To the Board and CEO: Do YOUR Job and Sack Richo or RESIGN!!

[saintadamski]

It actually REALLY DOES MATTER if you have more A graders than another side.
Hawthorn 2013, 2014, 2015 - easily more A graders
Geelong 2007, 2009, 2011 - easily more A graders
Brisbane 2001, 2002, 2003 - easily more A graders

Also West Coast and Sydney

Yes I agree that Richo is a rubbish coach....but to constantly blame the coach for the entire mess, rather than the obvious awful list we have is incredibly delusional.
Newnes, Weller, Geary, Sinclair, Savage, Hickey, Longer, Lonie, Dunstan, Brown, McKenzie, Billings

You are saying that with a different coach, the above names will win a flag? you MUST be joking!

Hammer Thumb OUCH!

No. I never said the current Saints playing list is worthy of winning a flag. Don't make things up or put words into my mouth

What I'm saying is that when your team finishes 16th you expect the football club to do a full review and rate each and every player and administrator and assistant coach and the Head Coach, and to rate their strengths and perhaps assess whether they are doing their job competently and whether they have had enough time to achieve their KPI's.

I have seen that we have done that for players and some assistants BUT the club has conveniently forgotten to do this for some of the administarators and the Head Coach.

The Head Coach and the CEO and the whole board need to be replaced. They are the ones responsible for employing the assistant coaches, the footy department staff, the recruitment staff, and everyone else who gets paid to build a winning culture including the players

In short: The team which has been under the tutelage of Richo for the last 5 years and was supposed to ripe for a finals berth is now seriously needing another rebuild. ALL media and non-associated commentators have clearly judged that the Saints have horrendously underperformed in 2018.

You said "Talent alone does not win you flags. It doesn't matter if you have more A graders than another team."
I disagree, as good systems are built on A grade talent. not the other way around

"The team which has been under the tutelage of Richo for the last 5 years and was supposed to ripe for a finals berth"...according to whom?! Richo??

This team is average AT BEST.

The current list is a shocker, and anyone who believed that it was capable of achieving anything was sold a dud.

[Teflon]

Quoting bigfooty isn't adding any credibility ...

What sums up (best of all) the importance of targeted and smart recruiting - over what our recruiters have been dishing up (scattergun crap) - is the change in fortune of both Buckley and Hardwick.
They'd be out the door, if not for their recruiters. They were certainly heading that way (out), and were not rated as coaches.

Coaches are ships that pass in the night, but one constant that is needed for a team's longterm and sustained success - is smart and targeted recruiting. You stray into scattergun recruiting, and you end up like St Kilda.
Other teams have sustained their success, we haven't.

Richmond targeted and recruited some quality players - that complemented the core of talent they already had - you can't compare their list with ours.

Game plans work when you have a strong and complete list. Hardwick finally has that now, so it now appears he has the superior game plan, when what he has in reality is a stronger and more complete list (thanks to his recruiters), which now has the abilty to carry out whatever game plan. Hardwick might have had a good game plan all along, but didn't have the talented list and complete list to carry it out - until recently.

Not answering the question doesn’t help your credibility...

That aside riddle me this Batman:
If the coach has a serious say and role in player development and that is lacking (as universally acknowledged at St Kilda)....how then do you measure the recruitment succes??
Is Jack Billings where we thought a top 3 pick would be?
We could have Bontenpelli at our club and completely balls up his development and progress and not reap the full benefit....yet we’d argue we recruited well???
Don’t bother replying I expect you only have 1 answer... very Richo like that...

[samoht]

Not answering the question doesn’t help your credibility...

That aside riddle me this Batman:
If the coach has a serious say and role in player development and that is lacking (as universally acknowledged at St Kilda)....how then do you measure the recruitment succes??
Is Jack Billings where we thought a top 3 pick would be?
We could have Bontenpelli at our club and completely balls up his development and progress and not reap the full benefit....yet we’d argue we recruited well???
Don’t bother replying I expect you only have 1 answer... very Richo like that...

What question? That question might be relevant to you, but as I said, I don't rate any coach ... they are all generic, as far as I'm concerned. They all rely on the strength of their list - and there's always a strong correlation between their W/L ratio and the strength of their list, year to year.
They ride on the coattails of their recruiters, pretty much.

Re: Bontempelli/Jack Billings and hypotheticals -- you don't need hypotheticals.... Steele, Roberton, Carlisle, Bruce, Membrey are all playing (or all played in Bruce and Roberton's case) their best football under Richo- and not at their former clubs under their original coaches. Which might only be coincidental - I'm not crediting it to Richo. But, in any case, your argument doesn't hold water - as players have actually thrived and progressed well under Richo - the complete opposite of what you're saying.

Anyway, players can take responsibility and ownership themselves and get the best out of themselves, they are professional footballers. It's a copout to blame the coach.
Steele is self motivated and would get the most out of himself under any coach - same with Bontempelli. And I attribute Steele's meteoric rise to Steele himself - not to the coach.
Steele was pick 24 by the way - how is he developing/progressing? I'd use the term "flying" in his case. He's a credit to himself.
We don't have to agree - and that's fine. But we can be respectful.

[Teflon]

Not answering the question doesn’t help your credibility...

That aside riddle me this Batman:
If the coach has a serious say and role in player development and that is lacking (as universally acknowledged at St Kilda)....how then do you measure the recruitment succes??
Is Jack Billings where we thought a top 3 pick would be?
We could have Bontenpelli at our club and completely balls up his development and progress and not reap the full benefit....yet we’d argue we recruited well???
Don’t bother replying I expect you only have 1 answer... very Richo like that...

What question? That question might be relevant to you, but as I said, I don't rate any coach ... they are all generic, as far as I'm concerned. They all rely on the strength of their list - and there's always a strong correlation between their W/L ratio and the strength of their list, year to year.
They ride on the coattails of their recruiters, pretty much.

Re: Bontempelli/Jack Billings and hypotheticals -- you don't need hypotheticals.... Steele, Roberton, Carlisle, Bruce, Membrey are all playing (or all played in Bruce and Roberton's case) their best football under Richo- and not at their former clubs under their original coaches. Which might only be coincidental - I'm not crediting it to Richo. But, in any case, your argument doesn't hold water - as players have actually thrived and progressed well under Richo - the complete opposite of what you're saying.

Anyway, players can take responsibility and ownership themselves and get the best out of themselves, they are professional footballers. It's a copout to blame the coach.
Steele is self motivated and would get the most out of himself under any coach - same with Bontempelli. And I attribute Steele's meteoric rise to Steele himself - not to the coach.
Steele was pick 24 by the way - how is he developing/progressing? I'd use the term "flying" in his case. He's a credit to himself.
We don't have to agree - and that's fine. But we can be respectful.

So let’s be clear
What you’re saying is: you or I could coach the saints cause the coach doesn’t matter??
If that’s true (and you’re arguing they’re generic)
Respectfully, ofcourse, that’s just dumb and flies in the face of industry experts in all sporting codes.
To suggest Steele or Membrey etc have done well under Alan (and ignore the other 2/3rds of the list who haven’t) is disingenuous at best. Certainly player development has an element of individual progression but to suggest the development environment (whichvthe head coach is a massive part of) is irrelevant and it’s “all up to the individual” is just rubbish.
Just go and ask the myriad of players who do often credit they’re playing career and development to top line coaching ? They making it up?
Nonsense.

[st.byron]

Not answering the question doesn’t help your credibility...

That aside riddle me this Batman:
If the coach has a serious say and role in player development and that is lacking (as universally acknowledged at St Kilda)....how then do you measure the recruitment succes??
Is Jack Billings where we thought a top 3 pick would be?
We could have Bontenpelli at our club and completely balls up his development and progress and not reap the full benefit....yet we’d argue we recruited well???
Don’t bother replying I expect you only have 1 answer... very Richo like that...

What question? That question might be relevant to you, but as I said, I don't rate any coach ... they are all generic, as far as I'm concerned. They all rely on the strength of their list - and there's always a strong correlation between their W/L ratio and the strength of their list, year to year.
They ride on the coattails of their recruiters, pretty much.

Re: Bontempelli/Jack Billings and hypotheticals -- you don't need hypotheticals.... Steele, Roberton, Carlisle, Bruce, Membrey are all playing (or all played in Bruce and Roberton's case) their best football under Richo- and not at their former clubs under their original coaches. Which might only be coincidental - I'm not crediting it to Richo. But, in any case, your argument doesn't hold water - as players have actually thrived and progressed well under Richo - the complete opposite of what you're saying.

Anyway, players can take responsibility and ownership themselves and get the best out of themselves, they are professional footballers. It's a copout to blame the coach.
Steele is self motivated and would get the most out of himself under any coach - same with Bontempelli. And I attribute Steele's meteoric rise to Steele himself - not to the coach.
Steele was pick 24 by the way - how is he developing/progressing? I'd use the term "flying" in his case. He's a credit to himself.
We don't have to agree - and that's fine. But we can be respectful.

So let’s be clear
What you’re saying is: you or I could coach the saints cause the coach doesn’t matter??
If that’s true (and you’re arguing they’re generic)
Respectfully, ofcourse, that’s just dumb and flies in the face of industry experts in all sporting codes.
To suggest Steele or Membrey etc have done well under Alan (and ignore the other 2/3rds of the list who haven’t) is disingenuous at best. Certainly player development has an element of individual progression but to suggest the development environment (whichvthe head coach is a massive part of) is irrelevant and it’s “all up to the individual” is just rubbish.
Just go and ask the myriad of players who do often credit they’re playing career and development to top line coaching ? They making it up?
Nonsense.

Samoht you say that coaches are generic. So if they’re generic Samoht, what is it exactly that that they do? As Teflon suggests, you or I could also do it, yes? Or do they have particular skills that we don’t have? And if they do have particular skills, do they all apply them with equal effect? They must if they’re generic. Why have any other department at all other than recruitment? Just recruit guys, have a bunch of admin and organisers to do the logistics and leave them coachless and without focused development. That would be the logical extension of your argument that recruiting is all that matters and coaches are just generic.

[samoht]

It's AFL coach plus assistants vs AFL coach plus assistants. You and I don't get a look in, teflon.

I just think the biggest gains will come through smart and targeted recruiting. That's all I'm saying.
It's fair to say that Richo was slow and reluctant to play certain players, such as Rice, Pierce and Battle - he has this flaw - but as I said Steele, Roberton, Carlisle, Bruce, Membrey took their games to the next level
under Richo, and Steven and Ross are still playing good football - Austin and Rice have acquitted themselves well and playing confident football, Webster is doing well, Savage was doing well until injured, Acres missed a lot of
football and couldn't really hit his straps this year, just as he was about to have his breakout year this year. We've also had a lot of injuries to key players - and Long couldn't really hit his straps, after returning from injury.
Geary is getting the most out of his ability.
I just mentioned over half the team. There's another 4 or 5 players that would be walk up starts that are injured -- that's 3/4 of the team that have done well under Richo - or as well as could be expected.

there's always going to be a player here or there that hasn't progressed - that is just treading water - but let's look at the big picture.
With some luck with injury next year, we will improve - under any coach.
What's disingenuous is to ignore everything else, just look at the negatives and blame everything on the coach.

[Yorkeys]

Silly to cherry pick by focusing on particular players. It is the team that needs to be assessed. 5 years, gone nowhere. No team system. Simplistic never game changing tactics. To suggest that over that period with that record the coach is ok makes Pollyanna look like Tony Abbott. As actually pointed out above, paradoxically, we do have a core of good players - so where is the root of the problem. Can't help bad luck? sure, lets all cross our fingers and 2019 will be just fine. Alan cannot successfully coach at AFL level, how much proof do you need.

[samoht]

More proof than you are providing, obviously.
Again ... Steele, Roberton, Bruce, Membrey and Carlisle - did they play better under their previous coach or have they played their best football under Richo?

That’s 5 players that came to us from other clubs .... which one of them played better at their previous club, under their “much better previous coach”?
Just name 1 out of the 5 - surely there must be one that did?

Not that clear cut, is it?

[Teflon]

More proof than you are providing, obviously.
Again ... Steele, Roberton, Bruce, Membrey and Carlisle - did they play better under their previous coach or have they played their best football under Richo?

That’s 5 players that came to us from other clubs .... which one of them played better at their previous club, under their “much better previous coach”?
Just name 1 out of the 5 - surely there must be one that did?

Not that clear cut, is it?

Really?
Steele has matured
I’d argue Carlisle was just as good at bombers
Membrey couldn’t get a game in strong Sydney outfit
Bruce??? You using this year...??
FFS you trying say Geary has been better???
Clasping at straws

I’d argue
Newnes
Goddard
Sinclair?
Dunstan?
Acres
Billings
Hickey
Longer
Savage
Armitage
Pierce (unseen)
McCartin

All gone backwards or at best stalled
As others have stated - the teams won 4 games.....yeah it’s pretty clear cut and dumb to be arguing we are developing well??
Utter delusion
Anyhow, apparently some coaches are better than others cause you won’t let me coach....after all coach is generic right ?? Adds nothing.... lol

[Teflon]

Anyone listen to 3AW Friday pre game and Bruce Eva?
Do yourself a Molly... from about 49:50 in..
All Saints and what he’s hearing ...bottom line was MCing large saints coterie function with influential key people there he suggests:
- Richo coach saga ain’t done yet
- hearing big disconnect between playing group/coach
- mentioned hearing players will ask to be traded IF coaching set up does t change adequstely
- not a happy place to be
- suggested Riewoldt in tough spot but comment was made (other commentator) that Riewoldt was hardly emphatic in endorsing Richardson

Interesting if he’s connected

[takeaway]

Anyone listen to 3AW Friday pre game and Bruce Eva?
Do yourself a Molly... from about 49:50 in..
All Saints and what he’s hearing ...bottom line was MCing large saints coterie function with influential key people there he suggests:
- Richo coach saga ain’t done yet
- hearing big disconnect between playing group/coach
- mentioned hearing players will ask to be traded IF coaching set up does t change adequstely
- not a happy place to be
- suggested Riewoldt in tough spot but comment was made (other commentator) that Riewoldt was hardly emphatic in endorsing Richardson

Interesting if he’s connected

So there's still some hope for you there Tefalan!

[Teflon]

Anyone listen to 3AW Friday pre game and Bruce Eva?
Do yourself a Molly... from about 49:50 in..
All Saints and what he’s hearing ...bottom line was MCing large saints coterie function with influential key people there he suggests:
- Richo coach saga ain’t done yet
- hearing big disconnect between playing group/coach
- mentioned hearing players will ask to be traded IF coaching set up does t change adequstely
- not a happy place to be
- suggested Riewoldt in tough spot but comment was made (other commentator) that Riewoldt was hardly emphatic in endorsing Richardson

Interesting if he’s connected

So there's still some hope for you there Tefalan!

Hope for us all I think ...

[Yorkeys]

Round 1 2014, St Kilda 10 -8 Dees 6-15. Coaches St K - Richo; Dees - Roos; end of season Saints 18th 4 wins Melbourne 17th 4 wins. 5 seasons later - Saints 16th 4 wins Dees into a Prelim; best % for 2018 season. If coaching is generic* and a zero sum factor why aren't robots being utilised. Not our AR acme version but something like the Terminator. 5 years to stagnate; if coaching is generic the Saints home brand is using Capilano "honey" , shi de.


*(which clearly its not as coaches are held in various degrees of esteem)

[samoht]

Replace Richo if we must, but regardless of who the coach is, we need to improve our recruiting, first and foremost. That goes without saying (I hope).
Poach the best recruiters, even. That's where most of our gains will come from.

[kaos theory]

Can believe some of the moronic arguments some try here to use to justify our pathetic head coach.

The saying 'a champion team will always beat a team of champions' applies more than ever in our modern, salary cap controlled football world.

At the start of the year the dogs won the flag they had an 'average' list, same with the tigers. North were supposed to be a bottom 3 team list when we faced them in round 2. The hawks were also looking like an average list at the start of this year. It wasn't the mis-understood list quality that made these teams succeed, it was the way their football departments operated.

Point is that the football department is THE most important factor to determine whether you ultimately succeed or fail. That means:
- Recruiting/drafting and trading players to fit the needs of the team
- Development of players on your list (build on strengths, minimise weaknesses)
- The game style and game plan (the general approach to the game, how we defend, aim score, etc.)
- The game day tactics (includes the planning through the week for the opposition and how you handle events as they unfold during the game)
- The ethic and culture of the team ( impacts everything: how it approaches training/development, approach/effort during game, non-negotiables, acceptable, behaviour, etc.)

So how has our club faired on all these metrics?

Its FAILED for the last 5 years on ALL of them.

So who has responsible for the Football Department failure? Two people:
- Finnis (The the guy responsible for hiring and supporting those running the deprtment)
- Richo (The head coach who sets the agenda, drives all the directions, and manages the execution)

[Teflon]

Replace Richo if we must, but regardless of who the coach is, we need to improve our recruiting, first and foremost. That goes without saying (I hope).
Poach the best recruiters, even. That's where most of our gains will come from.

I think we all know that but just on recruitment what does concern (again club review fail) is we’ve just brought in Libba from the same previously failed system who has learnt his craft under Trout to run it .....hardly looking at best practice ....

[spert]

Can believe some of the moronic arguments some try here to use to justify our pathetic head coach.

The saying 'a champion team will always beat a team of champions' applies more than ever in our modern, salary cap controlled football world.

At the start of the year the dogs won the flag they had an 'average' list, same with the tigers. North were supposed to be a bottom 3 team list when we faced them in round 2. The hawks were also looking like an average list at the start of this year. It wasn't the mis-understood list quality that made these teams succeed, it was the way their football departments operated.

Point is that the football department is THE most important factor to determine whether you ultimately succeed or fail. That means:
- Recruiting/drafting and trading players to fit the needs of the team
- Development of players on your list (build on strengths, minimise weaknesses)
- The game style and game plan (the general approach to the game, how we defend, aim score, etc.)
- The game day tactics (includes the planning through the week for the opposition and how you handle events as they unfold during the game)
- The ethic and culture of the team ( impacts everything: how it approaches training/development, approach/effort during game, non-negotiables, acceptable, behaviour, etc.)

So how has our club faired on all these metrics?

Its FAILED for the last 5 years on ALL of them.

So who has responsible for the Football Department failure? Two people:
- Finnis (The the guy responsible for hiring and supporting those running the deprtment)
- Richo (The head coach who sets the agenda, drives all the directions, and manages the execution)

The biggest failures are the president and board who set the direction where they wanted the club to go and then appointed some of these people to carry out that direction and plan the strategies to do so. FAIL

[Saints43]

But, I'd go further than that - the players also need to get the best out of themselves - just as Steele did.
Take some ownership, themselves.
Is Steele going to let the coach, any coach, the ceo or anyone hold him back - hell no. That's why you admire him as a player.

Exactly. If the other players worked as hard as Steele to improve then they could have the coach tell the world that they 'had their colors lowered' after playing the best game of their career. Gives them something to aspire to.

[Cairnsman]

But, I'd go further than that - the players also need to get the best out of themselves - just as Steele did.
Take some ownership, themselves.
Is Steele going to let the coach, any coach, the ceo or anyone hold him back - hell no. That's why you admire him as a player.

Exactly. If the other players worked as hard as Steele to improve then they could have the coach tell the world that they 'had their colors lowered' after playing the best game of their career. Gives them something to aspire to.

Yep, accountability, players got to get some. That is one part of the sum of all parts. And you get the feeling Steele has got more gears. I reckon he could be captain material if he keeps trending the way he has since joining the club.

[samoht]

Round 1 2014, St Kilda 10 -8 Dees 6-15. Coaches St K - Richo; Dees - Roos; end of season Saints 18th 4 wins Melbourne 17th 4 wins. 5 seasons later - Saints 16th 4 wins Dees into a Prelim; best % for 2018 season. If coaching is generic* and a zero sum factor why aren't robots being utilised. Not our AR acme version but something like the Terminator. 5 years to stagnate; if coaching is generic the Saints home brand is using Capilano "honey" , shi de.


*(which clearly its not as coaches are held in various degrees of esteem)

Coaches are more or less generic, as they are just a passing parade, and it's always their fault at St Kilda (it's always the same story) - as I said, you could argue that Richo has got players from other clubs - Carlisle, Roberton, Steele, Membrey, Bruce, Savage to play at their best and even improve to new heights, in some cases.
The same can't be said of recruiters - they are definitely not generic. If only we had Hawthorn's, Geelong's, Essendon's, Collingwood's -- or any other team's recruiters.

2014 is probably a good draft to refer to - as The Demons recruited Brayshaw and Petracca that year. It typifies our poor recruiting.
It's all these sliding door moments where our recruiters zigged, instead of zagging - that has got us further and further behind the other teams.

We kept recruiting the same types, over and over and weren't too particular about skills, in many cases. Hence we have no A graders with elite skills. What we have is multiples of average and/or average-skilled players that we're trying to fit into the same position. No planning has gone into our recruiting - and no quality standards have been applied (if a player could just manage to hit the side of a barn, with their kicking, they were more or less recruited, in many cases).

The accumulative affect of this poor recruiting is a gradual slide down the ladder. Injuries only hastened our descent this year.

[Ghost Like]

The carrot being successive years of GFs meant our recruiters took their eye off the future, concentrating on the tantalising present with a coach who refused to invest in youth. Those years plus the subsequent period from 2011 to 2014 were the foundation of our poor recruiting record. Since then our recruiting has improved but not enough to paper over the recruiting shortcomings just prior & coupled with ageing stars & retirements. All combines to the list we have today which is being poorly managed, developed & coached.

Sadly the perfect storm.

[Peanut Farm]

Anyone listen to 3AW Friday pre game and Bruce Eva?
Do yourself a Molly... from about 49:50 in..
All Saints and what he’s hearing ...bottom line was MCing large saints coterie function with influential key people there he suggests:
- Richo coach saga ain’t done yet
- hearing big disconnect between playing group/coach
- mentioned hearing players will ask to be traded IF coaching set up does t change adequstely
- not a happy place to be
- suggested Riewoldt in tough spot but comment was made (other commentator) that Riewoldt was hardly emphatic in endorsing Richardson

Interesting if he’s connected

3aw still going with this. Will post updates as they come through

[saintspremiers]

Caro just harping on that AB didn’t reclarify his statement re Richo coaching next year.

Nothing new

[Peanut Farm]

Caroline Wilson said Andrew Bassett poor performance, failed to support the coach 'definitively'.
Nothing really new, rumours still wont go away with the players being dis-enchanted with the coach. They replayed the Bruce Eva comments.

[Scollop]

But, I'd go further than that - the players also need to get the best out of themselves - just as Steele did.
Take some ownership, themselves.
Is Steele going to let the coach, any coach, the ceo or anyone hold him back - hell no. That's why you admire him as a player.

Exactly. If the other players worked as hard as Steele to improve then they could have the coach tell the world that they 'had their colors lowered' after playing the best game of their career. Gives them something to aspire to.

That gave me a laugh. Richo has nfi. It's like bagging the horses that come second to Winx or Black Cavier....

We finished with 4 wins in Richo's first year -2014- and after a planned rebuild under his watch we are back to square one in 2018. He fails to identify where our issues are and doesn't have a clue which players need hard love and games with Sandringham and which players need lessons in playing unselfish team football.

He scapegoated Steele after the North Good Friday loss and he has been responsible for some of our players continuing to play selfish footy and for some continuing to play bruise free footy. Steele has never fallen in either category