Saintsational Fan Forum - A passionate community of St Kilda Football Club fans discussing news, history, players, trade rumours, results, AFL stats and more.
Some light stats for the bye weekend. This is a list of the draft "success" from the Saints-Lyon era (06-10 only). It's a percentage of players drafted to how many are still playing AFL.
Interesting that Sydney, Hawthorn and Geelong have taken the least number of players.
I'd disregard Melbourne being on top, they aren't AFL standard. They culled many veterans and were forced to play these guys. Also, a quarter of those guys drafted are now at other clubs. Shame, but they suck.
The Swans have the most players that have left for other AFL clubs, followed by Melbourne and Adelaide.
The Saints are stone, dead last by a mile in all areas (at the club, at any club, average games).
For the Saints, this five year period of drafting can be described as appalling, abysmal, atrocious, and what I'll name, the "Lyon-Abyss". Was he really to blame? Who cares, I'm going with it .
I've come to the conclusion that if Watters, Pelchen, Bains, Elshaug, Chris Liberatore, Paul and John Bevridge hadn't started what he did two years ago, by 2015 we would've been dead meat. We probably all knew it, but seeing the numbers really slaps you in the face. It might take another three drafts to get the number of quality guys that can one day deliver premierships. I hope Watters is a patient man, he seems so, because it's going to take time. And likewise, I hope the fans are patient. 50 year drought coming up, I think we can wait a little longer.
Melbourne Demons 85.19
Carlton Blues 80.77
Geelong Cats 79.17
Sydney Swans 76.19
Adelaide Crows 74.07
Hawthorn Hawks 73.91
North Melbourne 71.43
Essendon Bombers 70.83
West Coast Eagles 66.67
Port Adelaide Power 65.52
Brisbane Lions 64.29
Fremantle Dockers 63.33
Collingwood Magpies 60.00
Richmond Tigers 57.69
Western Bulldogs 55.56 St Kilda Saints 37.04
Gehrig emerged from scans yesterday saying he was "as sweet as a bun"
Interesting post Munga, as your focus is on the Lyon era lets break it down
2006 Trade Period, Lyon's first I believe after being appointed on the Tuesday after it began
Traded: Shane Birss, Michael Gardiner
Draft: Armitage, Howard, Jarryd Allan, Matthew Clarke, Matthew Ferguson
Rookies: Clint Jones, Luke Van Rheenan, Robert Eddy, James Wall, Jayden Attard
- Tick for Michael Gardiner and Clint Jones.-
- Howard, Wall, LVR never really showed much
- Armitage was played inconsistently over the Lyon era and didn't establish himself until after RL quit
- Shane Birss was in and out, had his fair share of fans that were disappointed when he was cut for Attard
- Jayden Attard seemed liked by RL but was a fairly maligned player, cut after injury IIRC
- Eddy is an odd one, progressively developed, stalhed a bit in 2010 but was persevered with which caused angst here, played in 2010 GF then delisted straight after then redrafted as a rookie and delisted again.
- Matty Clarke was mediocre and played the majority of the season out, Barry Brooks was written off early in the season
- I always thought Ferguson had the tools but he'd been mismanaged ++ by GT before RL and didn't get much of a shot when redrafted
2007
Trades: Dempster, Schneider, Charlie Gardner
Draft: McEvoy, Jack Steven, Eljay Connors
Rookies: Glenn Chivers, Khan Haretaku, Luke Miles, Andrew McQualter
- Tick Dempster and Schneider though the latter has underdelivered overall IMO though is a good player.
- McEvoy IIRC didn't start playing consistently until Gardiner went down in 2011, still a tick but didn't develop particularly well under RL. Maybe a harsh assessment as he still doesn't ruck particularly well and it could be argued that he has gotten better as he has physically developed rather than via good coaching.
- Jack Steven, established himself after RL quit
- Andrew McQualter had 1 very good season in 09 but was otherwise fairly poor
- Luke Miles seemed promising but didn't develop
- Eljay, Chivers and Haretaku never really showed much though the latter is doing ok in the VFL atm and may be on the verge of earning a shot back
2008
Traded: Farren Ray
Draft: Tom Lynch, Rhys Stanley, Nick Heyne, Alistair Smith, Paul Cahill
Rookies: Zac Dawson, Tom Simpkin, Brad Howard, Steven Gaertner, Ross Tungatlum, Samuel McGarry
- Tick: Farren Ray, Zac Dawson
- Jury's out onTom Simpkin
- Tom Lynch, played irratically, single games, ok performances dropped etc lots of fans annoyed with how he was used. Doing okay at Adelaide
- Rhys Stanley, injury prone and maligned, on the verge of being cut, developed better under Watters
- Howard, McGarry never looked like making it
- Smith & Cahill all had some promise but didn't develop at all
- Gaertner & Tungatlum showed early signs of being ok but both resigned
2009
Trade: Andrew Lovett, Brett Peake
Draft: Nick Winmar, Jesse Smith, Adam Pattison, Will Johnson
Rookie: Mark Hutchings, Daniel Archer, Leigh Fisher, Jarryd Allen, Tommy Walsh
- Nuff said on here RE Andrew Lovett, still think we paid overs for him
- Nick Winmar and Leigh Fisher weren't going to make it this time round
- Archer showed promise early but fizzled
- Pattison barely played even when we had ruck shortages
- Will Johnson had his fans but didn't get a go
- Hutchings didn't show much with us but may have revitalised his career
- Peake had 1 good season
2010
No trades
Draft: Jamie Cripps, Tom Ledger, Sam Crocker, Arryn Siposs, Ryan Gamble, Dean Polo
Rookie: Thomas Curren, Warrick Andreoli, Robert Eddy, Jackson Ferguson
- Cripps looked ok but left, Siposs looks ok, Ferguson may keep his spot on the list for now
- Gamble and Polo got games but weren't up to it
- Ledger and Curren look reasonable at VFL level but can't get a game
- Rest never looked up to it
During this period, we also lost Luke Ball, Xavier Clarke and Matt Maguire for nothing
Fergus Watts and Barry Brooks were early victims of the RL purge as was Troy Schwarze
Zac Dawson left with RL
Geary blossomed post RL
Final Thoughts:
Many forumites blame our horrible drafting throughout this period for our current predictament and their is a lot of truth to that. As I look through this list though what really jumps out at me is how bad our list development really was. A lot of mediocre players were gifted games. A large number of players walked out on the club, some established, some not. A lot of unproven youngsters that weren't ready but had potential either got little opportunity or were used poorly. Off-field scandals effected other players.
I don't think you can look at this list and not draw the conclusion that as a club we failed to get the best out of the players on our list. That's a problem. A big one. It's a problem that sees guys like Matty Ferguson or Leigh Fisher both who looked like they would be gems at 1 point become rubbish players that aren't up to it or a hot prospect like Raph Clarke have a fairly mediocre career. Not blaming RL for those specific players as all were at the club before him but if you compare this list to another club like say Geelong or Sydney, I dare say that you'll find plenty of players that didn't look good when they got there but developed well woth the right management.
Good post which goes some way to explaining why we are down with the dregs at the moment. Although we talk about Lyon and other recruiting people in the thread, they are the workers and management, we need to look up to executive level, those who determine the direction and operating culture of the club, and I think we need to point a big finger at the president and board who appear to have sat on their hands throughout this period and allowed things to deteriorate far too quickly for my liking.
An interesting comparison will be to look at Freo's drafting since Lyon's appointment, and his use of young yet-unestablished players, number of debuts etc.
We already seemed to have benefited from a typical Lyon decision in drafting Roberton after he was delisted, who seems to be a potential gun.
I don't have that information handy, but if someone has time, I think it might indicate whether or not it was actually a Lyon issue specifically or if it was our whole football department. Or the other possibility is that he has learned from his mistakes.
My take on it is that Lyon does not see himself as a coach who is in anyway connected sentimentally to the team he is coaching. He says it himself, that he's a "career coach". He is no Worsfold, Sheedy, Roos etc. — a coach who plans to stay with a team while they go up, and then down, and then up again.
Therefore, Lyon doesn't really care about the state of the list in 5-10 years time, when he will already be onto his next club. He tries to make the absolute most of the current list to win an immediate flag. I'm not actually criticising this approach, yes it is shocking for supporters, but for a coach it seems to be a decent model.
And once you understand that approach, it actually makes no sense to develop a future team for 5-10 years who will end up being your opposition. Why strengthen a team that you will be coaching against?
Lyon didn't care about the St Kilda Football Club and he doesn't care about the Fremantle Football Club, he cares about the current list of ~28 players who might take him to a flag.
I guess most of us got caught up in the euphoria of 2009/2010 to have realised what was coming. It makes for pretty stark reading.
Obviously the stronger the list the more a club can wear a poor retention rate and we did during this period.
However as our stars age and drop off building that retention percentage is going to become more and more important.
I believe we have recognised this with Pelchen's appointment and our recent incoming players.
Just how much that retention percentage increases will be interesting.
While i don't take a lot of what Jeff Kennett says seriously he made some good points to Caro on Friday night regarding his thoughts on successful clubs.
He said they all have a rock solid business model.
I have to agree. The strong clubs are always in a better position to get players that are more likely to be retained.
How we build our strength here without a white knight like Eddie, Costa, Dicker I don't know ?
Part of it is pride and history in the club.
Robert Harvey's last home game. 24 Aug 2008
StKilda 13.17 def Adelaide 6.11
I just think there's a lack of passion at the club at the moment, and I think strong visionary and innovative leadership would get some of that passion back- I doubt if any major sporting club could have a lower profile than St Kilda has right now..almost disappearing into the scrub near the freeway at Seaford.
The drafting of kids was bad several years before Lyon arrived.
IMO one of the reasons BOTH GT became such active traders was that our ability to recruit quality kids was so inept over this period . Yes we also did not develop as much as other clubs, but poor drafting was the main factor.
Just look at average foots skills of the players we gain. By and large they were dreadful.
BJ at no1 picked himself, and so that basically left Dal who was drafted who was a good kick.
Has Lyon started playing kids at Freo because he has seen the light? No , it is because there is general talent there.
The cats have done many things right, but having the best recruiter in the Afl for so long has given them a big advantage.
The Suns wisely made their first appointment their recruiting manager.
Recruiting became a science as well as an art a decade back. The Saints remained under resourced and in an era of gut feel recruiting ( ie Howard who was taken high just because an ex-saint recommended him).
If I had been Lyon or GT I would have done what they did... and eschew the recruiters and their preferred kids for trading for a more likely return.
Last edited by saintsRrising on Sun 16 Jun 2013 7:24pm, edited 1 time in total.
Flying the World in comfort thanks to FF Points....
I still remember when Tudor arrived from Geelong as an assistant he couldn't believe we didn't have a kicking coach.
It is fair to say the while the Cats have Stephen Wells as their head recruiter who quite obviously is very good at what he does,
it is also what happens to the players once in the Cats / Swans / Hawks system.
They seem to either have a a stark advantage at the development stage of players or an inordinate amount of luck...
From the outside looking in it isn't just who we have selected but also as previously mentioned an overall list management plan
and a basic succession plan for players currently playing - hence such an age differentiation between our older guns and the young potentials...
It is basically 2 generations in football terms.
Also, our lack of development is a major concern, in the past, the present & into the future, because with 18 teams they competition has never been more even.
Whats sad about this is it shows just how good our "core" of stars were over this time......what guts me is we never maximised a Riewoldt, Dal Santo, Goddard, Hayes, Harvey, Hamill, Gehrig, Ball, Fisher, Milne era by growing stronger as a club when we were at our peak.....how good could this group had been had we taken talented kids and fast tracked them alongside these stars like the Cats have??
At our club succession planning became secession planning...
I worry the "perfect storm" conditions under which we drafted a Ball, Riewoldt, Goddard etc clould be decades away if at all......we got very lucky and I cant help feel we stuffed it.
I heard Geelongs footy manager saying they have 3 full time coaches for their VFL team aligned to their senior list too. Ross seemed to get recycled players and then draft mid sized forwards who didn't come on. He took a gamble to find the next Ryan O keefe but got Ryan Gamble instead.
Teflon wrote:Whats sad about this is it shows just how good our "core" of stars were over this time......what guts me is we never maximised a Riewoldt, Dal Santo, Goddard, Hayes, Harvey, Hamill, Gehrig, Ball, Fisher, Milne era by growing stronger as a club when we were at our peak.....how good could this group had been had we taken talented kids and fast tracked them alongside these stars like the Cats have??
At our club succession planning became secession planning...
I worry the "perfect storm" conditions under which we drafted a Ball, Riewoldt, Goddard etc clould be decades away if at all......we got very lucky and I cant help feel we stuffed it.
Pretty much gaurantee it won't happen in the next decade. Our only hope is to have millions per year poured into our footy dept to get more full time development coaches and our own reserves team.
Until the above happens we will be stuck in the mire. Traditionally our great teams of the nineties and noughties had core star material with a sharp drop off in the bottom 6. It would be groundbreaking for a Saints team to
Have an even spread of talent.
i am Melbourne Skies - sometimes Blue Skies, Grey Skies, even Partly Cloudy Skies.
Teflon wrote:Whats sad about this is it shows just how good our "core" of stars were over this time......what guts me is we never maximised a Riewoldt, Dal Santo, Goddard, Hayes, Harvey, Hamill, Gehrig, Ball, Fisher, Milne era by growing stronger as a club when we were at our peak.....how good could this group had been had we taken talented kids and fast tracked them alongside these stars like the Cats have??
At our club succession planning became secession planning...
I worry the "perfect storm" conditions under which we drafted a Ball, Riewoldt, Goddard etc clould be decades away if at all......we got very lucky and I cant help feel we stuffed it.
Great post Teflon ,
Probably why we are all shattered now.Maybe it will be impossible to replicate those draft choices again.Even more so why we didn't utilise everything we had over those powerful few years .To drop off so bad in such a short time to me ,shows we had many things not right at all levels of the club,not just recruiting , or coaching.
Re in forces the view of being run by absolute professionals with a clear vision of what's required to succeed .
I agree that we probably have stuffed it up a bit .
From 2004 until 2011 the club played in seven finals series, five prelims, 3 grand finals including a drawn grand final and apart from some horrendous luck which could have seen us go back to back, this has been the most successful period of the club.
It doesn't help when you have sub standard training facilities compared to the Cats and Pies.
GF are incredibly hard to win. While we stuffed up the second quarter of the 2009 GF, you need a bit of luck as well.
We were underdogs in both the 09 and 10 GF.
We would have won 04 if we got there. Again, no luck.
GF are hard to win. You need luck. We stuffed up execution in 09 but overall, the club did not stuff up.
Holder of unacceptable views and other thought crimes.
SaintPav wrote:From 2004 until 2011 the club played in seven finals series, five prelims, 3 grand finals including a drawn grand final and apart from some horrendous luck which could have seen us go back to back, this has been the most successful period of the club.
It doesn't help when you have sub standard training facilities compared to the Cats and Pies.
GF are incredibly hard to win. While we stuffed up the second quarter of the 2009 GF, you need a bit of luck as well.
We were underdogs in both the 09 and 10 GF.
We would have won 04 if we got there. Again, no luck.
GF are hard to win. You need luck. We stuffed up execution in 09 but overall, the club did not stuff up.
Agree with this. People forget we were underdogs in all 3 GF's. That second quarter in 09....oh dear!
SaintPav wrote:From 2004 until 2011 the club played in seven finals series, five prelims, 3 grand finals including a drawn grand final and apart from some horrendous luck which could have seen us go back to back, this has been the most successful period of the club.
It doesn't help when you have sub standard training facilities compared to the Cats and Pies.
GF are incredibly hard to win. While we stuffed up the second quarter of the 2009 GF, you need a bit of luck as well.
We were underdogs in both the 09 and 10 GF.
We would have won 04 if we got there. Again, no luck.
GF are hard to win. You need luck. We stuffed up execution in 09 but overall, the club did not stuff up.
Completely agree. The club, players and coaches did well. We rolled the dice to win and came up short.
Great post munga and sceptic.
A lot of this must come down to player development as well and when you look at it from the players perspective the stkilda footy club must have been a career wrecker for quite a few players back then. At least that part seems to have changed for new players coming to the club.
.
