There’s a pigheadedness about Ratten I don’t like

[1965 Saint]

Honestly.

The way supporters on here quickly throw the baby out with the bath water never ceases to amaze me.

WCE are a team many consider a flag chance. We were a chance of making the eight and are learning on the fly.

If we kicked accurately we win.

Reset your expectations and you'll find the game a lot more enjoyable. Still disappointing to lose but part of the journey and they'll learn from it.

They had their WAFL team in ffs

[shanegrambeau]

Honestly.

The way supporters on here quickly throw the baby out with the bath water never ceases to amaze me.

WCE are a team many consider a flag chance. We were a chance of making the eight and are learning on the fly.

If we kicked accurately we win.

Reset your expectations and you'll find the game a lot more enjoyable. Still disappointing to lose but part of the journey and they'll learn from it.

They had their WAFL team in ffs

I agree with '65.
I don't accept that WCoast were any thing like a premiership chance on paper tonight, nor the Bulldogs who beat them last week. Nor did the punters. This all before McGovern went down.
Now, they may become a premiership chance again, even their second-string team, but that doesn't change our expectations.
It reminds us that we sacked a coach because of these things. Notice some promising WC players coming up too. We'll be playing those guys for the next five years. Who have we got?

Coff and Paton
Wilkie and Howard
Steele and Gresh
King and Billings
Marshall, Battle maybe Hill
Sinclair

thats about it.

[nostalgicsaint]

WAFL team?

Kelly gaff and nic nat would be our best 3 players. About another 10 of them walk into our 22 at least.

It's not coaching. Our list just isn't there yet because we're young.

Young teams lose close games.

[1965 Saint]

So if WCE had the eight first choice players that were out we would have lost by god knows what

[saintkev]

I just can't see what they're trying to achieve with all the small types. If one has a bad game you'd expect one or two of the others to impact but none of them are. Butler has gone cold. Kent and Hind unsighted. Lonie did some ok things but nothing special. So what does that leave the rest of the team. We are crying out for midfield talent. We're a B grade midfield at best. I'd like to see what Ratts is saying to the players about game style because while effort is there our structure and ball movement is terrible.

Sadly, we play a panic-driven, reactivate unaccountable type of football. It’s torture to watch!

[True Blue Sainter]

Clearly crying out for another marking tall back like Carlisle...
We looked our best with him and Howard in the backline. Also gave us some flexibility with Battle

Small Forward’agetton - it has been a dismal strategy all year and we’ve doubled down yet again.
Lonie, Butler, Kent and Hind playing tonight
Kent unsighted as he had been for most of the last month
Hind struggling as he has been also for about a month
Butler spending his credits as he’s been watched more closely
Lonie... done ok’ish tonight

What do these guys offer when we’re struggling in the middle, none influence play at all. As I’ve said so many times before,.. picking the most restricted limited players is a LOSER strategy

I reckon since the Geelong game where we should have rested players, this non-form based selections have sunk us.
Hated it with Richo... hate it now.

This is a solid post.

Questions have to be asked as to where Carlisle is.

You need midfield depth in today's game, and having 4 small forwards (of which NONE can rotate in the midfield) just isn't going to cut it.

[fugazi]

Selection is getting reminiscent of Richos time

No Carlisle despite three big forwards, yet Geary still manages to get selected.

We have several better options .

Kent seems an automatic pick each week.

Billings has gone steadily down hill since Geelong game.

Membrey looks lost.

The back line on the whole have looked good this year but the last couple of weeks have not worked as a unit....I think there are some issues to work out there.

I think the importance of Gresham has been demonstrated by his absence. Those centre clearances and zig zag running make us much more dangerous.

Unless there is an actual health concern with Roberton he should be played next week. Smart cool and good by foot and with height he needs to come in for Geary.

Bytel for Kent

Byrnes for Hind


Ryder has been a real find. Hope he plays on next year.

Caldwell and Brad Crouch/ Zach Williams is a must at years end.

Steele and Jones need some quality alongside them at the coalface.

[Harves Man]

Selection is getting reminiscent of Richos time

No Carlisle despite three big forwards, yet Geary still manages to get selected.

We have several better options .

Kent seems an automatic pick each week.

Billings has gone steadily down hill since Geelong game.

Membrey looks lost.

The back line on the whole have looked good this year but the last couple of weeks have not worked as a unit....I think there are some issues to work out there.

I think the importance of Gresham has been demonstrated by his absence. Those centre clearances and zig zag running make us much more dangerous.

Unless there is an actual health concern with Roberton he should be played next week. Smart cool and good by foot and with height he needs to come in for Geary.

Bytel for Kent

Byrnes for Hind


Ryder has been a real find. Hope he plays on next year.

Caldwell and Brad Crouch/ Zach Williams is a must at years end.

Steele and Jones need some quality alongside them at the coalface.

Brilliant post, Fugazi. I agree pretty much with every point you have made here. Membrey is such a shame - at the beginning of the year he was one of our best 3 players, easily, not just one of our best forwards.

[Brunswicksainter]

Selection is getting reminiscent of Richos time

No Carlisle despite three big forwards, yet Geary still manages to get selected.

We have several better options .

Kent seems an automatic pick each week.

Billings has gone steadily down hill since Geelong game.

Membrey looks lost.

The back line on the whole have looked good this year but the last couple of weeks have not worked as a unit....I think there are some issues to work out there.

I think the importance of Gresham has been demonstrated by his absence. Those centre clearances and zig zag running make us much more dangerous.

Unless there is an actual health concern with Roberton he should be played next week. Smart cool and good by foot and with height he needs to come in for Geary.

Bytel for Kent

Byrnes for Hind


Ryder has been a real find. Hope he plays on next year.

Caldwell and Brad Crouch/ Zach Williams is a must at years end.

Steele and Jones need some quality alongside them at the coalface.

Brilliant post, Fugazi. I agree pretty much with every point you have made here. Membrey is such a shame - at the beginning of the year he was one of our best 3 players, easily, not just one of our best forwards.

I second this. Great points made.

[groupie1]

Clearly crying out for another marking tall back like Carlisle...
We looked our best with him and Howard in the backline. Also gave us some flexibility with Battle

Small Forward’agetton - it has been a dismal strategy all year and we’ve doubled down yet again.
Lonie, Butler, Kent and Hind playing tonight
Kent unsighted as he had been for most of the last month
Hind struggling as he has been also for about a month
Butler spending his credits as he’s been watched more closely
Lonie... done ok’ish tonight

What do these guys offer when we’re struggling in the middle, none influence play at all. As I’ve said so many times before,.. picking the most restricted limited players is a LOSER strategy

I reckon since the Geelong game where we should have rested players, this non-form based selections have sunk us.
Hated it with Richo... hate it now.

I think what has happened is the strategy at the start of the year has stopped working.
Earlier on, King was never outmarked and Skunk was clunking them.
Ball dropped to the ground allowed the small forwards to kick goals.

Opposition got wise...
Congested our front half, and at the same time, King started to fatigue and get outmarked. Skunk can't seem to catch the ball either.

Today, in light of that and the Eagles air strength in their back half, I thought playing 4 smalls was an unusual decision.

They're gonna need to manufacture a new way to kick goals as this one has stopped working.

[starsign]

I recon the Carlisle Ratten selection issue is linked also to the wrap over the knuckles he got from the coach In return for the physical ones given to the Swans full back. Ratts was quoted as saying I’ve had a word to him and he won’t be doing that again! And it’s all seemed to have gone down hill between them from there Coupled with his on and off field attitude Ratts now has taken a (pigheaded?) stand Re selecting him

[sks023]

Not sure what Carlyle has done to lose his spot
Kent's done nothing in recent weeks but continues to get a game
Why bring Hind in when West coast is depleted in the midfield,thought it would make more sense to play Bytel.

[freely]

I was going to agree with the comment about how important it turns out Gresh was to the team dynamic. And then I remembered that the same thing was said about Lonie last year when he got injured. So same-same. Yes, their spark is important but more important is the fact that a gameplan that works at the start of the year is unlikely to keep working the whole year without being found out. Our gameplan isn't that dissimilar from last year in fact - except the personnel made it look a bit better especially when Butler was firing and Hill is classier than Newnes on the wing (although the big criticism on here of Newnes was how few tackles he laid so that's pretty funny). The big similarity though is No Plan B.

[spert]

My advice to Ratts"No More Mr Nice Guy"!!!

[sks023]

Why do we recall Hind after he was dropped for three very poor weeks?
Kent did nothing as well.
We need some more class players.

Couldn't agree more

[SaintPav]

On West Coast’s WAFL team that played last night:

Unlike us, they are a well-drilled team and have an excellent system in place. It's not just about personnel.

While it should help, I'm very sceptical that bringing in a few good players will automatically fix our problems.

[st.byron]

Clearly crying out for another marking tall back like Carlisle...
We looked our best with him and Howard in the backline. Also gave us some flexibility with Battle

Small Forward’agetton - it has been a dismal strategy all year and we’ve doubled down yet again.
Lonie, Butler, Kent and Hind playing tonight
Kent unsighted as he had been for most of the last month
Hind struggling as he has been also for about a month
Butler spending his credits as he’s been watched more closely
Lonie... done ok’ish tonight

What do these guys offer when we’re struggling in the middle, none influence play at all. As I’ve said so many times before,.. picking the most restricted limited players is a LOSER strategy

I reckon since the Geelong game where we should have rested players, this non-form based selections have sunk us.
Hated it with Richo... hate it now.

It’s so unbalanced. Would rather have Byrnes and Bytel than Kent and Hind / Lonie. We need midfield development, not a plethora of below average small forwards
Kent and Lonie especially - enough already. They’ve had years in the system now and they’re still patchy at best.

[SaintPav]

It wasn't Kent and Lonie who were bombing it into the forward line and just preying.

[Life Long Saint]

I'm still pissed about last night's result...

But here's the difference between the current coach and the previous one.
In all but two games we've been close enough to win.
Only Geelong and Collingwood have got hold of us. And Geelong have done it to better teams than us.

Of the seven losses, we've been in winning positions late in the game in four of them.
The one against Brisbane, we had a chance but never hit the lead in the last quarter.
The difference is composure - not strategy or game plan. Our game plan gets us close enough to win games. Our execution costs us. I can't believe for one minute that Ratten said last night just kick it long into the 50. The Eagles have the best tall defenders in the game. It was always going to be easy for them. We need composure under pressure to not bomb it long but look for a shorter option.

We are a bit like Brisbane a few seasons ago. By and large, we're doing the right things and are ultra competitive.
What we miss is on-field leadership in these times.

I'm still not convinced that Geary and Ross are worthy of the c and vc. Do either of them really step and say "Follow me boys, we're not losing this"?
I've seen times when Clarke and Coffield have done it. Stood up when it really mattered. But if we're counting on a 21 and 20 year old to do that then what are the others doing? Steele is capable but is our only one standing up in the middle.
Ryder tried last night but Nic Nat is too good.
I want more leadership from Jones and Hill.
I want more from Billings in that regard.
Our best on field leader struggles to get on the park - Hannebery.

Sadly, we missed the golden opportunity to blood leaders when Roo was looking to retire. We should have implemented the Grant Thomas model of rotating captains to fast track leaders. Instead we handed it over to one of the worst ball users in the team. It was a terrible move.

I'm now resigned to the fact that we'll miss the finals. GWS' midfield is way better than ours. And Toby Greene will take us to town.
I really hope I'm wrong but the writing is on the wall we seem to have hit since the Sydney win.

We need another trade period like last season. We are two good midfielders short. One of them must be a big inside clearance midfielder.
Our list management needs to be ruthless if we're to take the next step.

[older saint]

This year is unique with no VFL so as we haven't been smashed like some through injury the pool is actually smaller as guys haven't played footy for 2 months. This results in similar players bouncing in and out.

We also are not privilege to the training and discussions behind the scenes as to how these guys not playing are going about things. Is their attitude good/poor, what is their training like, have some checked out for the year? We don't know so easy form the cheap seats to throw rocks.
That said i felt we were one tall back too few given the size of the Eagles forwards . in a good team guys like Hind and Kent are players in the 26-30 group not the 20-25 group.
I know we lost to a side with several players out but also several player in . If you ranked the 44 players pre game i would guess they would have more in the top 10 and top 20 than we would and these are the ones which win the games more often than not - which we saw last night

[perfectionist]

My observations of Brett Ratten, unfortunately confined to seeing him on TV, are that he belongs to the school of coaches who think positive reinforcement and encouragement are more important than any other method of communication. This is probably the predominant method of coaching these days with few of the old style yelling and screaming and berating coaches (like Chris Fagan).

That said, the other aspects of coaching, ensuring fitness and skill levels, match and tactic planning, team selection and list management, etc., are common to all coaches and their assistants.

Of all the things that a coach has to do, the hardest is improving skills. There are some that say players are born not made. I would like to think that is not 100% true, but I think my viewing experience over the last 60 years tells me that it is mostly true. And players revert to old ways under pressure. It why those with the highest level of skill operate so well under pressure - it's innate.

The most skillful Saints team of 22 I ever saw was in 2004/05. Very few passengers and those few of the 22 who lacked skills never made egregious errors. But, as it unfortunately turned out, it was a team of 22, and not 28, and lacked depth where a few key injuries were crucial (cf Richmond and WC of recent times). Plus, we had a coach whom the players liked, but he was not a natural. Had Ross had that group to coach and been able to instill his "forward pressure" style that otherwise lay only with Aaron Hamill, things might have been different.

This team is nowhere near the team of 2004 and in an 18 team comp it will probably never be possible to assemble such a group again. Jack Steele is a great player and Rowan Marshall is one of those freakish players who comes along only rarely. Other than those two, no-one else in today's team would get a game with the "on paper" best team of 2004. I say "on paper" best as Grant Thomas said so many times, he never had a full list to choose from, but it was pretty close for the first 10 games of 2004. And then he dropped Jason Blake. I can remember Allan Jeans saying , " Never flirt with form, the team will lose it soon enough."

Which is along way of saying - don't blame the coach for performance last night. We just aren't good enough.

[Teflon]

WAFL team?

Kelly gaff and nic nat would be our best 3 players. About another 10 of them walk into our 22 at least.

It's not coaching. Our list just isn't there yet because we're young.

Young teams lose close games.

You just can’t keep trotting out cliches like young sides lose close games
Sorry but the pattern of play especially into forward 50 has been a worry for some time