So much Richo hate.

[bigred]

I cant believe the amount of Richo hate going on here.

Even in the darkest, mouth breathing, dwarf burning, asshatting days of Scott Watters I cannot recall him generating such resentment.

Even Timwit struggled to garner this much hate and he took a team from a GF to the bottom in ten months.

You guys turn and turn hard.

Never should have given Richardson that extension. The verbal garbage out of the club at the time was to "remove the noise through the season proper"...Well here we are, four weeks in and the drums are beating louder than ever.

I reckon he has five weeks left from this point. If this s*** continues then he is gorn.

[saynta]

Probably.

[parkeysainter]

Truth is. We mere supporters will never know if Richo is the main problem at the moment relating to the Saints poor form. Its probably a combination of alot of things so lets be truthful and honest about it. I still always reckon the majority of the blame has to lie with the players this year. Their skills, inside 50's and goal kicking is deplorable and its snuffing out any chance of getting a victory at the moment. I have no doubt the coaches and players are busting to change things, but for whatever reason its not clicking at the moment. Something isn't right.

If only we could be a fly on the wall of the inner sanctum for a week!

I just ignore the rabid and insidious Richo hate. Its pointless at the moment and counter productive. We should judge the coaching team at the end of season unless we are 1-10 or 1-15 or something silly like that during the season.

[saintspremiers]

I’d love to ask Finnis in person why was the extension given. And if there is a performance based out clause.

I’m furious at Finnis.

The buck stops at HIM.

He’s on notice from NOW!

[saintsRrising]

I don't hate Richo. He seems to be a nice guy.


But as a coach the things that you look for in the team do not seem to be there at present.

- Younger players developing and improving
- Gameplan: Players playing as a team with an obvious gameplan on display (or rather gameplans as most teams will normally roll out various during a game depending on how things are going). Our gamplan seems to go as far as try to apply heaps of pressure and hanball quickly and often (even when the receiver is in a poor position
- Match Day Coaching : Moves on the day to counter what the opposition are doing. (apart from throwing Carlisle forward little has been on display)

That he has been at the club so long now and that players still look like headless chooks in games is a major concern.


Also just look as some basics:

- Ball in dispute: Other clubs if a player knows he will be tackled will just keep tapping it either to a team mate or until a ball up is forced. Saints will virtually always try and pick up the ball with result that they are tackled. opponent either wins frees kick, or possession as has through St Kilda player to the ground. If the StKilda player does gain the ball normally they dispose of it blidly (ie Billings handball to Cats to set up goal. Billings saw the Cat coming, but still picked up the ball rather than just tap it on. This is endemic)
- Long bombs. Is way over used and our opposition know it. Short unmanned options are ignored to instead kick long to out out numbered Saint. Our opponents know this and set up for it.
- Run and spread when you win the ball: When our opposition sense that they are about to win the ball, you seem their team run and spread. So the player who wins the ball then have options to release to. The Saints do not do this enough. We stop and prop and our unmanned options are normally few.
etc

Now either the players are ignoring the coach, they are badly drilled or the coach is giving the wrong instructions. In all cases this is a failure in coaching.

[Viking3]

How many times did they call for Damien Hardwick's head? Quite a few times that I can recall, but the RFC board stuck firm.
Look at him now.
The Messiah!!

[bigred]

We smashed Geelong for contested ball.
We smashed Geelong for Clearances.
Generally, if you do that more often than not, you will walk away with the W.

Our disposal efficiency, ball movement and forward structure is a complete abortion.

The worst thing is... There was absolutely no plan B, nor did any player have the common sense to do something different.

Coffield, along with Carlisle were the only two that were worth a pinch of piss when they had the ball in their hands. Second gamer showing up the rest of the shytpots.

At least we finally drafted a bloke that can kick.

[SydneySainter]

I cant believe the amount of Richo hate going on here.

Even in the darkest, mouth breathing, dwarf burning, asshatting days of Scott Watters I cannot recall him generating such resentment.

Even Timwit struggled to garner this much hate and he took a team from a GF to the bottom in ten months.

You guys turn and turn hard.

Never should have given Richardson that extension. The verbal garbage out of the club at the time was to "remove the noise through the season proper"...Well here we are, four weeks in and the drums are beating louder than ever.

I reckon he has five weeks left from this point. If this s*** continues then he is gorn.

Even I was a little surprised at how much hate Watters had garnered in only his second season. While I was never really sold on him from the get-go, he went from being Mr. Popular to universally hated in one season. I still feel for him a little. He drunk from the poisoned chalice and was coaching a team that was on the decline.

All things considered, I think most fans have actually been pretty patient with Richo up until now. Richo's first season was the wooden spoon, followed by a bottom five finish. Third season we admittedly almost made finals. We were still getting thumped by the interstate teams, but we at least looked on the up.

Fourth season is where all the hate, or at least the scepticism really began. We had moments of looking like we'd be playing finals, beating GWS and smashing Richmond, but in between each gallant victory was about three 50 point losses on the trot. Having destiny in our own hands, but still missing out on finals, not improving our ladder position from the previous year, having that fizzer of a trade week but still extending Richo's contract is where the seed got planted.

Now, so many players have gone backwards, we're still getting thumped by 50 points and Richo looks utterly clueless as to what to do about it.

I disagree about him being gawn. As silly as the club looked for extending his contract, they would look even sillier for sacking him now, paying out his remaining two and half years and adding to our crippling debt further.

[Con Gorozidis]

How many times did they call for Damien Hardwick's head? Quite a few times that I can recall, but the RFC board stuck firm.
Look at him now.
The Messiah!!

bulls***
Hardwick inherited a bottom side and had 15 wins in his 4th season.

So if you want to compare Hardwick to Richo go right ahead.

One of them has 51% winning rate and the other has 37%.

[Con Gorozidis]

Watters was hated because so called ITKs started bagging him off. The fans just went along with it.
Still to this day we have never been told what was actually wrong with Watters except he upset Roo and Joey.

[bigred]

Watters was such a cabbage.

Just such a Cabbage. And carried himself like he knew better than anyone. Was always going to fail with that group.

I just dont think any of the old guard bought in after having Lyon bail. They had something that had worked.

And Watters was a scrub.

[Drake Huggins]

The milky bar kid is tough and strong. The milky bar kid just can't go wrong. The milky bar kid is pure and right. That's Milky Bar it's strong and right!!!!

[Con Gorozidis]

The trouble with Richo is he is just so robotic and just reads from a script and repeats the same speaking points regardless of the situation.

This eventually grates on people.

Does he have a mind of his own?

Repeating something over and over doesn't make it true.

[meher baba]

Obviously the pathetic on-field performance so far this season has a number of contributing causes, but the ones that are most obvious to all fans are the ineffective structure and tactics on game day. Not surprisingly, the coach is copping a lot of blame from fans for this problem.

Everyone knew Watters was in charge of a complete rebuild, so of course he was cut some slack by fans. He failed, and then Richo was also cut some slack by fans. But, at the end of last season, the club told us that they were happy with how everything was going. Riewoldt was let go: seemingly without any sort of effort to persuade him to go around one more time. Joey seems to have made some noises about staying on, and was told more or less "we don't need you."

The trade period was a great disappointment for us, but nevertheless, we were all led to believe that we would see a pretty good effort this year with our high quality coach who was given a contract extension.

What we have seen so far this season is a disorganised rabble in which many players - Billings, Gresham, Steven, Ross, Bruce and Membrey (while they were fit) - are playing below the level at which we know they are capable of performing.

So why wouldn't the fans be upset with the coach?

[saintspremiers]

The trouble with Richo is he is just so robotic and just reads from a script and repeats the same speaking points regardless of the situation.

This eventually grates on people.

Does he have a mind of his own?

Repeating something over and over doesn't make it true.

He does.

It’s either positive, pleasing or disappointing.

But we will work on it during training during the week.

[chook23]

How many times did they call for Damien Hardwick's head? Quite a few times that I can recall, but the RFC board stuck firm.
Look at him now.
The Messiah!!

They surrounded him with a new and very good group of assistants.....who very muched helped in the formation of a new gameplan...plus the maturing of some gun players.

[degruch]

How many times did they call for Damien Hardwick's head? Quite a few times that I can recall, but the RFC board stuck firm.
Look at him now.
The Messiah!!

Yes...funny that...at his worst he was producing just as diabolical results, and for a longer period of time. Interesting that they should eventually fall into the finals (like a monkey on a typewriter churning out prose) over consecutive years, win nothing, and in blind desperation sign him up for an extension...almost sounds familiar. At the time you could hear the Tigers supporters whining from the outer reaches of the solar system.

[st.byron]

What we have seen so far this season is a disorganised rabble in which many players - Billings, Gresham, Steven, Ross, Bruce and Membrey (while they were fit) - are playing below the level at which we know they are capable of performing.

So why wouldn't the fans be upset with the coach?

Agreed. I don’t believe that Acres, Billings, Gresham, Ross, Newnes, Bruce and all the other underperformers of which there are plenty are all just ordinary players. They are uniformly underperforming. They look lost and without purpose, skills or heart.
This has to be sheeted home to the coach. Recruiting and development as well. The players have shown they are capable of matching it with the best and I certainly don’t believe they aren’t trying. It must be a deep disconnect from the coach and whatever he is trying to get them to do. He’s either lost them completely or is in the process of doing so. He is very rightly copping a bagging. I reckon Richo is being exposed as one-dimensional in the coach’s box and a formulaic operator without inspiration. Long time supporters who have been through decades of crap are getting impatient that the much vaunted re-build is well and truly off the rails.

[degruch]

The trouble with Richo is he is just so robotic and just reads from a script and repeats the same speaking points regardless of the situation.

This eventually grates on people.

Does he have a mind of his own?

Repeating something over and over doesn't make it true.

Noticed NDS digging at this in the press today...you could accuse Ross Lyon of the same thing at times, I remember the lament of no plan B for extended periods on here. Jury's probably still out as to whether he's got a lot more strings in his bow, but at least he seems to let the players play a more natural game these days.

[st.byron]

And.....we are completely toothless.

5.13, 7.13, 7.14.

Haven’t cracked 60 points for 3 weeks.

[SydneySainter]

How many times did they call for Damien Hardwick's head? Quite a few times that I can recall, but the RFC board stuck firm.
Look at him now.
The Messiah!!

Yes...funny that...at his worst he was producing just as diabolical results, and for a longer period of time. Interesting that they should eventually fall into the finals (like a monkey on a typewriter churning out prose) over consecutive years, win nothing, and in blind desperation sign him up for an extension...almost sounds familiar. At the time you could hear the Tigers supporters whining from the outer reaches of the solar system.

Even at their worse, they still had Jack Riewoldt, Trent Cotchin, Alex Rance and Dustin Martin about to hit his prime. Name anyone on our list who is comparable.

Apples and Oranges.

[bigred]

Josh Bruce.
Seb Ross
Jake Carlisle
Blake Acres.



/facepalm

[SydneySainter]

Carlisle is worthy of debate if you were to compare him to Alex Rance, but for a second do you really think we can compare Ross, Acres and Bruce with Martin, Cotchin and J Riewoldt.

[Linton Lodger]

Watters was hated because so called ITKs started bagging him off. The fans just went along with it.
Still to this day we have never been told what was actually wrong with Watters except he upset Roo and Joey.

He lost the players (not just Roo & Joey) in spectacular fashion, that's what happened. What do you reckon Dwarf Gate was all about?

Incredible, you are merciless on Richardson and now you hint that Watters was hard done by and blame Riewoldt & Montagna. Yeah, after Lyon (who you don't rate), I'm sure they were real impressed with Watters.

[Con Gorozidis]

Watters was hated because so called ITKs started bagging him off. The fans just went along with it.
Still to this day we have never been told what was actually wrong with Watters except he upset Roo and Joey.

He lost the players (not just Roo & Joey) in spectacular fashion, that's what happened. What do you reckon Dwarf Gate was all about?

Incredible, you are merciless on Richardson and now you hint that Watters was hard done by and blame Riewoldt & Montagna. Yeah, after Lyon (who you don't rate), I'm sure they were real impressed with Watters.

You would know.
The great club insider.
The great club apologist.
What is the inside scoop?
You tell us. You are in the with club.
Us plebs have no idea.
Tell us again how those inside the club are a font of wisdom. That everything is going to plan. Under control.
That the JLT was menaingless.
Tell us oh wise inside sage.
Arent you going to name names?