Preview Round 12, 2024: West Coast v St.Kilda - Optus Stadium - Saturday 1st June, 4.35pm AEST

[Zzzed]

I watched bits and pieces of the Sandy game last week - and unfortunately missed the 3rd quarter when Hotton was on fire.
But from what I saw , there wasn’t anyone who was tearing it up demanding a spot in the seniors . Crouch and Clark both wasted lots of disposals, Butler wasn’t particularly dominant and Membrey got lucky playing on a sub standard defender. It was more a case of everyone did enough to get us the win without anyone dominating.

If Garcia is available I would bring him back in.
We are in desperate need of small crumbing forwards and some midfield support for Steele. So I guess even though they don’t deserve it, Crouch and Butler (or Hotton in)

Collard will be desperate to play in front of friends and family so , he needs to be managed carefully.

 

[borderbarry]

Best on the ground in Sandys wins the last two weeks has been big MaX Heath but I dont see anyone calling for his debut.

 

[The Punter]

Don't play Sharman just to make him the sub. Surely Membrey comes in for him.

Gifting Collard another game because it is in Perth is not exactly selection integrity. Get Hotton in for him on the back of a good performance.

Butler will need more games at Sandy.

And Crouch in for probably Bonner - Sinclair back to the defensive rotation and Crouch into the guts.

 

[Nutsngum]

Don't play Sharman just to make him the sub. Surely Membrey comes in for him.

Gifting Collard another game because it is in Perth is not exactly selection integrity. Get Hotton in for him on the back of a good performance.

Butler will need more games at Sandy.

And Crouch in for probably Bonner - Sinclair back to the defensive rotation and Crouch into the guts.

Whilst I do think we are better off with two dedicated small forwards, Collard is just not up to it at the moment and Butler doesnt have the form yet.

Hotton has shown enough this year, even from limited games, that he will be an improvement on Collard's output and he can also play a partial midfield role which Collard obviously cant. If anything, he deserves a debut off a performance like that and I dont think his role will be a detriment to team balance.

 

[Sainter1873]

Crouch, Clark and Membrey have to come in. We need to start winning games and I’m a bit over giving games to the younger players that are clearly struggling.

Webster Howard Wilkie
Sinclair Battle NWM
Hill Dow Wood
Henry Membrey Wilson
Owens King Higgins

Marshall Steele Crouch

Ross Clark Windhager Stocker

 

[CaptainRisky]

Best on the ground in Sandys wins the last two weeks has been big MaX Heath but I dont see anyone calling for his debut.

He may not be ready yet Baz but he has really jumped out of the ground the last few weeks, I'm betting he will still be at the club next year , some are pretty quick to right off young rucks

 

[Diehard Saint]

Gonna be pissing down over here on Saturday, best hope is to grind them down in the wet.

Should help
Our lousy skills at the very least!

 

[Diehard Saint]

He may not be ready yet Baz but he has really jumped out of the ground the last few weeks, I'm betting he will still be at the club next year , some are pretty quick to right off young rucks

Really hope he makes it. We really need some of these speculative picks to come through.

 

[Joffaboy]

Molten Ganglands post is spot on. We have a 3 year window before Tassie come in.
We brought in Dalrymple to do this.
We can see by the way Sandy are going the potential of the kids, just have to keep.on that trajectory.
Max Heath has been getting visibly better at training and it's starting to showing games. Rucks take to about 25 before their real potential is realised. Worth persisting with.
Hotton has two decent games, would love to see him in, but I fear the step up could ruin his confidence he has just got. Another game or two in the reserves.

Would play Clark, Crouch and Butler, some harder bodies in the wet. Need to smashed in. Can maybe stifle Reid in the wet a bit.

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[ThomasR]

And Crouch in for probably Bonner - Sinclair back to the defensive rotation and Crouch into the guts.

Hard agree. Time to draw a line through the Sinclair midfield experiment and put him back to where he's a dual AA. Looks completely lost at stoppage and is much more effective peeling off half back. Bonner has been ok but no spot for him now.

Paradoxically I think Collard should get one more crack before returning to the VFL/gym. Incredulous that he was picked to begin with on zero form, even moreso that he got a second game, but dropping him now would complete the trifecta of stuffing his confidence. Reap what you sow. Hopefully he kicks a snag or two in front of family and friends and gets a bit of belief that he will belong at the level one day. WC is a good match up for small forwards.

 

[Veer Right]

Best on the ground in Sandys wins the last two weeks has been big MaX Heath but I dont see anyone calling for his debut.

Would love to see him debut.

 

[True Believer]

Molten Ganglands post is spot on. We have a 3 year window before Tassie come in.
We brought in Dalrymple to do this.
We can see by the way Sandy are going the potential of the kids, just have to keep.on that trajectory.
Max Heath has been getting visibly better at training and it's starting to showing games. Rucks take to about 25 before their real potential is realised. Worth persisting with.
Hotton has two decent games, would love to see him in, but I fear the step up could ruin his confidence he has just got. Another game or two in the reserves.

Would play Clark, Crouch and Butler, some harder bodies in the wet. Need to smashed in. Can maybe stifle Reid in the wet a bit.

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

Would this week be second up for Butler? If so, I would leave him out. Had basically bugger all pre-season and missed a big chunk of games. Always tougher second up after a long lay-off. Would rather he get through another week at Sandy.

 

[SaintersUnite]

I’d much rather see us put Jones back in HB (where he excelled when at Sydney) than watch Bonner play another game for us.

Or Clark.
Or Sinclair.
Or Paton.
Or Leo bloody Connolly.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[CursingFijian]

Gonna be pissing down over here on Saturday, best hope is to grind them down in the wet.

Hugo Garcia type weather.

 

[Nutsngum]

I’d much rather see us put Jones back in HB (where he excelled when at Sydney) than watch Bonner play another game for us.

Or Clark.
Or Sinclair.
Or Paton.
Or Leo bloody Connolly.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

If we are worried about clangers/disposal coming out of D50 then Jones is absolutely not the answer.

Personally I think we are carrying Bonner to free up Sinclair. On paper we are actually doing fairly well at exiting D50, although I question wether we are doing this via the wings too much which is partly a reason for our shit inside 50 stats, so I can understand why Bonner is keeping his spot.. to a point.


I am really feeling the biggest difference between last year and this year is pressure. Both our ability to maintain composure when under it and also putting it back on our opponents. The Melbourne game was indicative of this, when the players were playing well it was due to either melbourne letting off their pressure or us playing around it.
In turn, our lack of defensive pressure in our forward half AND in the center made us easy to score off on rebound and on clearance (hence taking a walloping).

Losing Butler and Crouch put a hole in that and Gresham leaving also didnt help as he was an above average pressure player. All these small losses impact a whole lot when you add them together.

 

[PoppedCorn]

out: of the lounge
in: to the shed

just a note
bonner is copping a lot

 

[NarklesHelmet]

this board is so bloody short sighted, we complain about being 9thmond for a decade (more) and playing GOPs over blooding the youth, ross comes in and starts blooding the youth (last year too), we fall down the ladder because our polish isn't there (not because we don't have a crack), meaning we might get a proper rebuild for the first time in 20 years (the mccartin/billings rebuild was a bust due to drafting), and everyone wants to sack the coach!

Sweet, so we sack the coach that is making the hard choices with the backing of the president, get rid of both of them, bring in another watters or richo or whoever that knows if they don't turn us into a 9thmond they too will get a knife in the back, they trade in GOPs, the cycle repeats itself.

absolute morons.

we are not a marquee club, we can't do a geelong/collingwood and continue to avoid bottoming out properly in order to bring in high end talent. Play the kids, win if you can, if not hit the draft. Do it for a few more years and then attack.

Imagine this side with two more Mileras AND another wilson or garcia... now we're cooking with gas

I’m sorry, but this is just completely wrong.

Painting those of us objecting to the horrendous football Ross Lyon serves up as “morons” that somehow don’t get it is so far off the mark, it’s not funny.

Let’s go through the problems with what you’re saying here.


1. Ross is making the “hard choices” backed up by the President on the list… here’s the thing. The majority of you are under the false impression that running a successful AFL club is not much more than a list simulator. That might have been the case once upon a time but not anymore. Having someone with the attitude of Ross “I coach for effort not skill” Lyon in charge of both evaluating and re-building a list is a recipe for disaster. We are already starting to see it play out. We are dishing up possibly the most unskilled football the game has ever seen under Ross. And it will only get worse with players developing under his turgid, prehistoric gameplan. Our problems are with development, not the list. Salary-capped leagues like ours mean that you can’t have a whole list that can’t kick: if that’s the case, your issue is with coaching, gameplan and development.

2. You mention “backed up by the President” as if it is a good thing. Here’s a reminder of how Ross Lyon was hired. Our millionaire President was on a boat with other millionaires (Eddy and Lindsay Fox in particular), and, over some cognacs, our President got talked into re-hiring Ross. That is the antithesis of a modern, scientific process to hire a coach to succeed with a sports club. If there’s a worse example of jobs for the boys, I’m yet to hear it.

3. On the above point, our President compounded his poor hiring decision by allowing the new coach to sack anyone who disagreed with him and hire in yes men. This is never a good thing with someone as strong-minded as Ross Lyon, and leads to problems on the field (see next point). So as you see, the President “supporting” the coach in the situation, is hardly a good thing, it shows how the club is being run.

4. Once all the dissenting voices are gone, we now have a situation where Ross Lyon and his prehistoric football view is all that matters, with no one to call him out. So you get the absurd situation where, a fitness coach, David Misson, admits last week that players are confused about how to move the ball. Ball movement in the modern game should be like breathing for players. And why is a fitness coach charged with this most important role? Beggars belief.

5. Because so many of you are drinking the kool-aid the President and coach is dishing up, any dissenting voices are ridiculed. The AFL boy’s club media refuses to educate the public on tactics, so you get shallow analysis by ex-players like Joey going into bat for his ex-coach and mate. The only person brave enough to go against Ross last week, Rohan Connolly, started his critique by basically admitting he’d wrestled about whether to write it or not. The state of our media is so incredibly poor when decent analysis is avoided for fear of not offending mates.

I agree with you on one thing. We are not a marquee club. But I have a completely different take on what that means and the implications it has for a club like ours.

No, it doesn’t mean we should just suck it up and “bottom out completely” just because we need good “kids”. What we need to be is the smartest, most innovative club out there, on the cutting edge of modern tactics world-wise. We need to be the club that develops the players best, a club that players come to as they know that we will make the most of their talent.

We need our President, instead of spending summers on yachts sipping cognac and being talked into things by other dinosaur millionaires with no idea about the modern game, going and meeting Presidents of clubs like Atalanta in Italy (recently broke an even longer trophy drought than us) or Brighton in England, picking their brains and working out how we can be a club who, like they, punch above our weight and always play exciting attacking football while developing players beautifully at the same time.

We need our coach to, like Sam Mitchell in the off-season, go and pick the brains of Ange Postecoglou and work out what training methods are good to implement to allow players to pass under pressure.

And lastly, no, the answer to our prayers isn’t sticking fat with Ross and allowing him to get his hands on more Wilsons and Mileras. That is the last thing this club should be considering.

The sooner our supporters, President, whoever, understand that you cannot have a successful modern footy club under any coach like Ross Lyon who coaches for effort” the better.

If he is continued allowed to be in charge of a list of players, it will fail (our only possible hope under Ross would be doing what Sydney did and getting Pyke in to help Longmire with ball movement…but good luck with Ross allowing that sort of thing).

Ross Lyon and modern footy are incompatible. And he will blame the list, and the majority of you will be cheering him on. We are fast becoming Ross Lyon FC, not St Kilda FC.

I support St Kilda FC. It’s about time a lot of you decided whether you support Ross Lyon FC or Bassat FC over our great club, and for god’s sake, stop drinking the Kool-Aid they are handing out. You are going to kill the club if you allow Ross Lyon to take a match to our list and be in charge of a re-build.

 

[Nutsngum]

I’m sorry, but this is just completely wrong.

Painting those of us objecting to the horrendous football Ross Lyon serves up as “morons” that somehow don’t get it is so far off the mark, it’s not funny.

Let’s go through the problems with what you’re saying here.


1. Ross is making the “hard choices” backed up by the President on the list… here’s the thing. The majority of you are under the false impression that running a successful AFL club is not much more than a list simulator. That might have been the case once upon a time but not anymore. Having someone with the attitude of Ross “I coach for effort not skill” Lyon in charge of both evaluating and re-building a list is a recipe for disaster. We are already starting to see it play out. We are dishing up possibly the most unskilled football the game has ever seen under Ross. And it will only get worse with players developing under his turgid, prehistoric gameplan. Our problems are with development, not the list. Salary-capped leagues like ours mean that you can’t have a whole list that can’t kick: if that’s the case, your issue is with coaching, gameplan and development.

2. You mention “backed up by the President” as if it is a good thing. Here’s a reminder of how Ross Lyon was hired. Our millionaire President was on a boat with other millionaires (Eddy and Lindsay Fox in particular), and, over some cognacs, our President got talked into re-hiring Ross. That is the antithesis of a modern, scientific process to hire a coach to succeed with a sports club. If there’s a worse example of jobs for the boys, I’m yet to hear it.

3. On the above point, our President compounded his poor hiring decision by allowing the new coach to sack anyone who disagreed with him and hire in yes men. This is never a good thing with someone as strong-minded as Ross Lyon, and leads to problems on the field (see next point). So as you see, the President “supporting” the coach in the situation, is hardly a good thing, it shows how the club is being run.

4. Once all the dissenting voices are gone, we now have a situation where Ross Lyon and his prehistoric football view is all that matters, with no one to call him out. So you get the absurd situation where, a fitness coach, David Misson, admits last week that players are confused about how to move the ball. Ball movement in the modern game should be like breathing for players. And why is a fitness coach charged with this most important role? Beggars belief.

5. Because so many of you are drinking the kool-aid the President and coach is dishing up, any dissenting voices are ridiculed. The AFL boy’s club media refuses to educate the public on tactics, so you get shallow analysis by ex-players like Joey going into bat for his ex-coach and mate. The only person brave enough to go against Ross last week, Rohan Connolly, started his critique by basically admitting he’d wrestled about whether to write it or not. The state of our media is so incredibly poor when decent analysis is avoided for fear of not offending mates.

I agree with you on one thing. We are not a marquee club. But I have a completely different take on what that means and the implications it has for a club like ours.

No, it doesn’t mean we should just suck it up and “bottom out completely” just because we need good “kids”. What we need to be is the smartest, most innovative club out there, on the cutting edge of modern tactics world-wise. We need to be the club that develops the players best, a club that players come to as they know that we will make the most of their talent.

We need our President, instead of spending summers on yachts sipping cognac and being talked into things by other dinosaur millionaires with no idea about the modern game, going and meeting Presidents of clubs like Atalanta in Italy (recently broke an even longer trophy drought than us) or Brighton in England, picking their brains and working out how we can be a club who, like they, punch above our weight and always play exciting attacking football while developing players beautifully at the same time.

We need our coach to, like Sam Mitchell in the off-season, go and pick the brains of Ange Postecoglou and work out what training methods are good to implement to allow players to pass under pressure.

And lastly, no, the answer to our prayers isn’t sticking fat with Ross and allowing him to get his hands on more Wilsons and Mileras. That is the last thing this club should be considering.

The sooner our supporters, President, whoever, understand that you cannot have a successful modern footy club under any coach like Ross Lyon who coaches for effort” the better.

If he is continued allowed to be in charge of a list of players, it will fail (our only possible hope under Ross would be doing what Sydney did and getting Pyke in to help Longmire with ball movement…but good luck with Ross allowing that sort of thing).

Ross Lyon and modern footy are incompatible. And he will blame the list, and the majority of you will be cheering him on. We are fast becoming Ross Lyon FC, not St Kilda FC.

I support St Kilda FC. It’s about time a lot of you decided whether you support Ross Lyon FC or Bassat FC over our great club, and for god’s sake, stop drinking the Kool-Aid they are handing out. You are going to kill the club if you allow Ross Lyon to take a match to our list and be in charge of a re-build.

Thats a really long rant to just prove his point mate.

 

[Sarcoidevo]

Where was this rant last year when we made the Finals?

 

[gringo2011]

I’m sorry, but this is just completely wrong.

Painting those of us objecting to the horrendous football Ross Lyon serves up as “morons” that somehow don’t get it is so far off the mark, it’s not funny.

Let’s go through the problems with what you’re saying here.


1. Ross is making the “hard choices” backed up by the President on the list… here’s the thing. The majority of you are under the false impression that running a successful AFL club is not much more than a list simulator. That might have been the case once upon a time but not anymore. Having someone with the attitude of Ross “I coach for effort not skill” Lyon in charge of both evaluating and re-building a list is a recipe for disaster. We are already starting to see it play out. We are dishing up possibly the most unskilled football the game has ever seen under Ross. And it will only get worse with players developing under his turgid, prehistoric gameplan. Our problems are with development, not the list. Salary-capped leagues like ours mean that you can’t have a whole list that can’t kick: if that’s the case, your issue is with coaching, gameplan and development.

2. You mention “backed up by the President” as if it is a good thing. Here’s a reminder of how Ross Lyon was hired. Our millionaire President was on a boat with other millionaires (Eddy and Lindsay Fox in particular), and, over some cognacs, our President got talked into re-hiring Ross. That is the antithesis of a modern, scientific process to hire a coach to succeed with a sports club. If there’s a worse example of jobs for the boys, I’m yet to hear it.

3. On the above point, our President compounded his poor hiring decision by allowing the new coach to sack anyone who disagreed with him and hire in yes men. This is never a good thing with someone as strong-minded as Ross Lyon, and leads to problems on the field (see next point). So as you see, the President “supporting” the coach in the situation, is hardly a good thing, it shows how the club is being run.

4. Once all the dissenting voices are gone, we now have a situation where Ross Lyon and his prehistoric football view is all that matters, with no one to call him out. So you get the absurd situation where, a fitness coach, David Misson, admits last week that players are confused about how to move the ball. Ball movement in the modern game should be like breathing for players. And why is a fitness coach charged with this most important role? Beggars belief.

5. Because so many of you are drinking the kool-aid the President and coach is dishing up, any dissenting voices are ridiculed. The AFL boy’s club media refuses to educate the public on tactics, so you get shallow analysis by ex-players like Joey going into bat for his ex-coach and mate. The only person brave enough to go against Ross last week, Rohan Connolly, started his critique by basically admitting he’d wrestled about whether to write it or not. The state of our media is so incredibly poor when decent analysis is avoided for fear of not offending mates.

I agree with you on one thing. We are not a marquee club. But I have a completely different take on what that means and the implications it has for a club like ours.

No, it doesn’t mean we should just suck it up and “bottom out completely” just because we need good “kids”. What we need to be is the smartest, most innovative club out there, on the cutting edge of modern tactics world-wise. We need to be the club that develops the players best, a club that players come to as they know that we will make the most of their talent.

We need our President, instead of spending summers on yachts sipping cognac and being talked into things by other dinosaur millionaires with no idea about the modern game, going and meeting Presidents of clubs like Atalanta in Italy (recently broke an even longer trophy drought than us) or Brighton in England, picking their brains and working out how we can be a club who, like they, punch above our weight and always play exciting attacking football while developing players beautifully at the same time.

We need our coach to, like Sam Mitchell in the off-season, go and pick the brains of Ange Postecoglou and work out what training methods are good to implement to allow players to pass under pressure.

And lastly, no, the answer to our prayers isn’t sticking fat with Ross and allowing him to get his hands on more Wilsons and Mileras. That is the last thing this club should be considering.

The sooner our supporters, President, whoever, understand that you cannot have a successful modern footy club under any coach like Ross Lyon who coaches for effort” the better.

If he is continued allowed to be in charge of a list of players, it will fail (our only possible hope under Ross would be doing what Sydney did and getting Pyke in to help Longmire with ball movement…but good luck with Ross allowing that sort of thing).

Ross Lyon and modern footy are incompatible. And he will blame the list, and the majority of you will be cheering him on. We are fast becoming Ross Lyon FC, not St Kilda FC.

I support St Kilda FC. It’s about time a lot of you decided whether you support Ross Lyon FC or Bassat FC over our great club, and for god’s sake, stop drinking the Kool-Aid they are handing out. You are going to kill the club if you allow Ross Lyon to take a match to our list and be in charge of a re-build.

I agree with a lot of that but we do have a below average list as well. Training skills and attacking tactics never hurt any player. Scott was overly defensive the year before their flag and copped criticism which he rectified.

Under Buckley the Pies went excessively defensive post GF loss and seamlessly switched into attack under a new coach. Even Longmire was considered too defensive to win another flag but has managed to have the Flag favourite side with better talent available.

 

[gringo2011]

Where was this rant last year when we made the Finals?

Narks has been consistent on Lyon.

 

[Premium]

Narks has been consistent on Lyon.

Hate to say it but he is right

 

[Teflon]

I’m sorry, but this is just completely wrong.

Painting those of us objecting to the horrendous football Ross Lyon serves up as “morons” that somehow don’t get it is so far off the mark, it’s not funny.

Let’s go through the problems with what you’re saying here.


1. Ross is making the “hard choices” backed up by the President on the list… here’s the thing. The majority of you are under the false impression that running a successful AFL club is not much more than a list simulator. That might have been the case once upon a time but not anymore. Having someone with the attitude of Ross “I coach for effort not skill” Lyon in charge of both evaluating and re-building a list is a recipe for disaster. We are already starting to see it play out. We are dishing up possibly the most unskilled football the game has ever seen under Ross. And it will only get worse with players developing under his turgid, prehistoric gameplan. Our problems are with development, not the list. Salary-capped leagues like ours mean that you can’t have a whole list that can’t kick: if that’s the case, your issue is with coaching, gameplan and development.

2. You mention “backed up by the President” as if it is a good thing. Here’s a reminder of how Ross Lyon was hired. Our millionaire President was on a boat with other millionaires (Eddy and Lindsay Fox in particular), and, over some cognacs, our President got talked into re-hiring Ross. That is the antithesis of a modern, scientific process to hire a coach to succeed with a sports club. If there’s a worse example of jobs for the boys, I’m yet to hear it.

3. On the above point, our President compounded his poor hiring decision by allowing the new coach to sack anyone who disagreed with him and hire in yes men. This is never a good thing with someone as strong-minded as Ross Lyon, and leads to problems on the field (see next point). So as you see, the President “supporting” the coach in the situation, is hardly a good thing, it shows how the club is being run.

4. Once all the dissenting voices are gone, we now have a situation where Ross Lyon and his prehistoric football view is all that matters, with no one to call him out. So you get the absurd situation where, a fitness coach, David Misson, admits last week that players are confused about how to move the ball. Ball movement in the modern game should be like breathing for players. And why is a fitness coach charged with this most important role? Beggars belief.

5. Because so many of you are drinking the kool-aid the President and coach is dishing up, any dissenting voices are ridiculed. The AFL boy’s club media refuses to educate the public on tactics, so you get shallow analysis by ex-players like Joey going into bat for his ex-coach and mate. The only person brave enough to go against Ross last week, Rohan Connolly, started his critique by basically admitting he’d wrestled about whether to write it or not. The state of our media is so incredibly poor when decent analysis is avoided for fear of not offending mates.

I agree with you on one thing. We are not a marquee club. But I have a completely different take on what that means and the implications it has for a club like ours.

No, it doesn’t mean we should just suck it up and “bottom out completely” just because we need good “kids”. What we need to be is the smartest, most innovative club out there, on the cutting edge of modern tactics world-wise. We need to be the club that develops the players best, a club that players come to as they know that we will make the most of their talent.

We need our President, instead of spending summers on yachts sipping cognac and being talked into things by other dinosaur millionaires with no idea about the modern game, going and meeting Presidents of clubs like Atalanta in Italy (recently broke an even longer trophy drought than us) or Brighton in England, picking their brains and working out how we can be a club who, like they, punch above our weight and always play exciting attacking football while developing players beautifully at the same time.

We need our coach to, like Sam Mitchell in the off-season, go and pick the brains of Ange Postecoglou and work out what training methods are good to implement to allow players to pass under pressure.

And lastly, no, the answer to our prayers isn’t sticking fat with Ross and allowing him to get his hands on more Wilsons and Mileras. That is the last thing this club should be considering.

The sooner our supporters, President, whoever, understand that you cannot have a successful modern footy club under any coach like Ross Lyon who coaches for effort” the better.

If he is continued allowed to be in charge of a list of players, it will fail (our only possible hope under Ross would be doing what Sydney did and getting Pyke in to help Longmire with ball movement…but good luck with Ross allowing that sort of thing).

Ross Lyon and modern footy are incompatible. And he will blame the list, and the majority of you will be cheering him on. We are fast becoming Ross Lyon FC, not St Kilda FC.

I support St Kilda FC. It’s about time a lot of you decided whether you support Ross Lyon FC or Bassat FC over our great club, and for god’s sake, stop drinking the Kool-Aid they are handing out. You are going to kill the club if you allow Ross Lyon to take a match to our list and be in

Where was this rant last year when we made the Finals?

I agree
I’m not privy to why Bassett made the decision but I think our issues run deeper than train the skills and I’m sick n tired of blaming coaches when the obvious issues here lie in our playing list
Sitting at games watching AFL listed players grub a kick a ball along the ground or multiple times under nor pressure (last week) kick OOF or miss goals from 15 metres out OR continually handball to players feet OR make dumb decisions isn’t about game plan. I agree we need to invest in our development programs for sure but right now we carry too many sub standard players imo

 

[littlecreatures]

I’m sorry, but this is just completely wrong.

Painting those of us objecting to the horrendous football Ross Lyon serves up as “morons” that somehow don’t get it is so far off the mark, it’s not funny.

Let’s go through the problems with what you’re saying here.


1. Ross is making the “hard choices” backed up by the President on the list… here’s the thing. The majority of you are under the false impression that running a successful AFL club is not much more than a list simulator. That might have been the case once upon a time but not anymore. Having someone with the attitude of Ross “I coach for effort not skill” Lyon in charge of both evaluating and re-building a list is a recipe for disaster. We are already starting to see it play out. We are dishing up possibly the most unskilled football the game has ever seen under Ross. And it will only get worse with players developing under his turgid, prehistoric gameplan. Our problems are with development, not the list. Salary-capped leagues like ours mean that you can’t have a whole list that can’t kick: if that’s the case, your issue is with coaching, gameplan and development.

2. You mention “backed up by the President” as if it is a good thing. Here’s a reminder of how Ross Lyon was hired. Our millionaire President was on a boat with other millionaires (Eddy and Lindsay Fox in particular), and, over some cognacs, our President got talked into re-hiring Ross. That is the antithesis of a modern, scientific process to hire a coach to succeed with a sports club. If there’s a worse example of jobs for the boys, I’m yet to hear it.

3. On the above point, our President compounded his poor hiring decision by allowing the new coach to sack anyone who disagreed with him and hire in yes men. This is never a good thing with someone as strong-minded as Ross Lyon, and leads to problems on the field (see next point). So as you see, the President “supporting” the coach in the situation, is hardly a good thing, it shows how the club is being run.

4. Once all the dissenting voices are gone, we now have a situation where Ross Lyon and his prehistoric football view is all that matters, with no one to call him out. So you get the absurd situation where, a fitness coach, David Misson, admits last week that players are confused about how to move the ball. Ball movement in the modern game should be like breathing for players. And why is a fitness coach charged with this most important role? Beggars belief.

5. Because so many of you are drinking the kool-aid the President and coach is dishing up, any dissenting voices are ridiculed. The AFL boy’s club media refuses to educate the public on tactics, so you get shallow analysis by ex-players like Joey going into bat for his ex-coach and mate. The only person brave enough to go against Ross last week, Rohan Connolly, started his critique by basically admitting he’d wrestled about whether to write it or not. The state of our media is so incredibly poor when decent analysis is avoided for fear of not offending mates.

I agree with you on one thing. We are not a marquee club. But I have a completely different take on what that means and the implications it has for a club like ours.

No, it doesn’t mean we should just suck it up and “bottom out completely” just because we need good “kids”. What we need to be is the smartest, most innovative club out there, on the cutting edge of modern tactics world-wise. We need to be the club that develops the players best, a club that players come to as they know that we will make the most of their talent.

We need our President, instead of spending summers on yachts sipping cognac and being talked into things by other dinosaur millionaires with no idea about the modern game, going and meeting Presidents of clubs like Atalanta in Italy (recently broke an even longer trophy drought than us) or Brighton in England, picking their brains and working out how we can be a club who, like they, punch above our weight and always play exciting attacking football while developing players beautifully at the same time.

We need our coach to, like Sam Mitchell in the off-season, go and pick the brains of Ange Postecoglou and work out what training methods are good to implement to allow players to pass under pressure.

And lastly, no, the answer to our prayers isn’t sticking fat with Ross and allowing him to get his hands on more Wilsons and Mileras. That is the last thing this club should be considering.

The sooner our supporters, President, whoever, understand that you cannot have a successful modern footy club under any coach like Ross Lyon who coaches for effort” the better.

If he is continued allowed to be in charge of a list of players, it will fail (our only possible hope under Ross would be doing what Sydney did and getting Pyke in to help Longmire with ball movement…but good luck with Ross allowing that sort of thing).

Ross Lyon and modern footy are incompatible. And he will blame the list, and the majority of you will be cheering him on. We are fast becoming Ross Lyon FC, not St Kilda FC.

I support St Kilda FC. It’s about time a lot of you decided whether you support Ross Lyon FC or Bassat FC over our great club, and for god’s sake, stop drinking the Kool-Aid they are handing out. You are going to kill the club if you allow Ross Lyon to take a match to our list and be in charge of a re-build.

If it was identified, agreed to and acknowledged that the list needed considerable work and rebuilding when Ross was signed, a lot of this clearly becomes redundant.

Given that was heavily alluded to at the time by Bassatt, a lot of the restructuring occurred in response to the review, and people not doing a good job got shown the door, what exactly is the problem then.

We’ve known for years this list is middle of the road at best. Let the cobblers cobble now. If Lyon’s not the man, the results will show that and he’ll inevitably get shown the door. We as supporters are hardly going to change the course of action and set a match to this list as implied, which by all standards is already a charcoal pit.

We’re hardly going to bang down the door in the next 2-3 years regardless. If you disagree, power to you.

 

[Oh When the Saints]

I reckon sometimes you just fall in a heap in an AFL season. Form, injury, confidence, close losses, difficult fixture, lack of momentum etc. It's only a 1-2% difference between most clubs and you just get those seasons where none of it clicks. 2024 is one of those for the Saints. The Lions are going through it now too. The Pies went from a Semi in 2020 to 17th in 2021. Melbourne went from a Prelim in 2018 to winning 5 games in 2019, finishing 17th. Both clubs bounced back within a couple of years.

We are clearly not as bad as we have been playing (see 2023) and could easily have pinched another couple of wins in the first 6 weeks. Perception would be a lot different if we'd scored 1 more goal against the Bombers and Cats.

Interesting hearing Bucks say that cumulative 5 or 6 day breaks have a massive effect on 1st-4th year players and it's really only after 5 or 6 preseasons that you can meet the physical challenge. We had a lot of those short breaks early on with a very young team.

Our kids are good. Development is not linear. We are doing the hard yards to build a strong, talented young group as quickly as possible. Stick with it. Reckon we'll have some much happier days within the next 12 months.

In the meantime, we'd better bloody pick Crouch this week.