bob__71 wrote:Biggest difference I see between the two coaches philosopies is quite simple.
GT had the idea that if he could manage to put most of the money for the clubs list into the top 22 players we would have a champion team. He did this with reduced list size. And some cheap players at the bottom end. A star studded line up...as long as we had luck with injuries. We didnt have luck with injuries, so attempting to blow teams off the park didnt work so well or consistantly when we had to call on our reserves.
RL is more about having a larger more even spread in the list. With the idea of having a gameplan that can be executed, even when we dig into our depth. He has gone with lower cost recruits, but ones who are suited to running up and down the ground, essentialy using work ethic as the cornerstone of the team plan.
Interesting argument, but my problem with it is that Lyon has shown a greater tendency than GT to look to achieve stability in the list. GT was far more inclined than Lyon to try out young players into critical games. Leaving aside the kids of the 2001 draft (who were coming into a team that finished bottom, so were more likely to be picked), GT gave BJ 18 games in his first season (but, then, he was a #1 draft pick), Leigh Fisher 5, Ferguson 1, Raph 1, Sam Fisher 7, McQualter 7, Gwilt 3 (including 2 finals), Gilbert 2 and gave many others a go such as Stone, Murray, etc.
Notwithstanding the crap written by Walls about 8 young players being tried in 2 seasons, Lyon is much more inclined than GT to favour seasoned players over young unknowns: as he displayed from the outset in elevating the experienced Attard and, later, Jones over the heads of young draftees.
This season, Lyon is getting close to selecting a team made up entirely of players who are in at least their 4th season of AFL football: all that would be needed is for Jones and Geary to be replaced by X and Raph.
Surely under GT, McEvoy, Steven and Connor would have played more than 1 game of AFL between the 3 of them by now.
One last point, all Rodger Fox said after GT was sacked and Lyon appointed, was the absolutely bleeding obvious. Of course the Saints wernt going to win the cup with a new coach, all change takes time.
Gee, you mustn't have been reading SS at the time, because it didn't seem bleeding obvious to posters on here!!
I think RF was one of the very few posters on here who didn't predict at the beginning of 2007 that we were going to make the finals (despite being an alleged GT-lover, I predicted that we would win the flag, and I was by no means alone).
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
- Jonathan Swift