StCicatriz
Brownlow Medallist
- Aug 3, 2016
- 28,899
- 63,232
- AFL Club
- St Kilda
This. The problem is what richo identifies publicly and what he actually implements are two different things. What he implements often conflicts with what he's trying to achieve. Which is why he won't go beyond next year. He's a flawed coach.Yep, it was a disaster right from the get-go.
Richo says in the interview during one of our AFLX games that it's the young ones who are the ones who will take us that next step, so what do he and our coaching staff do?
Instead of playing these guys that he says are the most important to our hopes of progressing in their best positions, to make it easiest for them to improve and take us that next step, he starts the year with a bunch of them out of position, or in the VFL!
They play Steele on the wing, where he's very ordinary, Sinclair (who played by far his best footy on the wing in the previous year) forward (where he hasn't been much chop since his debut year), after saying over the summer that Acres will be "one of the most improved mids in the comp this year", they play him on the wing in round 1, and he's one of our best 2 or 3, then instead of leaving him there to thrive, they prioritise the out-of-form, good-ordinary Newnes there, and play Acres mostly forward again from the following week, then they start playing him in the ruck!
Then you've got Dunstan, who got the most votes in our B&F for the last 6 rounds of last year, who in their wisdom they start in the VFL, so that they can play an Armo that Richo later admits wasn't ready to play seniors at that stage. Once they bring Luke back in he kicks off where he left off last year, with a couple of 30 disposal games.
Then there was Lonie, who was one of our best in AFLX and against Carlton in JLT1, and who looked really sharp and like he'd gotten his game together again, who they dropped for JLT2, which was another decision that really shocked me at the time, having been really happy with what I saw of him live the previous few weeks. He was playing like he ended up playing late in the year.
Even Billings. I suspect he spent a lot of time training in the midfield over preseason and was expecting and wanting to play a lot more there during the season, but he was back to playing exclusively forward again and he really struggled to get going until they dropped him.
So I just think it was a car crash and that we shot ourselves in the foot big-time with all that, and as a result our season was largely over before it started, with our form and confidence shot.
And this is what frustrated st Kilda supporters. What the club says and what it does are two different things. They're often full of spin in the moment. Lots of talk. Little action.
I think fans want them to actually follow through on the commitment and expectation they set.
Hopefully lethers starts to bring back a strong emphasis of actions not words. Which gets back to what people like George MG stav etc. Wanted after the really bad north loss. They didn't care for words anymore. They just wanted them to do something about it. Just deliver something.
Geary richo et have had a habit of making very strong statement in the media about how the performance was not acceptable. They apologise to fans. They say they will bounce back. They say that's not what they stand for. They want to make us proud. But the common theme was they're back to making the same exact statement literally 2-4 weeks later when they cop another bad loss. Which means thats exactly what they stand for. Its a recurring theme. That's what their consistent output is. I mean richo this year even went as far as to say if the players care and the club cares then they will do something about it. They didn't.
They need to just start performing and stop talking spin.
Sadly the first real sign of that would have been for Finnis to right his mistake. Instead we got a season of spin and talk and mixed messages to try and avoid that.