Iratedebate wrote:teffers dishing out the abuse.
btw he wasn't brought in as a rookie coach, he was brought in to finish the job.
and look at the team GT inherited and where they were, and look at the team RL inherited
Yep due to Malcolm Blight and poor ladder finishes, GT inherited the best of both worlds. He inherited talented players with experience and the BEST young kids in the country. RL on the other hand inherited a team that has been in decline the last few yrs and one that has topped up and virtually added no young talent to the group due to pathetically poor list management
same old whinging about the list.
6 months ago we were told how great the list was and how RL was going to finish the job.
ok we missed some games due to injury but really?
as for topping up how about birss, gardiner, clarke and clint jones under the Ross Lyon plan?
who did we top up on? 1. ruckmen to meet a perceived shortfall, given they paucity of ruckmen in the draft (4 years to develop macintosh or was it 5?) we went for 1 kid with a huge reputation (brooks who is clearly dominating in the springvale with bests week in week out after recovering from a couple of serious injuries), and one established ruckman who was 23 or 24 at the time,
that ruckman walked our for a contract which we clearly were not going to match from richmond.
of the available ruckmen we chose another one who was relatively young while brooks and Kosi were developed, that one was a REQUIRED player by Lyon however walked our for 900k over 3 years, something st kilda clearly were not going to match.
who else? gram? an outstanding trade.
penny? a 10 year FB who was devasted by injury and depression, something we surely planned
Guerra? another player playing good footy who demanded a longer contract and more money which st kilda said no to, a wise decision, good player, but put his ego in front.
mcGough? 2o or 21 at the time, probably about the same place Birss is, concur we paid too much for him with 2 years more youth.
Watts? clearly a very good potential player, I think another one who was injured walking into Linton Street and given his height and weight another quality marking KPP which many fans were screaming for.
I think John Beveridge did a very good job recruiting these kids to st kilda, I think he may have got a few personalities wrong though (such as caydn beetham, guerra, hackland and knobel but they aren't the first players to walk out for better money and conditions, lockett, o'brien, Hall, Spider etc)
Jones, Im sure GT wanted him to suffer from depression, i think that was another pre-planned attack on a player
As for the list: we have montagna, harvey (should we have traded him for a pick?) gehrig (should we have delisted him? traded him?) thommo (dominating in the reserves should we have delisted him or traded him prior to this year?), reiwoldt, ball, maguire, goddard , kosi, hayes, hudghton, s. fisher, l. fisher, gilbert, x. clarke, r. clarke, ferguson, watts, brooks, NDS, fiora, gwilt, all under 25, in the 25 to 30 bracket we have baker, hudgeton, voss (I dont think anyone predicted a form loss in 07 given his outstanding service in prvious years and clearly dominating in the reservers), hayes, baker, milne, max, and in the mature category we have thompson, gehrig and harvey, all of whom are outstanding players.
the basic quible is about the trades we did, some 7 draft picks a couple of in the first and second rounds for players.
probably the only one who was clearly overrated was mcgough, given that I think we have traded and drafted pretty well, and came into 07 with a potent list, given salary cap restriction and draft choices.
Even RL must have thought we were a geniune chance in 07 because he brought in a player with at most 1 season in him clarke, a top up gop Birss, a player who has hardly played a senior game in 3 seasons gardiner and mature GOP from the WAFL (perhaps the 4th competition in footy behind the AFL, SANFL and VFL).
so your 20/20 hindsight is obviously NOT reflected by the board, the current coach and the administrators, NOR the posters on this board circa october to March 2006/2007
even during the preseason we were told that we were just experimenting and this list with this coach was good enough.
so thank you for your backward looking revisionist claptrap, and your credibility is bollux.
Richmond can beat a stronger a collingwood that we faced with their crappy list, melbourne can hammer a Western Bulldogs with their injury ravaged side, i think if you are looking at reasons for our lack of form, the list isn't the excuse.
