Some worrying signs...

[saintsRrising]

It means exactly the same as if the umpires didn't overrule the goal that Ryder kicked in the 1st quarter and we were playing in an elimination final tomorrow.

.

Rubbish.

Hate to rain on your negatism...but even with crediting Essendon 5 more points we would have still finished 4th as our % would still have been greater than 110%. So we would have still been playing the cats on Sunday...and not the Pies.
RL is our coach...GT is gone....so get over it.

Also Ryder did not kicka goal...the replay clearly shows it touched Sam's arm. Umpires made the correct decision.


UNLIKE over in Adelaide where the Crows gota boost.

If you want to talk about incorrect Umpiring decisions...then discuss that one. Dogs most likely would have won...but no that does not suit your anti-RL propaganda does it.


The Saints EARNT our top 4 finish.

The Crows temporarily had theirs in the main due to an incorrect umpiring decision.

[saintsRrising]

As I said, we made it by a whisker. .

So????...Jeans only got the Saints over the line by one point....

.

[karnaby]

I'm taking a very low key approach this week.

I think Geelong are a much better team than St Kilda. The ladder position after 22 weeks shows that.

Having said that, i don't believe Geelong are unbeatable, but i really don't think St Kilda can beat them twice. We can beat them, but i'd much rather we beat them in 4 weeks time, rather than this Sunday.

I think our premiership hopes are much better if we have an honourable loss on sunday, without any major injuries or tribunal problems, than if we were to show Geelong up and pull off an upset.

If we were to beat them, i would be over the moon, but i would be hoping like hell that someone else beats them before the Grand Final so we didn't have to play them again, because I don't think we can get them on a bad day twice in a month.

I'll be there cheering my lungs out for our boys, but I certainly won't be slitting any wrists if we lose.

That pretty much sums up how I feel to a T. I would be happy to pinch a win but having a serious tilt at the flag is more important to me.

In relation to WJ42's OP - I reckon we only need to lose by 1 point & there will be some on here venting. F* me, even this week we've had at least one poster bagging our own............ho hum!

[saintsRrising]

Reading this thread..it is obvious that Rodgerfox thinks the Cats are going the thrash us and he is positiong himself for his Monday The Fox Report to tell us chapter and verse again why RL is no good....



This is the finals though...whe are in with a chance. So why not sit back and enjoy the ride??

Yes the Cats are in good form. Who cares?

If they win this week we will just come back and have another crack in the GF...but this time with a fit Luke Ball leading the charge.


Go Saints!!!

[rodgerfox]

Reading this thread..it is obvious that Rodgerfox thinks the Cats are going the thrash us

If that's what you think - then it's pretty obvious you haven't read this thread at all.

Go back and read what I wrote.

[markp]

As I said, we made it by a whisker. .

So????...Jeans only got the Saints over the line by one point....

.

I hope they reviewed the season as if we had lost the GF, as we very nearly did... F*** me.

[rodgerfox]

As I said, we made it by a whisker. .

So????...Jeans only got the Saints over the line by one point....

.

I hope they reviewed the season as if we had lost the GF, as we very nearly did... F*** me.

So do I.

That's actually a very good example.


Do you think Sydney reviewed their season differently in 05 to 06?

I can tell you they didn't.


Roos acknowledged that it could have gone either way, therefore his reaction post-season was the same.

[saintsRrising]

OR, will there be the usual post-match recriminations with supporters calling for trades, bagging players and the coach?

...

IRRESPECTIVE of what happens for the rest of the year Lyon is taking us in the right direction.

He has looked at what the Saints strengths and weaknesses were and has built on them.


He is chas improved our gameplan vastly...we can now stop oppostion teams.

He has look at the holes in our team structure and sought to address them.

Sure he will churn through players...but at least you can see he is trying to address the teams holes:


Schneider: we needed another small goal-scoring option. Is wotking well with Milne now.

Charlie: With hHamill injurred we had NO MID SIZED forward on our list. He has tried Charlie in the role. Interestingly while Charlie's numbers have been light we have WON most of the games he has played in. Charlie mau not be the answer..but we got him for free..and he is better that the NOTHING options we had.

Rucks: With Gardi almost gainmed for free, and King effectively for free our ruck division this year has been a lot more cpable.

Dempster: pity he has gone down. His solid form on HB was allowing Gram and BJ to play midfield!!!

ROOKIES: Our great use and DEVELOPMENT of rookies has added depth. Without CJ. Mini, Eddi, Geary this year we may well have lost another game or two this year. CJ BY HIMSELF turned the Swans game..and againat the Hawks ran down Buddy when the game was in the balance. Possibly 8 points just there!!

YOUTH: With Steven, Armo, allen and Ben we have some promising kids coming through.

Even with Harvey retiring there is a lot to be bullish about in 2009.

[matrix]

ive come to realise that we will soon win a a flag....and there'll still be peeps moaning about something.

[rodgerfox]

OR, will there be the usual post-match recriminations with supporters calling for trades, bagging players and the coach?

...

IRRESPECTIVE of what happens for the rest of the year Lyon is taking us in the right direction.

I think that is nonsense.


Well, not neccessarily nonsense - but a dangerous way to think.

Is 'in the right direction' good enough?

I really don't think anything that's happened so far, can give an indication of where we're really at going forward.

This next month will.

[joffaboy]

It means exactly the same as if the umpires didn't overrule the goal that Ryder kicked in the 1st quarter and we were playing in an elimination final tomorrow.

.

Rubbish.

Hate to rain on your negatism...but even with crediting Essendon 5 more points we would have still finished 4th as our % would still have been greater than 110%. So we would have still been playing the cats on Sunday...and not the Pies.
RL is our coach...GT is gone....so get over it.

Also Ryder did not kicka goal...the replay clearly shows it touched Sam's arm. Umpires made the correct decision.


UNLIKE over in Adelaide where the Crows gota boost.

If you want to talk about incorrect Umpiring decisions...then discuss that one. Dogs most likely would have won...but no that does not suit your anti-RL propaganda does it.


The Saints EARNT our top 4 finish.

The Crows temporarily had theirs in the main due to an incorrect umpiring decision.

Word SrR.

RF was one of the baying mob demanding Ross Lyon be sacked. He now tries to minimise the Saints great achievement of coming fourth by what if's and should have beens.

He is just trying to spin his way out of what we all know is his hopelessly wrong position.

Ross Lyon as coach won a preseason in his second year as coach and got us into the top four the same year.

All this with a list that has been neglected for years, topped up by thoughtful and worthy players from other clubs.

RodgerFox and his baying mob of RL haters have egg all over their stupid faces and are now deflecting and smokescreening trying to deceive us that they they never wanted RL sacked

WOULD BE EASIER JUST TO ADMIT THEY WERE WRONG


However he wont. It is just up to us to continue to point out how far down his credibility has sunk.

Proven to have known SFA about football once again.

[WayneJudson42]

As I said, we made it by a whisker. .

So????...Jeans only got the Saints over the line by one point....

.

Checkmate

Actually, many thanks for hijacking the thread... this was intended as a "keep a lid on it' thread. nothing more sinister.


Frankly, the argument cuts both ways. Being a top 4 team or a top 4 list is speculative nonsense, coz you have to wiegh up the opposition and who we played twice etc. So give it a rest fellas.

As for RL... many were adanemt that he was crap and should have been sacked. Why? Coz undet GT we made finals, won 10 ina row, and got to 2 prelims.

So based on that logic, Lyon has done a good job cause he's coached us to 4th spot.

You can't have it both ways IMO. The sack Lyon people set the benchmarks by constant comparisons to GT... so now they must judge RL accordingly, or the are complete hypocrites IMHO.

What the next month will tell is how well we are placed compared to the other 7 teams. the rest is irrelevant until the season is over. And I suspect will be atteneded to in due course by the powers that be.

For the record, I thinkwe are playing just as good as we were under GT, and Lyon deserves a 1 or 2 year extention. Although we won more under the former, you still have to considerwho we beat and where they were on the ladder ffs... Rich, Blues, Hawks, Dogs wer all crap back then. today, they are much improved.

[saintsRrising]

Though it will grate on some...RL will ge our coach in 2009.

Personally I am very pleased.

[meher baba]

By any sensible assessment, we are dead lucky to have finished in the top 4 given how we were placed a few weeks ago. 13 wins are not typically enough to get a team into the top 4.

Personally, I have believed all along that we are easily among the top 4 playing lists in the comp: possibly among the top 2. Therefore, it is appropriate that we finish at least 4th every year: the only things holding us back between 2005 and about half way through this year were an unlucky run with injuries and, from October 2006, until he got his full licence about 10 weeks ago, a P plate coach in Lyon.

So we are where we ought to be (well, almost: on talent alone we should be playing the Hawks tonight). And that's great. We have some injury problems and perhaps not quite enough hardened, experienced players to be particularly likely to go all the way this year. But we do have Harves as a massive motivating factor.

If we can come through the match with the Cats without getting too beaten about (either by winning it or not losing by too much, and with no significant injuries) we ought to be a really good chance of getting through to the PF and then the GF.

However, even if we go out the back door next weekend, I still don't think people should be tearing their hair out on here. I certainly won't be.

The only thing that would disappoint me is seeing us go sharply back to the unsuccesful lockdown, retreating, corralling, flooding style of play we displayed until a few weeks ago. I want to see us tackle, tackle, tackle and do one percenters until the cows come home. If we do that, I won't really mind if we lose because (as we frequently do) we don't kick straight (well, I will mind, but I won't be calling for the coach and the board to be sacked instantly).

[matrix]

i never said he should be sacked myself...
i did believe i said he couldnt coach, and vaguely remember saying i didnt think he was a caoches bumhole (or something like that)

well obviously he can coach as we are sitting in 4th place, at a minimum we would have been 8th.
so clearly i was wrong, he can coach.

[bigcarl]

The only thing that would disappoint me is seeing us go sharply back to the unsuccesful lockdown, retreating, corralling, flooding style of play we displayed until a few weeks ago.

my view also

[saintsRrising]

The only thing that would disappoint me is seeing us go sharply back to the unsuccesful lockdown, retreating, corralling, flooding style of play we displayed until a few weeks ago. I want to see us tackle, tackle, tackle and do one percenters until the cows come home. If we do that, I won't really mind if we lose because (as we frequently do) we don't kick straight (well, I will mind, but I won't be calling for the coach and the board to be sacked instantly).

Well well well.....yes we are only winning despite Lyon are we?????

Fair dinkum......some people seem to still have no comprehension about how football is played this days...

Possession football and zoning is in because it is effective..the Cats do it, the Hawks do it...we do it...The Ctas have not beemn racking up over 400 possessins per game by playing DIRECT football.

Kick it straight down the guts is dead because it actually creates gals for the oppostion.

Did you not note how confused the Don's players were last week trying to enter the zone we put up against HB?


Or how equally we shut down the famous Crows HB run in the same way the week prior?


MB...when are you going to cotton on to our gameplan has both an offensive and defensive aspect....and that our players were struggling with the execution of the offensive bit fora while???

What is different now is that the players CONFIDENCE is up and that they are executing it better.

Having for example fumbling and dishing the ball off poorly is quite different toa confident Raph playing well.

[TimeToShineFellas]

[RodgerFox and his baying mob of RL haters have egg all over their stupid faces and are now deflecting and smokescreening trying to deceive us that they they never wanted RL sacked

WOULD BE EASIER JUST TO ADMIT THEY WERE WRONG


However he wont.

RF and babbleboy and their bunch of nay-sayers reminds me of this bloke who could never say he was sorry or wrong



Except this bloke was cool and had at least half a clue

[WayneJudson42]

By any sensible assessment, we are dead lucky to have finished in the top 4 given how we were placed a few weeks ago. 13 wins are not typically enough to get a team into the top 4.

See previous post om views about # of wins for 4th spot and top 4 lists...

Too many variables such as:

Uneveness of the draw
Injuries
Present day competition
Eveness of teams.

Let's be honest, there's been more than a few upsets this year.

Also, if we argue that we were lucky to sneak in, then we can also argue that we deserved it coz other teams failed to cement their spots. In which case, we were more deserving.

So we beat Essendon/ Sure, but if we only won by 3 goals, everyone would be whinging that we wasted a golden opp to get 4th spot and we would have won by 100+ under GT... yada yada yada.

Like I say; You can't have it both ways.

[WayneJudson42]

[RodgerFox and his baying mob of RL haters have egg all over their stupid faces and are now deflecting and smokescreening trying to deceive us that they they never wanted RL sacked

WOULD BE EASIER JUST TO ADMIT THEY WERE WRONG


However he wont.

RF and babbleboy and their bunch of nay-sayers reminds me of this bloke who could never say he was sorry or wrong



Except this bloke was cool and had at least half a clue

That's a very young looking Johnny Howard

[saintsRrising]

The only thing that would disappoint me is seeing us go sharply back to the unsuccesful lockdown, retreating, corralling, flooding style of play we displayed until a few weeks ago.

my view also

The last two games we did all those things. How did we go?

We even "iced" the clock late in the Dons game to guarantee the top 4 finish...lots of kicking backwards!!!


One difference to early in the season is that our use of the ball is much improved (one stat this week on Foxtel is that recently the Saints are No 1 in the AFL on this measure)

A second difference is that with confindence growing that the players are running more.

A third difference is that BJ and Gram in the midfield has added extract class that we needed, early in the sason Lenny and Ball would come off and our midfield got pumpred. We now havea depper midfield unit.

Running creates space...and as Lenny told us mid year in an interviw space creates opportunity.

Do you remember early in the season when RL told us that the players were not doing as instructed when they had the ball??? Maybe the penny may drop now???

Maybe the players are now doing what the coaches have wanted them to do all along?

All year the 0players have said that they understood the gameplan, but were not execting it.

Now they are executing it...and all of sudden peole want to say that it is not how the coach wants and has wanted the team to play?


Those early season quarters against the Cats and the Dogs were not aberations...the other quarters were!!!

[yipper]

By any sensible assessment, we are dead lucky to have finished in the top 4 given how we were placed a few weeks ago. 13 wins are not typically enough to get a team into the top 4.

See previous post om views about # of wins for 4th spot and top 4 lists...

Too many variables such as:

Uneveness of the draw
Injuries
Present day competition
Eveness of teams.

Let's be honest, there's been more than a few upsets this year.

Also, if we argue that we were lucky to sneak in, then we can also argue that we deserved it coz other teams failed to cement their spots. In which case, we were more deserving.

So we beat Essendon/ Sure, but if we only won by 3 goals, everyone would be whinging that we wasted a golden opp to get 4th spot and we would have won by 100+ under GT... yada yada yada.
Like I say; You can't have it both ways.

Absolutely spot on. Our season would've have been a failure and we should have made it ......


We are in 4th because we earnt it by smashing fellow top 4 aspirants Adel and Hawks when we needed to, and then going for the kill against a weakened opponent. We made it into 4th and now we sit with a fair chance at a flag. We won enough games and compiled enough percentage to get where we are. Other teams didn't.

[matrix]

We are in 4th because we earnt it by smashing fellow top 4 aspirants Adel and Hawks when we needed to, and then going for the kill against a weakened opponent. We made it into 4th and now we sit with a fair chance at a flag. We won enough games and compiled enough percentage to get where we are. Other teams didn't.

The End

[saintsRrising]

We are in 4th because we earnt it by smashing fellow top 4 aspirants Adel and Hawks when we needed to, .

and add North to that list.



IF people want to talk about luck...why not raise the week we played the Pies??? The Pies were dead in the water struggling in the weeks leading up to our game. Most of their team was out of sorts.

All of a sudden the Didak/Shaw incidenrt GALVANISES their team and two thirds of their team who had been crap suddenly lift and play their hearts out agianst us.


How unlucky was that.... any other week and we would have rolled the buggers and % would not have been an issue in Round 22, nor would have North having to lose.



You want to talk about whiskers???

How about that whisker if Shaw HAD NOT hit that car?? Or the whisker if the female car owner had not been presnt to say that Didak was he scaley mate in the car?

[WayneJudson42]

By any sensible assessment, we are dead lucky to have finished in the top 4 given how we were placed a few weeks ago. 13 wins are not typically enough to get a team into the top 4.

See previous post om views about # of wins for 4th spot and top 4 lists...

Too many variables such as:

Uneveness of the draw
Injuries
Present day competition
Eveness of teams.

Let's be honest, there's been more than a few upsets this year.

Also, if we argue that we were lucky to sneak in, then we can also argue that we deserved it coz other teams failed to cement their spots. In which case, we were more deserving.

So we beat Essendon/ Sure, but if we only won by 3 goals, everyone would be whinging that we wasted a golden opp to get 4th spot and we would have won by 100+ under GT... yada yada yada.
Like I say; You can't have it both ways.

Absolutely spot on. Our season would've have been a failure and we should have made it ......


We are in 4th because we earnt it by smashing fellow top 4 aspirants Adel and Hawks when we needed to, and then going for the kill against a weakened opponent. We made it into 4th and now we sit with a fair chance at a flag. We won enough games and compiled enough percentage to get where we are. Other teams didn't.

Bingo! Better change your sig btw, Yipper