Autopsy Round 18, 2023: Gold Coast v St.Kilda *PERIS DEBUT*

[gringo2011]

Ladder position is all that counts. If we make all these moves that everyone seemingly loves and play the kids, turn the list over yet we continue to finish 9th-12th then what have we actually achieved. People totally discredit the value of playing in finals football. It would do more for a young side than getting a better hand at the draft ever would.

There were at least half a dozen shit sides last year. This year there is WCEs. Hawks and North not far off but better than last year and then it's a huge pool of sides on a similar level. Sides that play WCE and North twice get a real leg up but everyone else is playing in a harder comp than last year.

Ladder position shows that you are worthy of finals but they don't always show the true picture. You can improve and not move forward on the ladder. You can get a terrible fixture or meet sides when they are struggling etc and it skews the results. Or like us you can run out of cattle.

 

[Mowman]

I'm a bit emotional after yesterday but I know what we have available and we look more like West Coast Eagles than Collingwood with the list that we are putting up most weeks lately.

We were playing 8 guys under 50 games, plenty hadn't played 10 games before the season started and one was debuting. West Coast are playing 6 today for comparison. The core of their side are premiership heroes and proper AFL stars. Most of our older guys are borderline GOPs apart from the top 5 or so that Ross talked about.

He can control freak the * out of them but they just aren't going to survive another whipping. They are a broken down horse ready for the knackery. Giving them a few more strikes with the cat-o-nine-tails won't get us home.

RTB is smart enough to know which ones get a rocket and which ones to cuddle

The players he wants to build around to take us forward will love him

 

[hoselrocket]

We need at least 2-3 more years of quality draft picks. Only way we can get them is to regress a bit. Let’s face it we are the Richmond of the 90’s and we have been for some time.

 

[George]

I'm a bit emotional after yesterday but I know what we have available and we look more like West Coast Eagles than Collingwood with the list that we are putting up most weeks lately.

We were playing 8 guys under 50 games, plenty hadn't played 10 games before the season started and one was debuting. West Coast are playing 6 today for comparison. The core of their side are premiership heroes and proper AFL stars. Most of our older guys are borderline GOPs apart from the top 5 or so that Ross talked about.

He can control freak the * out of them but they just aren't going to survive another whipping. They are a broken down horse ready for the knackery. Giving them a few more strikes with the cat-o-nine-tails won't get us home.

For me it's not so much about how many debut as it is how many actually develop. In the Ratten years (2020-2022), we had 12 players debut (King, Byrnes, Bytel, Highmore, Hunter, Clavarino, Connolly, Sharman, Hayes, Owens, Nas, Windhager) and 4 of those were in his final season.

We're actually on track for less under RTB (only 3 this year), so I'm not sure if the young kids rhetoric is overstated. Sure we are playing them but are they getting opportunity because of injury? Would they still be in the side if we were fully fit from the start?

We need about 15 'keepers' on the list. To me we have the following;

Pou, Owens, Nas, Windhager, King, Higgins, Sinclair, Wilkie, Caminiti.

The list is good enough to play first week finals but that's about it. We need Hotton, Keeler, Van Es types to come on as predicted and then load up on the midfield (for the love of god, please).

 

[gringo2011]

We need at least 2-3 more years of quality draft picks. Only way we can get them is to regress a bit. Let’s face it we are the Richmond of the 90’s and we have been for some time.

It's hard to put a timeline on. Last two years we have been good at the draft and did more list building than a lot of the previous years combined. If we can get a few semi developed kids we might be able to get a bit more of a quick boost.

 

[George]

There were at least half a dozen s**t sides last year. This year there is WCEs. Hawks and North not far off but better than last year and then it's a huge pool of sides on a similar level. Sides that play WCE and North twice get a real leg up but everyone else is playing in a harder comp than last year.

Ladder position shows that you are worthy of finals but they don't always show the true picture. You can improve and not move forward on the ladder. You can get a terrible fixture or meet sides when they are struggling etc and it skews the results. Or like us you can run out of cattle.

I honestly think we've gone backwards this year. We had an easier fixture, and after 17 games we're 9-8 104%. Last year at the same point, with a harder fixture, we were 9-8 102%. You can say yeah but injuries cost us this year, well I don't think they did - our best run of form all year came when we had players out. To also put it in comparison, last year at this point we were sitting in 10th. It's an easier comp this year.

 

[Mowman]

For me it's not so much about how many debut as it is how many actually develop. In the Ratten years (2020-2022), we had 12 players debut (King, Byrnes, Bytel, Highmore, Hunter, Clavarino, Connolly, Sharman, Hayes, Owens, Nas, Windhager) and 4 of those were in his final season.

We're actually on track for less under RTB (only 3 this year), so I'm not sure if the young kids rhetoric is overstated. Sure we are playing them but are they getting opportunity because of injury? Would they still be in the side if we were fully fit from the start?

We need about 15 'keepers' on the list. To me we have the following;

Pou, Owens, Nas, Windhager, King, Higgins, Sinclair, Wilkie, Caminiti.

The list is good enough to play first week finals but that's about it. We need Hotton, Keeler, Van Es types to come on as predicted and then load up on the midfield (for the love of god, please).

RTB has stuck fat with the young kids the whole year and has backed them and praised them every chance he gets

 

[Mowman]

I honestly think we've gone backwards this year. We had an easier fixture, and after 17 games we're 9-8 104%. Last year at the same point, with a harder fixture, we were 9-8 102%. You can say yeah but injuries cost us this year, well I don't think they did - our best run of form all year came when we had players out. To also put it in comparison, last year at this point we were sitting in 10th. It's an easier comp this year.

Imo we are well ahead of last year because of the development we have put into Caminiti- Owens- Pou - Windy - NAS - Stocker and the last few weeks Sharman

Would love Hotton and Heath to earn a couple of games this year

 

[gringo2011]

For me it's not so much about how many debut as it is how many actually develop. In the Ratten years (2020-2022), we had 12 players debut (King, Byrnes, Bytel, Highmore, Hunter, Clavarino, Connolly, Sharman, Hayes, Owens, Nas, Windhager) and 4 of those were in his final season.

We're actually on track for less under RTB (only 3 this year), so I'm not sure if the young kids rhetoric is overstated. Sure we are playing them but are they getting opportunity because of injury? Would they still be in the side if we were fully fit from the start?

We need about 15 'keepers' on the list. To me we have the following;

Pou, Owens, Nas, Windhager, King, Higgins, Sinclair, Wilkie, Caminiti.

The list is good enough to play first week finals but that's about it. We need Hotton, Keeler, Van Es types to come on as predicted and then load up on the midfield (for the love of god, please).

Who would you have debuted? We weren't playing more than a few kids most weeks with Ratts. Injury meant we played a few of those kids but they didn't stay in the side. Owens played 7 games last year and his only run at it was when the season had fallen over and we played kids.

We need to keep adding pieces and not just numbers, actual quality.

Agree our list could play finals but it won't trouble many sides. If we could have a full list with no injuries we might finish top 4 but remain just off the premiership challenging sides.

To me the issue is still that top end. We lack star quality and A graders. I think this sums us up, most would be Steele too.

Brownlow Votes
average 7.4 career votes
ranked 16th for the year

St Kilda Playing List for 2023 - Draftguru

www.draftguru.com.au

 

[George]

RTB has stuck fat with the young kids the whole year and has backed them and praised them every chance he gets

Well in comparison

2020
King - 18 games (debut year)
Bytel - 3 games (debut year)
Byrnes - 1 game (debut year)

2021
King - 20 games
Byrnes - 16 games
Bytel - 13 games
Highmore - 13 games (debut year)
Hunter - 7 games (debut year)
Connolly - 7 games (debut year)
Clavarino - 5 games (debut year)
Sharman - 5 games (debut year)

2022
King - 22 games
Windhager - 18 games (debut year)
Wanganeen-Milera - 17 games (debut year)
Byrnes - 11 games
Sharman - 10 games
Owens - 7 games (debut year)
Hayes - 5 games (debut year)
Highmore - 3 games

 

[Mowman]

Who would you have debuted? We weren't playing more than a few kids most weeks with Ratts. Injury meant we played a few of those kids but they didn't stay in the side. Owens played 7 games last year and his only run at it was when the season had fallen over and we played kids.

We need to keep adding pieces and not just numbers, actual quality.

Agree our list could play finals but it won't trouble many sides. If we could have a full list with no injuries we might finish top 4 but remain just off the premiership challenging sides.

To me the issue is still that top end. We lack star quality and A graders. I think this sums us up, most would be Steele too.

Brownlow Votes
average 7.4 career votes
ranked 16th for the year

St Kilda Playing List for 2023 - Draftguru

www.draftguru.com.au

Yeah Ratts would bring them in for a week or two then drop them, done more damage then good

 

[George]

Imo we are well ahead of last year because of the development we have put into Caminiti- Owens- Pou - Windy - NAS - Stocker and the last few weeks Sharman

Would love Hotton and Heath to earn a couple of games this year

Cannot wait to see Hotton think he'll be a ripper

 

[George]

Who would you have debuted? We weren't playing more than a few kids most weeks with Ratts. Injury meant we played a few of those kids but they didn't stay in the side. Owens played 7 games last year and his only run at it was when the season had fallen over and we played kids.

We need to keep adding pieces and not just numbers, actual quality.

Agree our list could play finals but it won't trouble many sides. If we could have a full list with no injuries we might finish top 4 but remain just off the premiership challenging sides.

To me the issue is still that top end. We lack star quality and A graders. I think this sums us up, most would be Steele too.

Brownlow Votes
average 7.4 career votes
ranked 16th for the year

St Kilda Playing List for 2023 - Draftguru

www.draftguru.com.au

Just posted the list above. Looks like Ratts actually gave the young kids a go to be fair to him. I don't know the intricacies of it all (if they only played a couple games because of injury etc - in Sharman's case he came on mid-season for example) but this year to me doesn't look much different to the 3 previous years.

 

[gringo2011]

I honestly think we've gone backwards this year. We had an easier fixture, and after 17 games we're 9-8 104%. Last year at the same point, with a harder fixture, we were 9-8 102%. You can say yeah but injuries cost us this year, well I don't think they did - our best run of form all year came when we had players out. To also put it in comparison, last year at this point we were sitting in 10th. It's an easier comp this year.

I don't, I reckon we have only just slightly stepped forward while developing kids in a more difficult competition.

We've held ground perhaps more than stepped forward but we have made a massive investment towards our future success. Gresham is the only one to have gone heaps backwards. Most of the others are more even and a few have stepped up.

The fixture looked easy preseason but most sides improved.

 

[George]

I don't, I reckon we have only just slightly stepped forward while developing kids in a more difficult competition.

We've held ground perhaps more than stepped forward but we have made a massive investment towards our future success. Gresham is the only one to have gone heaps backwards. Most of the others are more even and a few have stepped up.

The fixture looked easy preseason but most sides improved.

I think it's been an easier comp. With the same record last year we were 10th, yet we find ourselves 6th this year.

Obviously season not over but out of the first year players RTB has played;

Pou - 16 games
Caminiti - 13 games
Peris - 1 game

As for the group that debuted under Ratten;
Windhager has played 11 games (18 last year)
Nasiah has played 16 (17 last year)
Owens 15 (7 last year)
Sharman 8 (10 last year)
Bytel 5 (0 last year however injury?)
Byrnes 16 (11 last year)
King 7 (22 last year however injury)


So really it's just Owens and Byrnes that have really played a lot more footy. Couple that with the debuts of Pou and Caminiti (Peris only a game so whatever), it's 4 kids being blooded. Ratts was averaging that amount over his 3 years.

Tracking development is difficult, it's not exactly a measurable stat, you just need to assume more games equals good development, but if we were without the injuries to start the year would guys like Caminiti and Owens either get a look in or play this amount of football? RTB was forced to find out about the list earlier in the year because of the injury issues we had. I do wonder if he would've done it regardless of injury. I assume not but who knows.

 

[phantom13]

I don't, I reckon we have only just slightly stepped forward while developing kids in a more difficult competition.

We've held ground perhaps more than stepped forward but we have made a massive investment towards our future success. Gresham is the only one to have gone heaps backwards. Most of the others are more even and a few have stepped up.

The fixture looked easy preseason but most sides improved.

Wilkie has gone backwards, in fact our entire defensive structure has been absolutely putrid for 3-4 weeks now.

I honestly (and have said this since the start of the year) do not care about wins and losses or even ladder position. I wanted to see a clearly identifiable brand and gameplan with a bare minimum standard of effort and discipline. I thought we had it early on in the year but it’s gone, completely.

6 weeks to, I don’t give a shit if we play finals at this point. I wanna see effort, blokes who don’t give it get dropped, I also don’t give a shit if that means we’re dropping stars and playing total spuds to be honest.

 

[Captain Paddy]

The club should've just come out at the beginning of the year and said we are at ground zero, Ross isn't here to win a premiership but he's here to clear the deadwood and implement an elite football environment, and we have a succession plan in place for the person best suited to take over and coach from there. I still don't believe he can implement a modern day gameplan but I'm willing to adjust expectation if I know that he'll be replaced in a couple of years by someone who can. I'm looking at you Enright.

And again with the brain-dead Finnis rhetoric too lmao, if we were playing out of Seaford I can guarantee you nobody is ever coming to St.Kilda again. That man will be a huge reason we win our 2nd premiership, like it or not. The mountain of work he has done for our football club, from where we were sitting heavily in debt without sponsorship or membership revenue, is remarkable. And I'll continue to defend him. People don't have a ******* clue what the situation was like when he stepped in, and where we were merely 5 years before it. Go listen to the saviour RTB if you need a refresher on what things were like.

Ideally Ross finishes up end of next year and spends the remaining 2 years of his contract overseeing someone else take the reigns. Our dour slugfests aren't conducive to winning games of football in the modern game unfortunately.

I think Ross is here to win us a premiership and the club has finally taken a long term view of success. say what you want about AB, but he's a successful businessman. He sat back and observed at the beginning of his tenure, hated what he saw and got the knife out and started chopping.

The Ratten extension was to stop the media from constantly asking about. The new rules around the 6 month pay out mean clubs really don't lose anything from doing it.

Ross, and this plan, are here for the long term, not the 17 odd games we've seen. Go grab some beers or roll up a real fat one, don't watch the rest of the games. Next year might be a little rough as well but from 2025, this team will be rolling.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Ladder position shows that you are worthy of finals but they don't always show the true picture. You can improve and not move forward on the ladder. You can get a terrible fixture or meet sides when they are struggling etc and it skews the results. Or like us you can run out of cattle.

Spot on.
Improvement is very seldom linear and as we all know, the variables the comp throws up ensure it’s not equal either - your example of playing the weaker sides twice a very good one ( not that we’ve managed to take much benefit from it so far)!

I still stand by my previous point ( hotly debated with George) that even finishing where we did last year - while not palatable - doesn’t mean we haven’t improved, taking into account the huge amount of games we have got into the youngsters and, of course, the injuries we have had - to really important players.

Can’t underestimate the loss of King, Membrey, a hampered Steele, Clarke and Billings for a large part of the season.

 

[bergholt]

Season centre clearance stats after this week

20%+: Owens (8 centre clearances from 39 centre bounces attended), Jones (4 from 20)
19%+:
18%+: Sinclair (26 from 143)
17%+:
16%+:
15%+:
14%+: Clark (13 from 88)
13%+:
12%+:
11%+: Ross (23 from 202), Crouch (34 from 304)
10%+: Steele (27 from 255), Phillipou (2 from 19)
9%+:
8%+: Gresham (12 from 145)
7%+:
6%+: Marshall (24 from 364)
5%+:
4%+: Bytel (1 from 21)
3%+:
2%+:
1%+: Windhager (1 from 73)
0%+: Cordy (0 from 17), Caminiti (0 from 12)

If those stats are representative then having Jones and Clark in the side should make us better in centre clearances?

 

[Diehard Saint]

Yeah Ratts would bring them in for a week or two then drop them, done more damage then good

It took 17 games before Ross subbed off Pou.

 

[gringo2011]

Centre clearance stats after this week

20%+: Owens (8 centre clearances from 39 centre bounces attended), Jones (4 from 20)
19%+:
18%+: Sinclair (26 from 143)
17%+:
16%+:
15%+:
14%+: Clark (13 from 88)
13%+:
12%+:
11%+: Ross (23 from 202), Crouch (34 from 304)
10%+: Steele (27 from 255), Phillipou (2 from 19)
9%+:
8%+: Gresham (12 from 145)
7%+:
6%+: Marshall (24 from 364)
5%+:
4%+: Bytel (1 from 21)
3%+:
2%+:
1%+: Windhager (1 from 73)
0%+: Cordy (0 from 17), Caminiti (0 from 12)

If those stats are representative then having Jones and Clark in the side should make us better in centre clearances?

Clark is the most reliable kick inside 50 in the side too but still looks he's running on concrete legs. He's too valuable to not play but others need to work to cover his lack of run.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

Was talking with one of the staff from the Eagles’ 06 era.
He said the players and coaches alike were so driven and accepted nothing but manic training and on-field standards. (He was saying the off-field stuff was allowed to go too far which is why a team was brought in from 07 to remedy it, but that’s besides the point.)

He was saying there was a game where they won easily, but Brent Staker (he said he is a great bloke and clubman) had pulled out of a contest so he was not allowed to eat dinner with the team at the restaurant that night.
People may say that is a tad far, but that’s what hungry and disciplined groups do. Would love to see leadership like that applied at the Saints.

Can actually see the young fellas have that within them. The old heads, not so much.

 

[ScrappyDo]

If we could get Membrey back would like to see Owens play a lot more time midfield

Hayes please.

 

[hoselrocket]

It's hard to put a timeline on. Last two years we have been good at the draft and did more list building than a lot of the previous years combined. If we can get a few semi developed kids we might be able to get a bit more of a quick boost.

Definitely agree.

I think the coaching group knows exactly where this list is unlike previous years. I think the drop off next year is inevitable, but I’m not too worried.

 

[George]

Was talking with one of the staff from the Eagles’ 06 era.
He said the players and coaches alike were so driven and accepted nothing but manic training and on-field standards. (He was saying the off-field stuff was allowed to go too far which is why a team was brought in from 07 to remedy it, but that’s besides the point.)

He was saying there was a game where they won easily, but Brent Staker (he said he is a great bloke and clubman) had pulled out of a contest so he was not allowed to eat dinner with the team at the restaurant that night.
People may say that is a tad far, but that’s what hungry and disciplined groups do. Would love to see leadership like that applied at the Saints.

Can actually see the young fellas have that within them. The old heads, not so much.

Ashley Sampi?