All a bit confusing(coaching)

[spert]

Common-sense would say a club hires an experienced coach with a good record of success and achievement. Going back over our history post Jeans, we had (not in any real order):

Patterson- not much coaching experience, but almost got the team in the finals in the '70s then it all fizzled out when we lost good players
Gellie- not sure why he got the gig, but would have been a champion player if not for injury
Jewell- Tiger premiership coach..not much success
Jezza- Carlton premiership coach- a little improvement, but not a lot of success
Sheldon- not much coaching experience, but the team went forward and got into the finals
Alves- not much coaching experience, but got us into a GF before the knives came out
Watson- nothing obvious
Blight- two time premiership coach..couldn't get us a premiership after half a season and got chopped
Thomas- successful country coach, and turned the team into a respected winning unit who reached the finals
Lyon- assistant coach whose disciplined but one-dimensional game got us into grand finals, but not the ultimate prize
Watters- successful WA coach and respected assistant AFL coach who couldn't get a shell of a team with fading stars into the finals, and was apparently so bad that he got the boot and will be given $500k

Makes you wonder what ticks at St Kilda..the only real trend I can see is "no big picture for success"

[SENsei]

I grinned at your Blight comment...pretty hard to win premierships in the first 15 rounds!! Poor Blighty. His golf handicap really improved that year though.

[Stillwaiting]

I still don't understand why Alves got the flick. At the time I thought typical StKilda, a bit if relative success and we go and push that big red self destruct button that sometimes seems to exist at the club.
Can someone shed some light as to who did what to Akves and who was holding the knife

[SaintPav]

I still don't understand why Alves got the flick. At the time I thought typical StKilda, a bit if relative success and we go and push that big red self destruct button that sometimes seems to exist at the club.
Can someone shed some light as to who did what to Akves and who was holding the knife

According to Plymo, Stan lost his way. He also told me Tim lost his way as well.

[Stillwaiting]

I still don't understand why Alves got the flick. At the time I thought typical StKilda, a bit if relative success and we go and push that big red self destruct button that sometimes seems to exist at the club.
Can someone shed some light as to who did what to Akves and who was holding the knife

According to Plymo, Stan lost his way. He also told me Tim lost his way as well.

And then Plymo lost his way, and couldn't find directions to GT house

[Bernard Shakey]

I still don't understand why Alves got the flick. At the time I thought typical StKilda, a bit if relative success and we go and push that big red self destruct button that sometimes seems to exist at the club.
Can someone shed some light as to who did what to Akves and who was holding the knife

The same as Watters. Stan lost the players and got offside with everyone else at the club.

[saintspremiers]

What about the Doc? Didn't he coal us in the 80's??

[Beno88]

Sheldon should never have been sacked. After two strong finals series he was sacked because we finished 12th in 1993. Bit stiff given we won 10 games and finished 12th, while Essendon won 13 games and finished 1st.

[remboy]

The Doc coached us from 87-89 and would have stayed if he hadn't had a stroke. We started turning the corner during his time.
I liked Ken Sheldon as a coach. I think his sacking was related to Win,ar walking out during 93. We were a top 4 side in the first and last months of that season but crap in between.
Alves lost the players. In 98 we went from being a game clear on top after round 14 to winning 2 of our last 10 games. Something was seriously wrong. Big mistake to pluck Watson out. Strange though that we won 7 of our first 10 or 11 games under him and then hardly won a game for the next year and a half.
Most of our coaching appointments over the last 25 years haven't been too bad. It's been the method of getting rid of them that has been unusual.

[SaintPav]

I still don't understand why Alves got the flick. At the time I thought typical StKilda, a bit if relative success and we go and push that big red self destruct button that sometimes seems to exist at the club.
Can someone shed some light as to who did what to Akves and who was holding the knife

According to Plymo, Stan lost his way. He also told me Tim lost his way as well.

And then Plymo lost his way, and couldn't find directions to GT house

Plymo lost his way that night.

Plymo did not mince words. It sounded like he hated GT from what he told me. He said that he brought GT back into the club and that it was all about him.

[Life Long Saint]

Sheldon should never have been sacked. After two strong finals series he was sacked because we finished 12th in 1993. Bit stiff given we won 10 games and finished 12th, while Essendon won 13 games and finished 1st.

And one of the star players went missing for a month over a contract dispute after a memorable win at Victoria Park!
He was very stiff.
He, along with Peter Hudson, brought a new level of professionalism to the club and we made our first final series after 18 years in 1991 only to lose to Geelong in a cracking game.

[spert]

What about the Doc? Didn't he coal us in the 80's??

Sorry I forgot the mighty Doc- he may have been the the guy to take us forward but sadly his health wasn't good

[supersaints]

It takes about three years for a new coach to get up to AFL / VFL speed , though they ALL have their limitations and quirky traits ( faults)
We got rid of Patterson / Alves / Thomas / Sheldon just when they appeared to have learned the ropes,
If we get an untried coach,we should expect them to take some time to get up to contention, exactly the same as we expect new recruits to take some time.
We have already seen that taking an established coach does not guarantee success as in Blight, if they are not 100% committed
All we can do is hope that we are about to make he right choice.

I have no doubt no matter which way we go the new coach will have as many detractors,as we do supporters.
Intersting times ahead, but now more than ever we need to accept the birds decision and turn up in good numbers next season. We just can't afford to let the Doggies, Roos and Melbourne kick us uP the bum as far as membership numbers.

[Sainternist]

I can't remember feeling so unenthusiastic about the appointment of a new coach since Tim Watson.