Saints News 2022 St.Kilda AGM

[lewdogs]

A few interesting takeaways from the replay...

As reported we want to get out of pokies in the next few years. Big positive.

We spent 2.5 million (did I hear that right?) on the turf redevelopment and believe we have the best surface in the comp.

Want to keep connecting with Bayside area and believe Moorabbin can be a point of difference. Connection with Sandy Dragons also important and they are training at rsea park.

The stuff around the review and Ratts was all that we had heard before from Bassatt. Early impression is that we made the right call which we can see from higher training intensity and the connections Lyon has already made.

We did not run an open "process" because we knew what we wanted and people like Jason Blake made it clear that Lyon had the traits we were looking for in a coach.

While we want to get out of debt our priority is to invest in the football department and we intend to pay all our soft cap and sacrificed the financial benefit of selling a home game for football reasons. I got the impression we might not be out of debt for a little while.

 

[George]

Interesting that Bassat said the reason we went after Lyon was for clarity, striving to be the best, hunger, commitment, relationships with players and club, challenging the entire club to be better.

Pretty damning, and gives a bit of insight as to how poor the standards might've been under Ratten.

 

[Saintbloke]

Interesting that Bassat said the reason we went after Lyon was for clarity, striving to be the best, hunger, commitment, relationships with players and club, challenging the entire club to be better.

Pretty damning, and gives a bit of insight as to how poor the standards might've been under Ratten.

I would have thought that the head of the football dept would have been across standards and enforcing those with the coaching staff and players..sounds like asleep at the wheel.

 

[sammm]

A few interesting takeaways from the replay...

As reported we want to get out of pokies in the next few years. Big positive.

We spent 2.5 million (did I hear that right?) on the turf redevelopment and believe we have the best surface in the comp.

Want to keep connecting with Bayside area and believe Moorabbin can be a point of difference. Connection with Sandy Dragons also important and they are training at rsea park.

The stuff around the review and Ratts was all that we had heard before from Bassatt. Early impression is that we made the right call which we can see from higher training intensity and the connections Lyon has already made.

We did not run an open "process" because we knew what we wanted and people like Jason Blake made it clear that Lyon had the traits we were looking for in a coach.

While we want to get out of debt our priority is to invest in the football department and we intend to pay all our soft cap and sacrificed the financial benefit of selling a home game for football reasons. I got the impression we might not be out of debt for a little while.

I think, that as long as we chip away at it, its ok. maybe we just don't pay off 2 million a year off debt, but pay down lot less next year?

 

[gringo2011]

I think, that as long as we chip away at it, its ok. maybe we just don't pay off 2 million a year off debt, but pay down lot less next year?

If you look at Carlton, a positive year earned them $1 million extra in merchandise sales. I know everyone loves Finnis but his austerity program to pay down debt has cost us a lot. We refused to spend on the footy department and the low standards across all areas of the club have probably cost us years in the wilderness.

Spending money to make money is the only way out and Bassat seems to be smart enough to have worked it out. We are chasing the best of the best now. Walsh is a huge appointment for us. Those architects are a rare commodity and nearly every club that has turned their fortunes has had one from Neale Balme to Brian Cook, those guys make a huge difference to unifying direction.

We don't need to be financially reckless but prioritising the right areas to spend on are easier with a good experienced operator. The footy department should be the highest priority under any board.

 

[ScrappyDo]

I would have thought that the head of the football dept would have been across standards and enforcing those with the coaching staff and players..sounds like asleep at the wheel.

Rath was very much out of his depth here.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

Our club rooms in 1875 were what is now the St.Kilda station on Fitzroy St. Lets move there.

Go further. Bring back the trains to St Kilda complete with red rattlers and grey ghosts!

 

[jwikked]

The footy department should be the highest priority under any board.

As I've been saying for years:
We are a football club. We need to focus on football.

 

[George]

If you look at Carlton, a positive year earned them $1 million extra in merchandise sales. I know everyone loves Finnis but his austerity program to pay down debt has cost us a lot. We refused to spend on the footy department and the low standards across all areas of the club have probably cost us years in the wilderness.

Spending money to make money is the only way out and Bassat seems to be smart enough to have worked it out. We are chasing the best of the best now. Walsh is a huge appointment for us. Those architects are a rare commodity and nearly every club that has turned their fortunes has had one from Neale Balme to Brian Cook, those guys make a huge difference to unifying direction.

We don't need to be financially reckless but prioritising the right areas to spend on are easier with a good experienced operator. The footy department should be the highest priority under any board.

I can't agree with much of this. The only reason we were able to not sell a home game next year was because of the amount of work Finnis did in helping reduce debt over the last 2 seasons. He is the reason we aren't selling a home game next year so it's actually got everything to do with Finnis. We should be praising him, I guess it's easy to hang shit on people at the club when we're losing games.

I also don't agree we are chasing the best. Walsh is a great appointment but the rest are all Bassat's mates, much of what people here criticised the Finnis regime for. It's a bit hypocritical if looking objectively.

I actually think we are playing it extremely safe and if this goes **** up Bassat probably moves on along with Lethers and some others. It feels like a last ditch effort to turn it all around before we blow the list up and spend more years at the bottom in a full rebuild. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[gringo2011]

I can't agree with much of this. The only reason we were able to not sell a home game next year was because of the amount of work Finnis did in helping reduce debt over the last 2 seasons. He is the reason we aren't selling a home game next year so it's actually got everything to do with Finnis. We should be praising him, I guess it's easy to hang s**t on people at the club when we're losing games.

I also don't agree we are chasing the best. Walsh is a great appointment but the rest are all Bassat's mates, much of what people here criticised the Finnis regime for. It's a bit hypocritical if looking objectively.

I actually think we are playing it extremely safe and if this goes **** up Bassat probably moves on along with Lethers and some others. It feels like a last ditch effort to turn it all around before we blow the list up and spend more years at the bottom in a full rebuild. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Who is Basset's mates? Lyon? Lyon has grabbed his own people. Finnis never got mates in. More people who suited his cause driven agendas. I think Lethlean was the one who bought in unqualified friends and loaded us up with Hanners who was his mate's son.

Finnis got us home and he paid down some debt much of which was the move to Seaford and then the move home. He did some good stuff but he was bad for the footy side.

 

[George]

Who is Basset's mates? Lyon? Lyon has grabbed his own people. Finnis never got mates in. More people who suited his cause driven agendas. I think Lethlean was the one who bought in unqualified friends and loaded us up with Hanners who was his mate's son.

Finnis got us home and he paid down some debt much of which was the move to Seaford and then the move home. He did some good stuff but he was bad for the footy side.

Bassat has overseen the additions this year and they've all been mates one way or another - don't think we have gone after the best bar Walsh which I agree is an excellent appointment.

We don't actually know if Finnis is to blame or not because we don't even know if the players are any good, that's why Lyon was appointed apparently. But most definitely Finnis is the reason we are able to keep our home games next year and probably beyond. None of what we have now is possible without him and it's the foundations of any well run, successful club. He spent his time here putting the building blocks in place so the next guy can catapult us further.

I would much prefer a premiership than the balances looking good and the facilities state of the art, however perhaps you can't have one without the other.

 

[sammm]

Rath was very much out of his depth here.

I agree. Rath did not come into the cub to be football manager. Nor should he have been

 

[gringo2011]

Bassat has overseen the additions this year and they've all been mates one way or another - don't think we have gone after the best bar Walsh which I agree is an excellent appointment.

We don't actually know if Finnis is to blame or not because we don't even know if the players are any good, that's why Lyon was appointed apparently. But most definitely Finnis is the reason we are able to keep our home games next year and probably beyond. None of what we have now is possible without him and it's the foundations of any well run, successful club. He spent his time here putting the building blocks in place so the next guy can catapult us further.

I would much prefer a premiership than the balances looking good and the facilities state of the art, however perhaps you can't have one without the other.

I reckon if Finnis was still there that there was a good chance that we would have played interstate. I think Bassat is more into performance over debt reduction. He definitely was a step above some that we have had but his neglect of footy related stuff was definitely his downside.

 

[George]

I reckon if Finnis was still there that there was a good chance that we would have played interstate. I think Bassat is more into performance over debt reduction. He definitely was a step above some that we have had but his neglect of footy related stuff was definitely his downside.

Haha I doubt it, you should watch the AGM

 

[hayes]

Bassat has overseen the additions this year and they've all been mates one way or another - don't think we have gone after the best bar Walsh which I agree is an excellent appointment.

We don't actually know if Finnis is to blame or not because we don't even know if the players are any good, that's why Lyon was appointed apparently. But most definitely Finnis is the reason we are able to keep our home games next year and probably beyond. None of what we have now is possible without him and it's the foundations of any well run, successful club. He spent his time here putting the building blocks in place so the next guy can catapult us further.

I would much prefer a premiership than the balances looking good and the facilities state of the art, however perhaps you can't have one without the other.

I still don’t get how any of the additions are Bassett’s mates? That was Lethlean’s specialty.

 

[George]

I still don’t get how any of the additions are Bassett’s mates? That was Lethlean’s specialty.

Seems like it's Bassat and Lyon's too haha. Harvey Hayes Goddard Misson Blake and the rumours of SOS. Not sure if I've missed anyone but that's definitely more mates than Hanners and Gallagher haha

We didn't go after best available but it's a nice feel good story. Let's see if it pays off. I'm pessimistic about it but hope I'm wrong.

 

[hayes]

Seems like it's Bassat and Lyon's too haha. Harvey Hayes Goddard Misson Blake and the rumours of SOS. Not sure if I've missed anyone but that's definitely more mates than Hanners and Gallagher haha

We didn't go after best available but it's a nice feel good story. Let's see if it pays off. I'm pessimistic about it but hope I'm wrong.

We weren’t going to go with an untried assistant after a decade of misery so we went after the best available coach who brought in the people he wants like every other coach does. Clarkson is doing the same. And again, I don’t see how they’re Bassett’s mates.

 

[George]

We weren’t going to go with an untried assistant after a decade of misery so we went after the best available coach who brought in the people he wants like every other coach does. Clarkson is doing the same. And again, I don’t see how they’re Bassett’s mates.

Not going after an untried coach is the problem I had with it to begin with, like I said I think we are going the safe route and reeks to me of a last ditch effort before really going through a full bottom out rebuild. It's okay if you don't see how they're Bassat's mates, I think the connections are pretty clear.

And again, I hope they prove me wrong.

 

[hayes]

Not going after an untried coach is the problem I had with it to begin with, like I said I think we are going the safe route and reeks to me of a last ditch effort before really going through a full bottom out rebuild. It's okay if you don't see how they're Bassat's mates, I think the connections are pretty clear.

And again, I hope they prove me wrong.

If the connections are clear then I’m not sure why you’re the only person that’s made them.

If you go after an untried coach what type of coach are you looking for? Probably one that could get you to multiple grand finals, prelims and finals series right? To me it makes sense to get one that you know can do that already and bring in whoever he thinks can help him, because in all honesty what does anyone at the club know about what it takes to get there more than Ross anyway? We’ve been a basket case since he left.

I don’t think a full bottom out rebuild is out of the question even with Ross here. He’s here to help us find out whether we need it or not.

 

[George]

If the connections are clear then I’m not sure why you’re the only person that’s made them.

If you go after an untried coach what type of coach are you looking for? Probably one that could get you to multiple grand finals, prelims and finals series right? To me it makes sense to get one that you know can do that already and bring in whoever he thinks can help him, because in all honesty what does anyone at the club know about what it takes to get there more than Ross anyway? We’ve been a basket case since he left.

I don’t think a full bottom out rebuild is out of the question even with Ross here. He’s here to help us find out whether we need it or not.

I'm not the only person that has made them, there was a group in the Ross Lyon thread who had also mentioned the same things. It's not very difficult to connect the dots but I'm positive there's people who just want to believe we've turned a corner and others who maybe just don't want to own up to their own hypocrisy, I understand those reasons and not saying you are in either boat, just speaking generally.

Bassat has been around St.Kilda all his life, has a known relationship with Lyon from his prior coaching stint at the club and so it's no surprise to me that Bassat is bringing in people he knows and trusts ie his mates. It's not just a coincidence.

The reason I wanted to go after an untried coach is innovation. Malcolm Blight in 1997 is the last tried coach to win a premiership his 2nd time around. The rest won premierships in their first stints. You look at inspired appointments like Hardwick, Longmire, Clarkson and see how much they changed the history of their clubs. McRae another at Collingwood who hasn't won anything but taking Collingwood from 17th to a kick from a GF is insane.

Obviously there's more chance that an untried coach goes to shit but there's also more chance we find a diamond in the rough and that's why I wanted to pursue it, and also why I feel the last few months have all been safe, 'damage control' appointments. Feels honestly like we're bereft of new ideas and so we just ring up the guys who we know did a good job before and hope that they do it again. It's uninspired, to me. But we've gone over this far too many times in the Lyon thread so I don't want to make this the sole purpose of my response, so going back to my first point I think yes it's obvious Bassat is doing exactly what Lethers did and I personally don't think we went after the best available bar Walsh - excellent.

I also think an untried coach could find out exactly the same things about our list. What we are after shouldn't be history as a coach it should be characteristics of ruthlessness, no bullshit, high standards, great effort, honesty, leadership and clear communication. Literally anyone from a successful program that has coached before could instill that into these players and into the club. The difference between Lyon and somebody else is that I don't believe Lyon will have it in him to innovate again, I question how much he will allow others to be part of the coaching program. It's easy to say and do these things now, but come Round 12 if we're 4-8 I do wonder.

 

[Significant]

I'm not the only person that has made them, there was a group in the Ross Lyon thread who had also mentioned the same things. It's not very difficult to connect the dots but I'm positive there's people who just want to believe we've turned a corner and others who maybe just don't want to own up to their own hypocrisy, I understand those reasons and not saying you are in either boat, just speaking generally.

Bassat has been around St.Kilda all his life, has a known relationship with Lyon from his prior coaching stint at the club and so it's no surprise to me that Bassat is bringing in people he knows and trusts ie his mates. It's not just a coincidence.

The reason I wanted to go after an untried coach is innovation. Malcolm Blight in 1997 is the last tried coach to win a premiership his 2nd time around. The rest won premierships in their first stints. You look at inspired appointments like Hardwick, Longmire, Clarkson and see how much they changed the history of their clubs. McRae another at Collingwood who hasn't won anything but taking Collingwood from 17th to a kick from a GF is insane.

Obviously there's more chance that an untried coach goes to s**t but there's also more chance we find a diamond in the rough and that's why I wanted to pursue it, and also why I feel the last few months have all been safe, 'damage control' appointments. Feels honestly like we're bereft of new ideas and so we just ring up the guys who we know did a good job before and hope that they do it again. It's uninspired, to me. But we've gone over this far too many times in the Lyon thread so I don't want to make this the sole purpose of my response, so going back to my first point I think yes it's obvious Bassat is doing exactly what Lethers did and I personally don't think we went after the best available bar Walsh - excellent.

I also think an untried coach could find out exactly the same things about our list. What we are after shouldn't be history as a coach it should be characteristics of ruthlessness, no bullshit, high standards, great effort, honesty, leadership and clear communication. Literally anyone from a successful program that has coached before could instill that into these players and into the club. The difference between Lyon and somebody else is that I don't believe Lyon will have it in him to innovate again, I question how much he will allow others to be part of the coaching program. It's easy to say and do these things now, but come Round 12 if we're 4-8 I do wonder.

Frankly, I don't have enough confidence in our administration to choose a new candidate. We have been there before and have chosen poorly. Why is this time going to change? And with regards to premiership coaches since 2000, it's collective bias. How many times have untried coaches been appointed since 2000, compared to previous head coaches. The % of premiership winning coaches is only reflective of this percentage regardless, so it's no wonder they make up a greater proportion of the 23 grand finals won since 2000.

Getting Lyon in was the risk, and one well worth taking given our more recent history.

 

[gringo2011]

I'm not the only person that has made them, there was a group in the Ross Lyon thread who had also mentioned the same things. It's not very difficult to connect the dots but I'm positive there's people who just want to believe we've turned a corner and others who maybe just don't want to own up to their own hypocrisy, I understand those reasons and not saying you are in either boat, just speaking generally.

Bassat has been around St.Kilda all his life, has a known relationship with Lyon from his prior coaching stint at the club and so it's no surprise to me that Bassat is bringing in people he knows and trusts ie his mates. It's not just a coincidence.

The reason I wanted to go after an untried coach is innovation. Malcolm Blight in 1997 is the last tried coach to win a premiership his 2nd time around. The rest won premierships in their first stints. You look at inspired appointments like Hardwick, Longmire, Clarkson and see how much they changed the history of their clubs. McRae another at Collingwood who hasn't won anything but taking Collingwood from 17th to a kick from a GF is insane.

Obviously there's more chance that an untried coach goes to s**t but there's also more chance we find a diamond in the rough and that's why I wanted to pursue it, and also why I feel the last few months have all been safe, 'damage control' appointments. Feels honestly like we're bereft of new ideas and so we just ring up the guys who we know did a good job before and hope that they do it again. It's uninspired, to me. But we've gone over this far too many times in the Lyon thread so I don't want to make this the sole purpose of my response, so going back to my first point I think yes it's obvious Bassat is doing exactly what Lethers did and I personally don't think we went after the best available bar Walsh - excellent.

I also think an untried coach could find out exactly the same things about our list. What we are after shouldn't be history as a coach it should be characteristics of ruthlessness, no bullshit, high standards, great effort, honesty, leadership and clear communication. Literally anyone from a successful program that has coached before could instill that into these players and into the club. The difference between Lyon and somebody else is that I don't believe Lyon will have it in him to innovate again, I question how much he will allow others to be part of the coaching program. It's easy to say and do these things now, but come Round 12 if we're 4-8 I do wonder.

I don't think anyone is deluded about where we are at. Lyon is a proven high level coach who was available. Because we'd made two bad coaching calls in a row we had made it hard to roll the dice again. On top of that standards and systems right across the club were probably close to the worst in the league. We were very unlikely to gamble again. Essendon were in the same boat.

When clubs bring in a recycled coach it's also usually when the club is on the back foot. Carlton bought in Malthouse but did some terrible list management moves that probably cost them 5 to 10 years. Losing Fev, Betts, Robinson and Garlett was pretty much their whole forward line gone at once and terrible choices at the draft and trade table made it worse. They took Daisy Thomas even though he was ****ed.

The statistics for coaches changing clubs and winning a premiership are pretty hard to take much from. The best coaches hardly ever change clubs, if you win a premiership like Bevo, you get a huge amount of room to move. Most clubs will gamble on a new guy before going for a coach without a very strong resume and even still not many get recycled.

Lyon will come in and set up systems that have been proven to extract every drop and he's brought in his trusted crew like Misson to help. The assistants being ex Saints to me is a novelty and probably not what I would have done but if Lyon can manage it and use them how he wants it isn't a huge issue. He's an autocrat so should pretty much use them as his training police.

Jason Blake sounds as though he is much more responsible for the ex Saints and Lyon than Bassat who doesn't seem to be bringing in mates so much as being desperate to find someone who can get in and fix what he can see is below industry standards. We had no idea what we were doing up until recently. So many of the really glaring issues are being addressed and it's hard not to get caught up in the momentum and energy that it's creating.

 

[Verdun]

I'm not the only person that has made them, there was a group in the Ross Lyon thread who had also mentioned the same things. It's not very difficult to connect the dots but I'm positive there's people who just want to believe we've turned a corner and others who maybe just don't want to own up to their own hypocrisy, I understand those reasons and not saying you are in either boat, just speaking generally.

Bassat has been around St.Kilda all his life, has a known relationship with Lyon from his prior coaching stint at the club and so it's no surprise to me that Bassat is bringing in people he knows and trusts ie his mates. It's not just a coincidence.

The reason I wanted to go after an untried coach is innovation. Malcolm Blight in 1997 is the last tried coach to win a premiership his 2nd time around. The rest won premierships in their first stints. You look at inspired appointments like Hardwick, Longmire, Clarkson and see how much they changed the history of their clubs. McRae another at Collingwood who hasn't won anything but taking Collingwood from 17th to a kick from a GF is insane.

Obviously there's more chance that an untried coach goes to s**t but there's also more chance we find a diamond in the rough and that's why I wanted to pursue it, and also why I feel the last few months have all been safe, 'damage control' appointments. Feels honestly like we're bereft of new ideas and so we just ring up the guys who we know did a good job before and hope that they do it again. It's uninspired, to me. But we've gone over this far too many times in the Lyon thread so I don't want to make this the sole purpose of my response, so going back to my first point I think yes it's obvious Bassat is doing exactly what Lethers did and I personally don't think we went after the best available bar Walsh - excellent.

I also think an untried coach could find out exactly the same things about our list. What we are after shouldn't be history as a coach it should be characteristics of ruthlessness, no bullshit, high standards, great effort, honesty, leadership and clear communication. Literally anyone from a successful program that has coached before could instill that into these players and into the club. The difference between Lyon and somebody else is that I don't believe Lyon will have it in him to innovate again, I question how much he will allow others to be part of the coaching program. It's easy to say and do these things now, but come Round 12 if we're 4-8 I do wonder.

Yep agree with this, want to have faith in Lyon but I want our club to come from a position of strength not just rely on what we think will be respected.

I remember 2009 / 2010 going into games expecting to win and having internal and external respect and can understand the desire to want this again.

Do not believe in Lyon being the messiah and everything going to be great with him back. We should have systems in place where we challenge ourselves and at a minimum this should include a model and have the confidences where Lyon develops another coach who is then able to push him out.

Yeah Lyon might be pushing standards now (or that is what we are hearing) but the club should have structures in place where this occurs plus innovation occurs.

We have some players who if honest, we are not sure how good they will be.......Owens, Sharman, Windhager, Gresham, Wanganeen-Milera, Coffield, Clark, Battle, Bytel along with Marshall and King all have potential written all over them. They need game time along with some belief.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

Haha I doubt it, you should watch the AGM

I reckon theres not a single person below 60 in the live audience

 

[SteeleSaints]

Gringo how about we give the conspiracy theories a rest for 2023 and work on the positives. Finnis and Lethlean spent the soft cap that we could afford and now it has been relaxed and now Lethlean is suggesting we will continue to pay the full cap. RTB has brought in a group of highly credentialled Saints people, the excitement and belief that has created is huge. Finally we have football people making the calls and Lethlean can work at the CEO role earning peoples trust.