Match Thread Saints v Crows Round 3 2018

[fugazi]

Soooo far off the skill level of Adelaide.
We have forgotten how to hit targets.
We dont even expect to.
I reckon thats what Carlisle was having a whinge about.
Richo....your time is up.
Lovely bloke who cannot be a senior coach!

[fugazi]

Soooo far off the skill level of Adelaide.
We have forgotten how to hit targets.
We dont even expect to.
I reckon thats what Carlisle was having a whinge about.
Richo....your time is up.
Lovely bloke who cannot be a senior coach!

[The Fireman]

4 OOB 's on the full

[desertsaint]

well our usual game. dominate contested (now dunstans in anyway) possessions. then blow it with our kicking into fifty and our shooting. lose heart, get well beaten by games end.

richo's papers should be stamped - at least in the club's mind.
our older guard of armo and players like newnes need to go. ross will never be better than last year, but if he can maintain that he should be kept. geary we need for now. carlisle, robbo and steven integral but the latter unlikely to be in our best by the time we are contending.

some positives are marshall and coffield. we have decent talent in dunstan, acrees, sinclair, membrey, gresh, billings. hopefully they can be developed further by a better coach, and steele as well. and under bettter tutelage i think webster, long, clark, and white can become very good players. battle & rice both need to be given a chance in the team. bruce and mccartin i'm not sold on either.

boils down to needing a new coach. and some experienced assistants.

[The_Dud]

will saints win another game this season ?

Round 20, doggies maybe..?

And I wish I was taking the piss...

[The Fireman]

well our usual game. dominate contested (now dunstans in anyway) possessions. then blow it with our kicking into fifty and our shooting. lose heart, get well beaten by games end.

richo's papers should be stamped - at least in the club's mind.
our older guard of armo and players like newnes need to go. ross will never be better than last year, but if he can maintain that he should be kept. geary we need for now. carlisle, robbo and steven integral but the latter unlikely to be in our best by the time we are contending.

some positives are marshall and coffield. we have decent talent in dunstan, acrees, sinclair, gresh, billings. hopefully they can be developed further by a better coach, and steele as well. and under bettter tutelage i think webster, long, clark, and white can become very good players. battle & rice both need to be given a chance in the team.

boils down to needing a new coach. and some experienced assistants.

+1

[fugazi]

Armo should have been traded 2 years ago when he had currency

[David-Lee]

I wanted to get on here and have a crack at everyone. But I'm already a bit spent 3 weeks into the season. I was so hoping to see fight, vicious tackles, chasing, crashing packs....you know that thing they call effort?

I did see some of the young lads firing. But if history is true...they will get that desire to win beat out of them and become 6 possession players in no time!

I just do not believe any team of professional AFL players are sh!t. They CAN play. Its the coaching. Its the lack of self belief and the cohesion required to propel them forward as a unit.

Please please St Kilda do something different and change.

[saintkid]

I think I found St Kilda's management...

An insult to chimps!

The chimps would do a better job!

[fugazi]

I wanted to get on here and have a crack at everyone. But I'm already a bit spent 3 weeks into the season. I was so hoping to see fight, vicious tackles, chasing, crashing packs....you know that thing they call effort?

I did see some of the young lads firing. But if history is true...they will get that desire to win beat out of them and become 6 possession players in no time!

I just do not believe any team of professional AFL players are sh!t. They CAN play. Its the coaching. Its the lack of self belief and the cohesion required to propel them forward as a unit.

Please please St Kilda do something different and change.

Agree. Lot of good foktballers playing below themselves....that has to reflect on the coach.
If Billings and Acres were in the Crows side...they would be A graders

[kalsaint]

Disgraceful game but at least I see why we drafted Long finally. He looks like a classy pick up.

Not sure we’ll have the same coach by round 23.

Don't think getting rid of Richo will actually improve much. Yes their competitiveness is not sustainable and that may be a lack of playing effort for the coach.

My thoughts we have butchered the ball on the field but butchered recruitment and list management in general. Who lets a club lose all their experience to have all players less than 200games experience? Ross Lyon is dead right when he said "that there's no point playing the kindergarten." We haven't won sufficient clearances and inside fifty marks for some time now. We need the experience and bigger bodies that come with that.

Who recruits big forwards when the game is built on midfielders? AFL and umpires definitely see midfielders and favour midfielders. Brownlow says so. Other clubs generally are recruiting midfielders and we chose a tall forward. The reason stated was that was purely because Nick was around to coach them to their future. Lets face, it when forwards aren't getting the game time, why weren't recruitment looking for another tall if that position was really required. Talk about missed opportunity or did we just figure out that we made the wrong call in the first place. I prefer the latter. I've been annoyed ever since we didn't pick Judd. We have never shown interest in classy pack busting midfielders. Enter Petracca, behold another lost opportunity.

We haven't had a great kicking side since 2004. We were in with a chance that year until a momentum swing after Gehrig's hundredth goal. From 2005 onwards kicking has degraded become a perennial problem. Nothing in recruitment has been done years ago and even more recently hasn't been a priority either. We had virtual ultimate success in 2009-10 due to players really understanding the game plan even without Nicks service missing for most of 2010. Second stringers were the soldiers, quality picks were the elites. The soldiers provided protection to ensure the elites had the time to kick the ball well. We also had a massive plan to bust up other teams who had good skills. We still don't protect our ball carriers enough.

Yes Ross didn't develop the team for the longer term. We enlisted some trades with special duties. We still do that. We scrambled 5 years ago to get youth in the system but the team age, injury and team balance was upset. The team plan wasn't executed as well as it should be and opposition pressure ensured our kicking skills continued to degrade. Recruitment wasn't longer at the needed team balance for the longer term future. They looked for talent with hope.

Ross managed team performance but he had more elites than Richo. Richo has developed the soldiers but probably too many, AFTER HINDSIGHT. Its taken a long time to get the team to take risks ad move the ball faster. That requires a team confidence need that dissipates regularly and leads to floggings, as we fail to execute and deliver on skills. In the last 3 seasons we have got flogged by teams like Sydney, Adelaide, WCE with occasional embarrassment from Essendon, Bulldogs, now Melbourne and potentially Brisbane next year. We have the wrong team balance in terms of skills and team pressure. The recruitment hasn't provided an pace until recently so we have been tortured but those aforementioned clubs. We also need our small forwards to show bloody discipline and get from and centre to aerial contests. It was appalling last week. It was the same today. Players aren't in the contest at ground level, Have a look at the game against the Tigers last year. That aspect of our game was pure gold. Now we cant recognise the need even. Adelaide did well today when pressure was lifted. Our small forwards and inside mids need to understand this is not good enough. We succeeded against WCE in Perth last year. We maintained pressure because those players were in the right position to create pressure. Today we just looked for the easy handball from someone only to have an Adelaide player run past us because they were in the right position to contest for the ball. We started well but again declined due to lack of effort to at contests thus losing clearances terribly in the second half. This part Richo really need to get in their faces about what's expected. No excuses, play form players and those providing the effort, not so called better players not showing the effort needed. The outcome from this season will be a clear path for list change. Trout needs to be on top of this need.

Why were we happy with the off season effort? I didn't see any real improvement. The new boys cant be criticized but the 100-150 gamers should be showing far greater improvement. If they don't, they wont make it. If players in VFL aren't getting games why are they there? That's the needed discussion from the coaching team then the recruitment team..

We have another 5 year to wait if we start to get the required balances correctly managed. If Dixon turns around the kicking he deserves a medal.

[saintkid]

I wanted to get on here and have a crack at everyone. But I'm already a bit spent 3 weeks into the season. I was so hoping to see fight, vicious tackles, chasing, crashing packs....you know that thing they call effort?

I did see some of the young lads firing. But if history is true...they will get that desire to win beat out of them and become 6 possession players in no time!

I just do not believe any team of professional AFL players are sh!t. They CAN play. Its the coaching. Its the lack of self belief and the cohesion required to propel them forward as a unit.

Please please St Kilda do something different and change.

Agree. Lot of good foktballers playing below themselves....that has to reflect on the coach.
If Billings and Acres were in the Crows side...they would be A graders

Billings couldn't hold a tackle tonight and struggles to win his own ball. Adelaide got Gibbs and he is a much better player. Would struggle to be a regular in their best team.

[shrodes]

Over the last two weeks we have had had 95 inside 50s for 12 goals.

[David-Lee]

I wanted to get on here and have a crack at everyone. But I'm already a bit spent 3 weeks into the season. I was so hoping to see fight, vicious tackles, chasing, crashing packs....you know that thing they call effort?

I did see some of the young lads firing. But if history is true...they will get that desire to win beat out of them and become 6 possession players in no time!

I just do not believe any team of professional AFL players are sh!t. They CAN play. Its the coaching. Its the lack of self belief and the cohesion required to propel them forward as a unit.

Please please St Kilda do something different and change.

Agree. Lot of good foktballers playing below themselves....that has to reflect on the coach.
If Billings and Acres were in the Crows side...they would be A graders

Billings couldn't hold a tackle tonight and struggles to win his own ball. Adelaide got Gibbs and he is a much better player. Would struggle to be a regular in their best team.

This is exactly my point...if you think Billings, Acres, Gresham, Acres, Dunstan and even younger lads like Marshall and Long wouldn't be playing better in a different system you're not seeing it...
I reckon you put these lads in with Alastair Clarkson and suddenly its brownlow votes for everyone...I do get it that Richo tries and he has helped in ways but he cant lift the lads...he can't get them to climb out of the trenches and charge towards their death at the sound of a whistle...they just arent playing for him. When that happens you can't get it back...its rare. We have to gut the coaching staff and its too bad because Kingsley will likely coach somewhere else and be brilliant.

[axcellence]

Just to make it a good night... the next game is Geelong at Kardinia... lights out there!

[Sainter_Dad]

This is exactly my point...if you think Billings, Acres, Gresham, Acres, Dunstan and even younger lads like Marshall and Long wouldn't be playing better in a different system you're not seeing it...
I reckon you put these lads in with Alastair Clarkson and suddenly its brownlow votes for everyone...I do get it that Richo tries and he has helped in ways but he cant lift the lads...he can't get them to climb out of the trenches and charge towards their death at the sound of a whistle...they just arent playing for him. When that happens you can't get it back...its rare. We have to gut the coaching staff and its too bad because Kingsley will likely coach somewhere else and be brilliant.

I totally agree - and said as much last year - Hawthorn have always had the luxury of developing players at Box Hill because they were not needed straight away in the seniors - Hawthorn have always recruited their youngsters for 2 years down the track - we recruit as the 'Great White Hope'.