Non Lions Discussion 2024

[Darren Downunder]

I have many conflicting thoughts and feelings about this St Kilda thing.

There is some truth to his claims. The system benefits the rich and powerful Victorian clubs. There is a faint compensation given to the northern clubs via our academies. The NGA stuff benefits all Victorian clubs so it doesn’t address the power imbalance between the big victorians and the minnows. As a result, clubs like StKilda, North, and the Bulldogs are disadvantaged versus Collingwood, Carlton etc.

But that’s as far as my sympathy goes. The debate about a national league was on in earnest in the 1970’s. There were many proposals, but the Victorian clubs didn’t want a league, higher than the VFL. So they torpedoed every attempt to create a genuine National league and tried to colonise the other football states.

It was clear that this would be a death sentence for smaller Victorian clubs because you can’t have a national comp with 12 Victorian teams. But the muppets running those clubs didn’t seem to care. They knifed, south Melbourne, and then they knifed Fitzroy. But even 10 Victorian teams is too many. Clubs like StKilda, North, Footscray will reap what they have sown.

But… muppet boy in StKilda probably wasn’t even born when Aylet and co signed his club’s death warrant. So I still feel a little bit sorry for him.

Until he he takes aim at us. The other clubs which are disadvantaged by not being in Victoria, two of which were driven out of the state to survive.

Ah why bother… I’m too old for this rubbish.

 

[LionsOrDieTrion]

They’ve spent the back half of the year telling any journo who will listen that he should be band 1 compo. Even leaked that their offer to him to stay was upwards of 900k to try pressure 5e hawks to up their offer.

Would Josh Battle be in our best 25??

 

[The Flying Belgian]

Their list is in no mans land because of the dreadful recruiting. By the time they recruit the youth for this rebuild their current guns in Sinclair (30 next year) and Steele (30 next year) will be finishing up. They have a couple of good young guys, but the cupboard is bare.

I also don't know why anyone would want to join that list profile via trade or FA unless its just to cash in on a big offer.

So much this. I do feel for them in some way - they just are not a glamorous club. But I'd argue it's not because of their location. In fact, they really should be able to market themselves to players based on their locale.

Their problem is a history of poor administration and football staff. They've swung and missed on the few first round picks they've had in the last 10 years. They've overpaid for guys like Brad Hill who's talented, but just a winger and swung and miss on other trades like Hannebury. Then they've appointed a coach in Lyon who, while he can squeeze the best out of a list, doesn't seem like a coach who can inspire players to move clubs to play under hm.

 

[MSB ROYS]

No one gave a shit about the Lions when our players were leaving about 10 years ago, with most of the destination clubs screwing us over in pick returns. Most of the top draft picks during this time went to the Suns and GWS as well. It was a difficult time for everyone.
Never in the top 8 for one week for 8 years. Club was poorly run. However, we lowly but surely built up the back office, improved the culture, brought in Fagan and have improved every year. Our women's team is also excellently run and also give 100%.
Probably the most important thing for the Lions has won 4/6 grand finals. Equal number of AFL premierships with Geelong and WCE is an amazing achievement IMO.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Would Josh Battle be in our best 25??

Nope

 

[Mr Ripper]

Imagine being the closest Bunnings to half the population of a city of 5 million people, who worship Bunnings products, and being the poorest, least successful franchise of the lot of them. That’s the Saints.

 

[Sproj]

Paraphrasing here: 'Hey everyone, over here, watch me do this trick.'

Pulls out a dead bird

'Why are you leaving? We're relevant too!'

 

[KissKiss]

So much this. I do feel for them in some way - they just are not a glamorous club. But I'd argue it's not because of their location. In fact, they really should be able to market themselves to players based on their locale.

Their problem is a history of poor administration and football staff. They've swung and missed on the few first round picks they've had in the last 10 years. They've overpaid for guys like Brad Hill who's talented, but just a winger and swung and miss on other trades like Hannebury. Then they've appointed a coach in Lyon who, while he can squeeze the best out of a list, doesn't seem like a coach who can inspire players to move clubs to play under hm.

Yeah their location should be a major advantage. They should be able to sell the metro beach life in nice suburbs better than any other club in Melbourne. With how strong feeder clubs like Sandringham are at the moment, they should be doing their absolute best to tap into the kids coming through that pipeline (but I dont know if they put the work into that).

They just seem to have a terrible loser attitude from top to bottom and whinge more than try and actually put themselves forward. Its always crying that they dont have F/S or crying that they dont get tv games or something else

I do get that the smaller Melbourne clubs do get screwed over by the big Melbourne clubs, but they seem to do so little to fix their issues

 

[Tom14]

Their list is in no mans land because of the dreadful recruiting. By the time they recruit the youth for this rebuild their current guns in Sinclair (30 next year) and Steele (30 next year) will be finishing up. They have a couple of good young guys, but the cupboard is bare.

I also don't know why anyone would want to join that list profile via trade or FA unless its just to cash in on a big offer.

Very very mature club the saints. Definitely don't have a heap of their own problems going on, don't look over there - focus on the ACADEMIES

 

[Harris Specter]

Very very mature club the saints. Definitely don't have a heap of their own problems going on, don't look over there - focus on the ACADEMIES

Wow, what a way to treat a player.
They wonder why they can't attract talent

 

[Tom14]

Wow, what a way to treat a player.
They wonder why they can't attract talent

It reminds me so much of how we were acting at the end of 2013. Obviously they face things that big vic clubs don't - the pies can botch draft picks for a decade and get bailed out by F/S and attracting talent. We ran into a bunch of issues that weren't our fault.

But how you respond to that matters for selling a vision to your players, supporters and the wider footy world. Fages came in and I think we pretty much stopped complaining about how hard it was to retain players and attract talent.

We leant on recruiting players who would like to be out of the limelight - Saints should be talking about how cool it is to live by the beach! But they spend most of their time complaining about the facilities, other teams' advantages, and then publicly chasing and being rejected by basically every decent player despite them offering heaps of cash.

It creates a sthink around the club that is very very hard to dispell.

 

[Darren Downunder]

It reminds me so much of how we were acting at the end of 2013. Obviously they face things that big vic clubs don't - the pies can botch draft picks for a decade and get bailed out by F/S and attracting talent. We ran into a bunch of issues that weren't our fault.

But how you respond to that matters for selling a vision to your players, supporters and the wider footy world. Fages came in and I think we pretty much stopped complaining about how hard it was to retain players and attract talent.

We leant on recruiting players who would like to be out of the limelight - Saints should be talking about how cool it is to live by the beach! But they spend most of their time complaining about the facilities, other teams' advantages, and then publicly chasing and being rejected by basically every decent player despite them offering heaps of cash.

It creates a sthink around the club that is very very hard to dispell.

Yeah, so true. In 2013 I was caught up in the “poor fella me” mindset too. When supporters of big Melbourne clubs came on here to tell us to “fix your Kulcha” I would steam!

I am immensely grateful for Swann, Noble, Fagan and Conole who turned us around.

Was Swan the first domino in the chain? Did the AFL tap Him on the shoulder?

Would teams like North and StKilda be open to having the AFL bail them out?

But more importantly, do the AFL care enough to help them or are they happy to let them sink?

 

[Elixuh]

The Saint's President's anecdote about going up to every AFL Commissioner and saying 'you should give the best player to the Lions this year' and then walking away and turning and saying 'but don't make them pay for it'. It is very minnow St Kilda vibes. Look at me stand up to the man. And the Saints fans at the B&F cheer. But ultimately nothing changes and the Saints squander another first round pick this year and trade in the next Dan Butler.

 

[Elixuh]

Ah, so this whole thing is partly about them only receiving likely band 2 compo for battle and trying to edge the afl to perform their special herbs and spices to get it to band 1, isn't it.

 

[Tom14]

Ah, so this whole thing is partly about them only receiving likely band 2 compo for battle and trying to edge the afl to perform their special herbs and spices to get it to band 1, isn't it.

Yep, they were leaking 3 weeks ago that they had upped their own offer to Battle to be above $900k to try push the Hawthorn offer up.

About as good a chance of this ploy succeeding as us complaining about the Leunberger compo being a second rounder, lol.

 

[Elixuh]

Why didn't Fred Basset mention the NGAs. Oh, because St Kilda are benefiting from those.

 

[Viceregal]

Imagine if St Kilda get their wish, only for a couple of generational F/S talents pop up for them. Would be so St kilda. Poor buggers.

Not needed ... being the principled egalitarian folks that they are they would refuse to match said generational talents even under the current rules leading the way into the promised (if mediocre) land!

 

[scoman]

Not needed ... being the principled egalitarian folks that they are they would refuse to match said generational talents even under the current rules leading the way into the promised (if mediocre) land!

Bless their cotton socks.

 

[Pride of lions]

StKilda have a very strange way of operating and always have. For years they complained about having Moorabbin as their home base and decided to relocate to a training base down near Frankston ( which I think was funded by the Frankston Council and the state government). Then after a few years down there they decided it was a wrong move because the players didn’t like travelling the extra 20 minutes to train there. So they got more funding to upgrade the original facilities at Moorabbin and move back there. The whole thing reeks of incompetence and ‘poor me’ attitude and on top of that their recruiting from other clubs has been horrendous,paying big money for duds. Their management has been appalling on and off the field and now all they can do is try to point fingers at everyone but themselves. They need a complete clean out from top to bottom and rebuild the whole place like we did with Fagan, Noble, Daly etc.