made GOP rather than draft and develop young talent

[Scollop]

Fact is, regardless of all the other f*** ups at the club, the team was still good enough to be on the big stage on GF day for successive seasons - but out of 8 quarters, Lyon only coached well in 2 of them. And it was that that cost us a flag.

Well this was a thread on recruiting and not on coaching, and yes using top ups got the team to be good enough to be on the big stage on GF day for successive seasons.

For someone who clearly rates their own opinion on foity, that is an extraordinary thing to claim.


Baffling really.

It's simple. He's consistent. He backs in his man and the coach's thinking.

Some of us think that good young talent developing alongside your stars will eventually make the difference for your team to win the big one and some think that role players are the way to go

[Bunk_Moreland]

WT Living F?

Jason Blake was never handpicked by Lyon.

Watson
Blight
Thomas

All had Blake in the seniors.

Apart from that Lyon has proven his Saints stint wasnt circumstance. Has done the same with Freo.

OOB and interchange restrictions have buggered his swarm/press stoppage, rolling maul, stoppage, ball up, rinse and repeat gameplan.

[st.byron]

WT Living F?

Jason Blake was never handpicked by Lyon.

Watson
Blight
Thomas

All had Blake in the seniors.

Apart from that Lyon has proven his Saints stint wasnt circumstance. Has done the same with Freo.

OOB and interchange restrictions have buggered his swarm/press stoppage, rolling maul, stoppage, ball up, rinse and repeat gameplan.

Agree. That and the flaw in the plan even when the rules suited him of being too defensively focused. The stats of his teams' scores in finals are damning. Good to stop the others scoring. Not totally effective if you don't score either.

[mad saint guy]

Look through Lyon had available to him. What young talent was not played that was any good?

Otherwise can you provide a list of the young talent that was ignored?

Steven, Armitage, Lynch, Stanley stand out.

And I'm not saying that we definitely would have selected these players if we had gone for youth instead of recycling duds, but here are some players who were available in the drafts when we instead opted for the players I listed earlier (all went very late in the national draft, or in the pre season/rookie draft, so they cost about the same price as Lyon's recycled duds)

Sam Jacobs
Sharrod Wellingham
Jarrod Harbrow
Nick Smith
Matt Suckling
Michael Jamison
Sam Gibson
Tom Lonergan
Jeremy Laidler
Pearce Hanley
Ed Curnow
Shane Mumford
Jeff Garlett
Liam Picken
Luke Bruest
Mike Pyke
Michael Barlow
Majak Daw
Stewart Crameri
Matthew Jaensch
Taylor Durea
Josh Jenkins
Luke Dahlhaus
Jason Johannisen
Jeremy McGovern
Will Langford
Michael Hibberd
Tom Rockliff
Tom Bellchambers
Stefan Martin

We had the opportunity to draft every single one of those players under Lyon's reign but he kept on going for the known, limited players other teams had tried and decided they didn't want. If we we had have been less enamoured with recycled duds then maybe we just would've plucked two or three of the players on that list who could have helped us get over the line in '09 or '10 instead of our deplorable bottom few players that were in the team. And most of the players on that list would be in our current best 22. Taking a dud with pick 100 isn't 'free', it's costing a spot on the list which could have gone to someone with the potential to actually become a quality AFL player.

Look quite frankly this is garbage. What do you not understand about our recruiters being absolute crap in the period that Lyon was there and in the last part of GT's reign? You are just in denial and in fantasy land about the demonstrated ability of our drafting team of that period, including the years before which should have had young talent ready to play for when Lyon was appointed.

Mike Pyke yes was there, BUT our recuiters went for Tommy Walsh.. Lyons fault according you . Laughable. Also Mike Pyke was actually a "recycled" player as he played rugby first.

YES there was available young talent, but NO our recruiters could not identify and draft it it. We recruited young kids. I have listed them earlier in the thread. But we missed making the right decision a lot more than we got it right (or at least ok) over a sustained period including the several years BEFORE Lyon arrived as our recruiters kept selecting the wrong young kids.

Do you seriously think for example that Lyon personally picked Brad Howard just after he arrived?

Do you seriously believe that Lyon had the time and ability to research, interview and source every young kid in the land?

This whole concept that Lyon was inept for not drafting the correct young talent is quite frankly "tinfoil" hat thinking.

The main problem was that year in year out for over half a decade our recruiters picked two many of the wrong young players.

Getting King at pick 100+ was not the problem. Selecting Howard, Sweeney etc was.... Selecting Ben instead of Dangerfield or Rioli was..(either pick would probably have gotten us over the line in one or both Grand Finals).

If we had of used less recycled players, and more kids we would just have had more duds, as that is what our recuiters picked time and time again.Plus most of our recycled picks were very late picks (listed by me earlier) or picks in the 40's (or even just pick downgrades. Given the record of our recruiters in this period do you genuinely believe that they would have out-performed with kids? No they would not have.

Fergus Watts our first pick in the 2005 draft only got to play 1 game before a career ending injury.

There was a huge talent hole in our playing list BEFORE Lyon arrived and our crap recruiters kept making it bigger and bigger till only just recently.

So in Lyon's time at St Kilda he recycled/redrafted a total of 25 players. I would say 4 were successes, some might argue that King or Peake were successes as well so let's say 5 ended up being handy, that's a 1 in 5 hit ratio. These are players who have already been trialed, already tested, they are considered 'safe' picks.

Between 2006-2010 we drafted 31 untried players (meaning never before AFL listed) including rookies. These are the ones who went on to have decent careers

Geary
Armitage
Jones
Steven
McEvoy
Lynch
Stanley
Hutchings
Cripps

That's a 1 in 3.4 hit ratio. We had more success (ranging from first round picks to late rookie picks) picking untried talent than recycled players. No one is arguing that we had good recruiters but I'm absolutely certain that if we cut the 25 recycled players down to 10 and replaced them with 15 untried kids we would have landed 2-4 extra high quality AFL players. There were dozens available and under Lyon we elected not to bother trying because he had his staunch belief in the '4 year apprenticeship' and had no interest in developing youth while we were contending for a flag. And now the exact same thing is happening at Fremantle while the clubs with more foresight (Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney) continue to bring in youth constantly and as a result have enjoyed sustained success for over a decade. Just the fact that he brought in 25 recycled players and 31 untried players is an absolutely damning statistic. You can't expect a football club to achieve success when it recruits almost as many unwanted players as it does untried players.

[mad saint guy]

double post.

[Con Gorozidis]

Lyon arrived with 9 AA players and left us with no new ones.

Slice and dice it anyway you like.

Again this goes back to quality of the recruiting.. but who were the 9 AA's there when he arrived?

The difference is that you believe Lyon was responsible for all of our picks. I do not.


PS: AAs after Lyon arrived
Joey by the way won his AAs in 2009 and 2010 as did BJ
Milne in 2011 and 2012.
Fisher in 2008

So by my count that is 4 new AA's that were not AA's when Lyon arrived.

Not sure what you are trying to say. There were 9 AA quality players at our club when Lyon arrived.
The fact a few of them got their AA after 2007 is purely a function of their age e.g BJ was only 22 but was always going to make AA at some point. The fact remains that there were 9 AA quality players on our list when he arrived. Most of whom were just coming to the sweet spot of their age.

No player that arrived since his arrival (in 2007) has been an AA. All 9 arrived pre-2007.

If you are attempting to claim that Lyon 'made' Joey, BJ, Milne and Fisher in to good players from nothing then I would suggest you are drawing an extremely long bow.
They were already outstanding before he arrived.

Anyway if Lyon is the genius some hold him out to be - now his chance to show it. Starting at the bottom with a fresh canvas. Let's see if he is genius or not.

Only John Northey and Rocket Eade have coached more games without a flag:

http://afltables.com/afl/stats/coaches/coaches_idx.html

[SainterK]

Very talented bunch, very...

He'd have us believe he gave roles to less talented players to compliment the talented ones

I thought in hindsight he convinced talented players to be more role orientated

[st.byron]

So in Lyon's time at St Kilda he recycled/redrafted a total of 25 players. I would say 4 were successes, some might argue that King or Peake were successes as well so let's say 5 ended up being handy, that's a 1 in 5 hit ratio. These are players who have already been trialed, already tested, they are considered 'safe' picks.

Between 2006-2010 we drafted 31 untried players (meaning never before AFL listed) including rookies. These are the ones who went on to have decent careers

Geary
Armitage
Jones
Steven
McEvoy
Lynch
Stanley
Hutchings
Cripps

That's a 1 in 3.4 hit ratio. We had more success (ranging from first round picks to late rookie picks) picking untried talent than recycled players. No one is arguing that we had good recruiters but I'm absolutely certain that if we cut the 25 recycled players down to 10 and replaced them with 15 untried kids we would have landed 2-4 extra high quality AFL players. There were dozens available and under Lyon we elected not to bother trying because he had his staunch belief in the '4 year apprenticeship' and had no interest in developing youth while we were contending for a flag. And now the exact same thing is happening at Fremantle while the clubs with more foresight (Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney) continue to bring in youth constantly and as a result have enjoyed sustained success for over a decade. Just the fact that he brought in 25 recycled players and 31 untried players is an absolutely damning statistic. You can't expect a football club to achieve success when it recruits almost as many unwanted players as it does untried players.

Agree with you MSG. That's a damning statistic. Have to confess to some Schadenfreude over Freo being 0-9 because of A: Lyon and B: Can't stand either of the W.A teams.
Hope we smash 'em good. Failing that, a win will also be good.

[saintsRrising]

Well going OT

I thought in hindsight he convinced talented players to be more role orientated

Is that a bad thing?

If there is one thing that AFL at the highest level has become it is a team game where everyone needs to do their bit and play their role.

Long gone are the days where individuals just went out won the ball and kicked it. When I started watching the Saints VFL was all about the individual battles. The sum of the battles would led to one team winning. Now it is all about team battles.

When have the Saints played well this year? When they have executed as a team well.

When have we been at our poorest? When team play was most lacking. ie against WC who blocked the run of Priddis? You may struggle to stop him winning it, but you should be able to deny him such easy forward entry such as he had in that first quarter.

You have seen it this year when we lapse and just bomb it forward as in the first half against the Dons. You get creamed when you do that. For three quarters we did it against the Roos too. But against both the Dons and Roos when we ramped up the team football we prospered. That is how you win these days. Bolton has madea huge difference at the Blues this year maninly by getting them to adopt modern football strategies and to play their roles.

When I was a boy it all about the one on ones. The epic battle of star CHF against star CHB. The glorious speccies which happened not just every week, but every quarter. Barker, The Cowboy, Barry Lawrence all spectacular to watch. Today to play that way and to rely on individual brilliance is suicide if your goal is to win.

Not that gifted players cannot make a difference. They do. But they are not enough. Geary remains amongst the first picked each week not by individual brilliance, but by being able to deliver excatly what the coach wants (well apart from some occasional shanks that tend to stand out). That is whay he is favoured by Richo, and by Lyon before him.

Players today need to play roles. Players today need to know that their team mates will be where they need to be. A big reason that the Hawks have been the success they are is their high standarad of team play, and a coach who can keep devising new strategies. That plus (and going back on topic) of course exceptionally good drafting, and drafting of course based upon giving them a strategic edge, and in turn based upon analytics to determine that recruiting more left footers gave them a higher chance of gaining the accurate kicks they needed to execute the possession gameplan that they had in mind.




However equally a coach needs to keep evolving his gameplan as opposition coaches ceratainly will, and rules like caps on rotation can change. Lyon did not keep evolving his strategies, and that is the way of the Dodo. You need to play team football, but just as tactics can bring you success, they can also bring you failure if another coach develops bette tactics and hasa team that can execute them.

[saintsRrising]

So in Lyon's time at St Kilda he recycled/redrafted a total of 25 players. I would say 4 were successes, some might argue that King or Peake were successes as well so let's say 5 ended up being handy, that's a 1 in 5 hit ratio. These are players who have already been trialed, already tested, they are considered 'safe' picks. .

Only 4??
- Zac was our best player in one finals series based upon B+F voting and many opinions at the time
- Ray
- Schneider
- Demspter
- Gardiner
- King
Peake agreed was inconsistant. But yet you are happy to have Stanley, Hutchings as not? Stacking the stats your way there. Even Cripps has not really gone on with things and is really a bit player at best.

2009 was the year for us. And while not picked up during the Lyon period other recycled players of note that year:
- Gram played a huge GF game for us. Some had him as our best player.
- Milne

So a third of the GF team that year were recycled players. Not one of them being an expensive aquisition by way of trade. Gram the highest by way of pick 23.

So the "value" recycled players delivered a lot of value for low aquistion cost.

Between 2006-2010 we drafted 31 untried players (meaning never before AFL listed) including rookies. These are the ones who went on to have decent careers

Geary = ultimate role player
Armitage = first rounder
Jones = ultimate role player
Steven = taken as a botom ager and touted to bea much lower pick if he had been in the drafta year later
McEvoy = first rounder
Lynch = first rounder
Stanley = up and down in form.
Hutchings = in out of WC since he arrived. Stretching it to say has hada decent career
Cripps = pretty much what he was at the Saints but older and more experienced. He walked out on us though.

Yes by by your "judged" players you get the numbers you have. But personally I think you have stacked the numbers to get the result that you wanted rather than actually what was achieved.

COMPARING LIKE WITH LIKE
In addition if you exclude the first rounders where the likeliehood of success is more certain for recruiters then the list then becomes very thin indeed and provides absolutely no basis for your assertion that using later draft picks exclusively would have delivered more value than also using recycled players of the type that were aquired in the Lyon period.

That's a 1 in 3.4 hit ratio. We had more success (ranging from first round picks to late rookie picks) picking untried talent than recycled players. No one is arguing that we had good recruiters but I'm absolutely certain that if we cut the 25 recycled players down to 10

I do agree that we did overdid it a bit, but clearly the strategy at the time was to churn through them to try and get some players ready immediately. However equally capping it at 10 may well have had a team not able to play they way that it did in 2009 and 2010. Not getting recycled players at all would have most likely given us more talent now. But if that was done you would never have played of in those GF's either.

Was Lyon the sole architect of this? And remember too that throughout the naughties the StKilda team made large use of recycled players. The main difference under Lyon was that only "value" recycled players were picked up. Then again there was little choice as with a bursting salary cap there was no room to aquire stars like Hamill, GTrain, Penny... Gardiner due to his injuries being the sole avenue to gaining a "Rolls Royce".

and replaced them with 15 untried kids we would have landed 2-4 extra high quality AFL players. There were dozens available and under Lyon we elected not to bother trying because he had his staunch belief in the '4 year apprenticeship' and had no interest in developing youth while we were contending for a flag. And now the exact same thing is happening at Fremantle while the clubs with more foresight (Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney) continue to bring in youth constantly and as a result have enjoyed sustained success for over a decade. Just the fact that he brought in 25 recycled players and 31 untried players is an absolutely damning statistic. You can't expect a football club to achieve success when it recruits almost as many unwanted players as it does untried players.

MSG why do you and others keep rolling it out as Lyon's picks? What was Matthew Drain etc doing. What was the whizz bang recruiter (so called) they we got in from Geelong doing that scuttled back to to Geelong to be an assistant again? Did Bevo just put his feet up when Lyon arrived?

What information do you have to support your assertions that Lyon was pulling all the recruiting strings, making all the decisions?

Obviously once players arrive the head coach has a huge influence on what happens with players. But why do you think he was the one making all the list maangement decisions?

Also if the Saints had switched to only drafting kids (and remember that during GT's time the club was a huge recycler as well) do you really think that they would have played in the two Grand Finals that they did?


What was the context that Lyon arrived in?

- Board hired him for success now, and not to rebuild. "To take the next step"
- Salary cap maxed out and so forget about bringing in any stars

[ctqs]

I've said for years his style of coaching is like driving a Formula One car with the handbrake on. He built on what Grant Thomas had established and helped get us close for a couple of years, but we were never allowed to play to our full potential. I reckon it cost us because when you create so few chances during a game, you can't afford to miss.

[BigMart]

Agreed

[Johnny Member]

Lyon arrived with 9 AA players and left us with no new ones.

Slice and dice it anyway you like.

Again this goes back to quality of the recruiting.. but who were the 9 AA's there when he arrived?

The difference is that you believe Lyon was responsible for all of our picks. I do not.


PS: AAs after Lyon arrived
Joey by the way won his AAs in 2009 and 2010 as did BJ
Milne in 2011 and 2012.
Fisher in 2008

So by my count that is 4 new AA's that were not AA's when Lyon arrived.

FWIW, I believe Lyon was responsible for all of the 'discards' we picked up.

And I reckon GT was too.


GT didn't even attend the draft, as he believed that was the role of the recruiters.

And I'd dare say Lyon didn't have huge input into draftees either.


But I reckon both would have had the final say on who played each week.

[BigMart]

Obviously

They pick the team... They are the coach.

[samuraisaint]

I just hope that Lee can get back in the side and is afforded some opportunities as a defender. Can't help but wondering if some of his insights to reporters after the GWS loss led to him being dropped...
After Maister, Walsh, Dennis-Lane, Saad, Milera, Cripps, Hutchings and Spencer White, we need one player to finally make it. If Lee goes at the end of the year, it will cap off some seriously disastrous recruiting before AR arrived at the club.
Fingers crossed that Freeman can get his body right and consolidate a place for himself in the senior side. I think Carlisle will be a big inclusion for us.

[Johnny Member]

Obviously

They pick the team... They are the coach.

Clubs have selection panels.

We're told the coach doesn't pick the team, instead the committee does.

I think this is actually true at some clubs.


I don't think it's the case with Lyon.

[sunsaint]

Wasn't Ball AA? Makes it 10.

Ro$$ never rated Luke Ball - so he doesnt count as an AA

thanks guys this has been fun
and for the record RL = Over Rated

[Con Gorozidis]

Wasn't Ball AA? Makes it 10.

Ro$$ never rated Luke Ball - so he doesnt count as an AA

thanks guys this has been fun
and for the record RL = Over Rated

WOW! You are right Darth. I missed Luke Ball. He was AA in 2005.
That means Lyon had a list with 10 AA talents on it.
That is simply incredible. We had one hell of a list.
A genuinely good coach would have got us two flags with 10 AA players on that list.
Lyon had 10 AA players at his disposal and still somehow managed to f*ck it up.

[BigMart]

He had a good team
In 09