Can Longer save Richo's hide??

[saintspremiers]

IF we win and IF Billy makes a decent contribution the world is all good again.

A loss and another average showing by Billy and Richo will look fairly stupid IMO

[Bluthy]

Why because we want to try both young rucks out and see how the different styles go? Thats actually clever. Its a laugh how precious people are about certain players. Are we going for a flag this year and I missed it? Or do we still have a lot of experimenting to do. Me thinks the latter. We need to know what we have, and haven't got, on our hands with certain players.

[saintspremiers]

Why because we want to try both young rucks out and see how the different styles go? Thats actually clever. Its a laugh how precious people are about certain players. Are we going for a flag this year and I missed it? Or do we still have a lot of experimenting to do. Me thinks the latter. We need to know what we have, and haven't got, on our hands with certain players.

I see your point but we still need a win tomorrow, and that's first priority

Priority I thought was to try and make the finals this year. I was never expecting anything much above 8th btw and would be delighted if we can somehow sneak into the eight.

[Bluthy]

Why because we want to try both young rucks out and see how the different styles go? Thats actually clever. Its a laugh how precious people are about certain players. Are we going for a flag this year and I missed it? Or do we still have a lot of experimenting to do. Me thinks the latter. We need to know what we have, and haven't got, on our hands with certain players.

I see your point but we still need a win tomorrow, and that's first priority

Priority I thought was to try and make the finals this year. I was never expecting anything much above 8th btw and would be delighted if we can somehow sneak into the eight.

Winning is not the first priority - it never should be at our point in the rebuild. You start tightening up this early we aint gunna get a strong squad. We can play pretty fast and loose at the moment. Richo's desire for wins over development has been a huge issue for our young players. His old pants backline last year and taking Shneids off the rookie list has held our young turks back. I weep for our future. Small weeping at the moment, but could get bigger.

[Otiman]

I wondered what the obsession was last week with the Longer hate here. He gives first use to the ball to our mids much better than Hickey has so far this year. For me this makes up for his lack of use around the ground. My only criticism is that he is being exploited by the opposition defensively.

[saintspremiers]

Why because we want to try both young rucks out and see how the different styles go? Thats actually clever. Its a laugh how precious people are about certain players. Are we going for a flag this year and I missed it? Or do we still have a lot of experimenting to do. Me thinks the latter. We need to know what we have, and haven't got, on our hands with certain players.

I see your point but we still need a win tomorrow, and that's first priority

Priority I thought was to try and make the finals this year. I was never expecting anything much above 8th btw and would be delighted if we can somehow sneak into the eight.

Winning is not the first priority - it never should be at our point in the rebuild. You start tightening up this early we aint gunna get a strong squad. We can play pretty fast and loose at the moment. Richo's desire for wins over development has been a huge issue for our young players. His old pants backline last year and taking Shneids off the rookie list has held our young turks back. I weep for our future. Small weeping at the moment, but could get bigger.

So how many years do we have to go in The Book of Bluth until winning becomes priority?

At some stage it has to. I get it that it didn't need to be up until this year but at some point you need to pull the trigger and train the boys into a playing to win mentality. Now IMO is time. Expectations need to be raised and we need to move past the development stage mentality. Yes, we are still about 3 or 4 top line players from an acceptable best 22 but the move needs to be made. Really disappointing Dunstan is out - it's warranted but it's a bad sign he's gone backward.

[realdeal]

I wondered what the obsession was last week with the Longer hate here. He gives first use to the ball to our mids much better than Hickey has so far this year. For me this makes up for his lack of use around the ground. My only criticism is that he is being exploited by the opposition defensively.

So he doesn't take marks, get possessions and is exploited by his opponent?

Him giving us first use of the ball falls abit flat when the Geelong ruckman had more hit outs..

like a previous poster said, you might as well play Holmes, he definitely gets hit outs..

I might add that Hickey went up against 3 of the best ruckman around in Gawn, Grundy and Martin.. And Steven didn't play in two of those, I think he makes a difference in getting centre clearances.

Anyway, I hope Longer plays a blinder this week!

[thejiggingsaint]

I don't think Hickey has played at anywhere near the form showed last year, so far in 2017. I'd like to see Pierce given a run too. This is going to be a season of continued experimentation (IMHO) IF we win this week in Tassie, it will put our win-loss ratio in to a better spot than it was twelve months ago, now THAT to me is improvement.

[Playon]

Why because we want to try both young rucks out and see how the different styles go? Thats actually clever. Its a laugh how precious people are about certain players. Are we going for a flag this year and I missed it? Or do we still have a lot of experimenting to do. Me thinks the latter. We need to know what we have, and haven't got, on our hands with certain players.

I see your point but we still need a win tomorrow, and that's first priority

Priority I thought was to try and make the finals this year. I was never expecting anything much above 8th btw and would be delighted if we can somehow sneak into the eight.

Winning is not the first priority - it never should be at our point in the rebuild. You start tightening up this early we aint gunna get a strong squad. We can play pretty fast and loose at the moment. Richo's desire for wins over development has been a huge issue for our young players. His old pants backline last year and taking Shneids off the rookie list has held our young turks back. I weep for our future. Small weeping at the moment, but could get bigger.

Of course winning is a priority, that is if you want the club to improve. If we are to attracts FA's or out of contract players.We need to be a destination club. If we were to sit there and wallow around near the bottom of the ladder or even out of the eight it becomes harder for us to appeal to new players. Its also bad for membership and sponsors.

Yeah sure we experiment giving games to players that have earn a chance via the vfl just as every other club does. But we need to win to improve, Its a long way back via the draft, just ask Melbourne or we could become the next Richmond

[Bluthy]

Why because we want to try both young rucks out and see how the different styles go? Thats actually clever. Its a laugh how precious people are about certain players. Are we going for a flag this year and I missed it? Or do we still have a lot of experimenting to do. Me thinks the latter. We need to know what we have, and haven't got, on our hands with certain players.

I see your point but we still need a win tomorrow, and that's first priority

Priority I thought was to try and make the finals this year. I was never expecting anything much above 8th btw and would be delighted if we can somehow sneak into the eight.

Winning is not the first priority - it never should be at our point in the rebuild. You start tightening up this early we aint gunna get a strong squad. We can play pretty fast and loose at the moment. Richo's desire for wins over development has been a huge issue for our young players. His old pants backline last year and taking Shneids off the rookie list has held our young turks back. I weep for our future. Small weeping at the moment, but could get bigger.

Of course winning is a priority, that is if you want the club to improve. If we are to attracts FA's or out of contract players.We need to be a destination club. If we were to sit there and wallow around near the bottom of the ladder or even out of the eight it becomes harder for us to appeal to new players. Its also bad for membership and sponsors.

Yeah sure we experiment giving games to players that have earn a chance via the vfl just as every other club does. But we need to win to improve, Its a long way back via the draft, just ask Melbourne or we could become the next Richmond

Pull your head out of your arse. FA's want to come to clubs that are doing things right. Our previous generation hung around the bottom of the ladder for ages, loaded up on quality and picks and hey presto we made prelim after prelim, 3 grannies and almost 2 flags. You need quality, you need elite players. "Wallow around the near the bottom" - stupid thing to say. That is how the system works. We've been down the bottom but still have drawn new players. WAnt a lot of members - win a flag. That what gets them and keeps them. Lyon's best 25 didn't work - he should have experimented more.

Winning is not the be all and end all. YOu gotta be smarter than that dumb approach. That approach is starting to make our list look like lacking enough high draft picks to win a flag.

[thejiggingsaint]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but our win-loss ratio at the conclusion of round five is actually better than at the same stage last season. Like last year, we have lost our first two games, but unlike last year we went on to win the next two. The Geelong game saw us, for sizeable periods of the match, taking it right up to Geelong. The Hawthorn game is one that we can win, but also need to be wary of as the Hawks are now winning again! I honestly wonder what makes some folk think that our season is (quote) "already gone"..... if stats and results are anything to go by, our improvement is still well on track. I appreciate that my view could be seen as " blueskying" or " delusional" I'll just let results speak for me on that particular score.

[spert]

The boys need to really switch on for this match, and do it for four quarters. Last year the difference was Mitchell..and a dodgy Hawk free kick for goal.

[White Winmar]

Going gangbusters. Eleventh with a percentage of 91. That's the sort of improvement I'd rather do without. A cunning plan to sneak up on the opposition by giving it a head start, perhaps? Facing Hawthorn, WB, GWS, Swans, NM, Carlton and Adelaide in Adelaide over the next seven rounds. Six of last year's finalists. Yep, we've got the rest of the competition right where we want them. I can't quite see the genius of this plan, but it appears to have been rejected by the ten teams above us.

[saintspremiers]

Going gangbusters. Eleventh with a percentage of 91. That's the sort of improvement I'd rather do without. A cunning plan to sneak up on the opposition by giving it a head start, perhaps? Facing Hawthorn, WB, GWS, Swans, NM, Carlton and Adelaide in Adelaide over the next seven rounds. Six of last year's finalists. Yep, we've got the rest of the competition right where we want them. I can't quite see the genius of this plan, but it appears to have been rejected by the ten teams above us.

Amen brother!

Geez just shows how tough a FIXture we have in
The first half of the year!

[Jacks Back]

Going gangbusters. Eleventh with a percentage of 91. That's the sort of improvement I'd rather do without. A cunning plan to sneak up on the opposition by giving it a head start, perhaps? Facing Hawthorn, WB, GWS, Swans, NM, Carlton and Adelaide in Adelaide over the next seven rounds. Six of last year's finalists. Yep, we've got the rest of the competition right where we want them. I can't quite see the genius of this plan, but it appears to have been rejected by the ten teams above us.

Are you kidding? On exposed form we can beat Hawthorn, Swans, NM and Carlton and we beat WB last year. I can't see us beating GWS or Adelaide though. Just blue-skying it!!

[thejiggingsaint]

OR being "delusional"? Jacks Back? let's PLEASE not look for positives, it's SO un-Saints-like!

[Dave McNamara]

OR being "delusional"? Jacks Back? let's PLEASE not look for positives, it's SO un-Saints-like!

I'm with Jack!

We might be 2-3, but despite all the Saintsational resident Chicken Littles busting outta' the hen house (again), we're not far off it.

Dreamons was that one bad third quarter. (Their second quarter comeback was only possible due to our woeful kicking for goal.)
West Coke - despite kicking ourselves out of it, we were still had our noses in front of the scumpiring, till deep in the last quarter, when we finally ran outta' legs.
Similar with the Hillbillies. We showed we could well and truly match 'em, but again ran out legs.

Now I'm certainly not saying we should (or even could) be 5-zip now. What I'm trying to say to our Chicken Little demographic is, people... the sky is not falling. We are closer than you think. And damn close.

Or as somebody who we all know and love around here put it, and much better than I...

i enjoyed the game.

geelong = very solid side

we matched / even bettered them until 15 minutes to go.

that they overran us ... says more about their ability to 'surge'*

Matthews talked it ... and he was 100% accurate ... imo

this is a belief , fitness , effort already expended , team cohesion ,
set of issues which require only games and patience

this game , replayed in a season probably ends in a draw
this game , replayed in 2 seasons ends with us marching on

Patience , in my book.
... i'm happy enough.

Keep the faith you saintas!

[thejiggingsaint]

Well said Dave!

[spert]

All the talk about "we coulda done this, we coulda won that, we were almost there" etc etc etc is a lot of bull twang- we lost those games due to poor skills, and it appears some players not a s fit as we expect. Over to you coach..sort it out!

[White Winmar]

The "chicken little" title is a bit inaccurate and frankly, a little childish. It describes someone who is a doomsayer, a Cassandra, who, without any evidence, or in spite of it always believes the worst. Based on a children's story. On the other hand, we have pragmatists and realists, who look at the facts and attempt to give a reasoned opinion of the situation.

Then we have the Pollyannas, dreamers and blueskyers, who believe that everything will turn out fine, even if there is no evidence to support that conclusion. They may be right in the end, but history shows us that there is little evidence to support their conclusions. In the history of our club, they've been wrong 143 out of 144 attempts. That's a bit unfair. They haven't predicted that every year, but in the 48 years I have followed the saints they haven't got a single premiership prediction right, and yearly predictions of finals have proved correct at a rate of around 33%. Terrible odds, whichever way you look at it.

A bit like Charlie Brown believing he will get to kick the football every year, only for Lucy Van Pelt to pull it away and send him crashing to the deck. I find the blind optimism as annoying as those who mindlessly bag players. Two sides of the same coin. There is, after all, SFA we as supporters can do to change the performance of our club, other than pay up memberships, sponsor players and go along on match day and cheer.

Wishing for something has never delivered a single thing, unless you believe in Santa Claus, or Disney Movies. The Pollyannas remind me of "Chemical Ali", Saddam Hussein's propaganda spokesman who thundered on live television that Iraq would win a glorious victory over the American Devils, while in the background, American tanks and troops destroyed his surrounds. He was arrested and executed.

While I love the enthusiasm of our Pollyannas, sometimes I don't know why they bother. They used to give me a smile, but now I just find it repetitive and slightly annoying. I don't know how our Pollyannas measure improvement, but I think the look on Richo's face on 360, and the things he's been saying in after match pressers, suggest he's far from happy with our progress and efforts thus far. If he was happy with our situation at present, I'd be very worried. We don't want to compare ourselves with last year. We want to hit our targets this year. I doubt we're currently on track.

I think the team of late 2016 would probably beat the current mob, purely on exposed form. I think that's realistic. Having said all that, I "hope" we smash the Hawks this week, surge into the finals and snatch the flag, WB style. Somehow I think the last two are wishful thinking, based on the evidence so far.

[St Chris]

[Our previous generation hung around the bottom of the ladder for ages, loaded up on quality and picks and hey presto we made prelim after prelim, 3 grannies and almost 2 flags. You need quality, you need elite players.

Semi Final 1998.....10th 1999.....Spoon 2000.....15th 2001.....15th 2002.....11th 2003.....Prelim 2004
vs.
Elim Final 2011.....9th 2012.....16th 2013......Spoon 2014.....14th 2015.....9th 2016......????? 2017

It's time to make winning more important. One of the reasons we played in GF's in '09 and '10 was that we had a winning culture with that group of players, they'd had 5 solid years of winning more than they lost. It's time to get that belief into this generation.

[thejiggingsaint]

Based on "the evidence so far", (compared to what? Last season?) Id say that we're not tracking as well as the pre-season hype would have us believe. PLENTY of room for improvement. However, I'm also of the opinion that this rebuild is still very much a matter of the coaches finding the right blend for the side, and for this reason, see us still in experimentation mode for some time. Naturally, I'd love us to be up there in the top eight NOW, the reality is that our kicking is FAR too wayward, and some of our mids need to lift their game. There again, this time last year, I'd have been reasonably satisfied with two wins, especially after the debacle in Tassie! Winning IS ( has ALWAYS been) important, but it doesn't just happen overnight with a developing side like ours. I agree to disagree with folk who think differently to me on that point.

[spert]

We don't want to become the perennial team on the improve and rebuild, and this will all magically happen in 2020 or beyond- it really covers up poor recruiting, poor coaching etc.. At some stage very soon, we need to make a statement on the field that we are ready to contest the finals, and act on this. I look at the current team and just see a lack of togetherness as a unit- not a good sign.

[thejiggingsaint]

That's fair comment re: us becoming the "perennial team on the improve and rebuild" hard to disagree with that, mate. As someone who's been bestowed with the mantle of "Blue-skyer" or "Pollyanna" I'll let you know that, contrary to what my friends of other views may say about me, I've NEVER expected or believed that " things will magically turn out right" I simply believe that they CAN, if steady and consistent improvement can be maintained. The events of the past six years at the club have proved to be testing ( to say the least ) Coaches walking out, coaches being sacked, off field woes. BUT it's my honest and sincere belief, that THIS coach, and this club administration are broadly on the right track. Doesn't mean I agree with or support every decision they make ( I just prefer not to bag the club on a forum ) We all have the same aspirations for the Saints, we simply have differing opinions as to how those aspirations are realised

[Saint wagga]

F*** me dead! I just listened to richos pressed and he thought Billy was good last week!! He also basically blamed our entire 3rd quarter annihilation against Melbourne on centre bounce!! No wonder Hickey has been banished to the 2's!! I'm just flabbergasted that anybody, let alone the senior coach thinks Longer was anything but useless last week!! And for the last stinking time...he's not aggressive!! He got pole axed by Blicavs, Zac smith was much better than him, these would have to be two of the least physical rucks around. His 'physicality' is a complete myth, he just isn't tough and isn't intimidating to other afl players!! Strewth rant over!