Not with a bang but a whimper

[hamill01]

Now that's it's been a good day since our crushing defeat at the hands (or rather the feet) of the Western Bulldogs, and by has it given us a lot to talk about. They didn’t go down fighting, they didn’t gown down with a gutsy effort, heck, after the first quarter they simply fell, that was it; not a bang, but a silent whimper. Now that all the anger, frustration and disappointment has subsided, I've tried looking at this from a level headed perspective and this is what I've come up with.

It's no secret that St.Kilda have a list capable of being the most damaging in the AFL, up their with Geelongs and Hawthorns. Obviously looking at our current level that is not the case or even close, but what we all cry out for is an answer to the fabled question 'Why?' Why are they're skill levels poor? Why are they lacking the motivation to overcome the odds when the pressure is on? Why is Roo a bad kick for goal? Why are they lacking leadership? Now amongst all the 'sack the coaches' and 'build a new list and hack away the passengers' solutions, I have come with a different one, or a different point of view on what should be addressed first in any event.

Sacking the coach, I think will only destabilize the club further, and I do not think that is the course of action that will help the club now or later. How can any coach, present or future possibly be comfortable knowing you can be sacked 1.5 years into their career? How detrimental to the players will it be, to have two coaches shown to the door in two years? Their mindset will then turn to 'how long will we have this one for?' Either way, this is not the thread to debate this issue, there are plenty others so I'll leave it there.

The next solution posted by many has been to simply recruit new quicker players and trade the 'passengers.' While I think that will be an issue down the track, if we were to trade or de list what we considered 'passengers,' then we'd have no team left. Even the core group are only playing shadows of what they once were. Before they even think about getting new blood, they need to fix the old blood that the new blood will be looking up to as role models. The problem is with the core group itself, the Reiwoldt’s, the Kosi’s, the Ball’s, etc. Not to say they are all bad or under performing, but in the times of trouble and when the pressure is on, which one of them truly stood up? I think the first and foremost problem that needs to be addressed to be the core itself, nay, the jumper itself.

As I watched us perform through out the year, what I think needs to be looked at is our confidence. Confidence, confidence, confidence. We seem to have it when we come in on the first quarters, but when they fight back, when they put on the pressure, when they push us back, we whimper. And it's a stupor the club as a whole has fallen in. You can almost see it when the second quarter rolled in and Aka kicked three goals, the saints almost yelled 'here we go again' and dropped their heads, defeated before the battle was truly over. They lose the mental battle, and they we lose that, the results show on field. They are to easily bullied, to easily frightened, and not strong enough in our resolve. Before they worry about game plans, new players or everything else, they need to reinstall what it means to be a St.Kilda player, what it means to BLEED, not just wear but BLEED the club colours. It's a trance the club is falling deeper and deeper into each week, even the best players are falling victim to it. I don't know who is to blame, but it needs to be fixed, one way or the other. The team needs to sit down with itself and really soul search, really think about where they want to be, and no, it should NOT take the media’s public slander towards the club to motivate them. If they cannot find enough motivation within the club itself to perform one hundred percent on a weekly basis, then the problem runs even deeper the I imagined, and then we truly should start worrying.

The ball skills, and intensity, the execution that they have had in the past I think is much like riding a bike, they just need to hop back on and do it again without that invisible voice of self doubt telling they cannot do it. If they can find their groove, shake away their the woeful yips and get the playing group as a whole to believe in their selves and each other, then you will find a lot of our current problems will resolve themselves naturally and we'll then be able to focus on other impending issues like recruiting. But for now, I think we need to sit down, relax, and re-evaluate.

As an avid supporter of St.Kilda, I hope next week is a bang.

[True Blue Sainter]

Terrific post mate. The most frustrating thing is the complete lack of intensity and the drop-off in skills when the opposition starts to apply pressure. Whatever happened to being good in close and having composure when under the pump? We need a couple of decent-quality midfielders to throw into our rotation, blokes who don't get much of a crack in the midfield with other clubs, for example, Prismall.

[meher baba]

Normally I would agree with you that we should never even dream of sacking a coach after 1.5 seasons.

But most coaches are appointed through a proper process.

And by this I do not mean one where the previous coach was sacked for a variety of non-footballing reasons. Nor that some some wanker recruitment consultant firm and a panel of so-called experts including the uberwanker Robert Walls has pulled some mate of the aforementioned uberwanker out of obscurity and picked him because he performed well in a written aptitude test and a simulated press conference.

We need to face up to the fact that Lyon shouldn't even be there. When people write that he was a high-achieving assistant coach in the same league as Mark Harvey or John Longmire, they are talking out of their hats (to be polite). Show me one article written in the 2-3 seasons prior to September 2006 in which Lyon was heralded as a forthcoming senior coach.

He got the job primarily not because he was ready for it - he doubted this himself and subsequent events have shown that he clearly wasn't - but because he was Robert Walls's best mate (and possibly a mate of Archie Fraser's as well). And because he came from the Swans, which was the club that our former president and board desperately wanted to emulate. None of these were good reasons for choosing Lyon ahead of any other candidate.

So sacking Lyon would not be acting hastily, it would be righting a past wrong. And, for those of you who think I am carrying a torch for GT, I'm not. The wrong was perpetrated against the club and the players. The club and the players were unnecessarily and inappropriately deprived of a reasonable quality coach who had taken us to three successive finals series. The error was then compounded by his being replaced with someone who was not the best available candidate.

When he is finally sacked - and it can't be too far away, the media will see to that if the club doesn't - Lyon will be entitled to feel hard done by. But he shouldn't blame the current board, but Butterss and co and, most of all, his "mate" Robert Walls who dragged him reluctantly to the Sainters when he knew in his heart that he wasn't up to it.

[meher baba]

P.S. If somebody posts yet again that, if it was all about getting someone from the Swans, then why didn't they go for Longmire, then all I can say to that is

"Why the hell didn't they. I bloody wish they had done."

Having seen the Swans NSW/ACTAFL team in action, I reckon Longmire can coach.