Saints Are Finished in 2011 & Beyond

[doppleganger]

I don't mean to insult Collingwood's earlier or current teams, but you didn't have a lot of older players worth keeping. You rightfully got rid of the dud older players, and brought in fresh kids. But the thing with St.Kilda is that we have a lot of oldish players (26+) who are high quality and worth keeping, so our average team age won't need to drop that low over the next couple of years.

What??

Buckley, Burns, Clement, Rocca, Wakelin, Presti, Woewy and Licca all played in the 2003 GF, they were old players worth keeping.

Buckley and Rocca went down in 04 & 05, not to different to losing Lenny.

I know football is never about one player, but if ever a team was to sacrifice a head start in list development in order to bring one player success, it would be for Hayes. If he does have one more year left in him, I'd like to see us have one more proper tilt at the flag with same gameplan and list tweaking - whether that be with younger kids or some clever trades.

Laughable, you blokes were not good enough and now you think you will suddenly get better with the same game plan!!

Saints need a Melbourne esque clean out....problem for the Saints is, they have ZERO star kids at the moment, and GWS will snaffle all the best kids for the next year or two....they will be Brisbane Bears bad come 2013 onwards.

Saints shipped to Tassie by 2016, lock in Eddie.

 

[Prestigerrycomo]

You know what it is at least on BIgfooty. Is for years we had posters like JeffDunne and The Fireman who acted like total pelicans about Collingwood; About our fans, our team and anything in between. On the whole they got away with it on the main board. Now that things have changed they are no where to be seen.

 

[Defacto]

What??

Buckley, Burns, Clement, Rocca, Wakelin, Presti, Woewy and Licca all played in the 2003 GF, they were old players worth keeping.

Buckley and Rocca went down in 04 & 05, not to different to losing Lenny.



Laughable, you blokes were not good enough and now you think you will suddenly get better with the same game plan!!

Saints need a Melbourne esque clean out....problem for the Saints is, they have ZERO star kids at the moment, and GWS will snaffle all the best kids for the next year or two....they will be Brisbane Bears bad come 2013 onwards.

Saints shipped to Tassie by 2016, lock in Eddie.

that is why they wont do a clean out/complete rebuild. theres no point delisting players if the players you are going to replace them with arent as good.

their best bet is to do a partial rebuild ala port adelaide, to see out the period where GC/GWS are getting the best of the best. this means keeping the core there and retiring players like baker and blake. delist the cloggers (ones who arent playing regular senior footy and are not developing).

 

[doppleganger]

that is why they wont do a clean out/complete rebuild. theres no point delisting players if the players you are going to replace them with arent as good.

their best bet is to do a partial rebuild ala port adelaide, to see out the period where GC/GWS are getting the best of the best. this means keeping the core there and retiring players like baker and blake. delist the cloggers (ones who arent playing regular senior footy and are not developing).

You want to copy Port???

Port are pathetic at the moment.....way to aim high.

Dal, Montagna, Gilbert should all go...bring in kids with good backgrounds and leadership qualities.

The Saints would love L.Ball right now.

 

[Defacto]

You know what it is at least on BIgfooty. Is for years we had posters like JeffDunne and The Fireman who acted like total pelicans about Collingwood; About our fans, our team and anything in between. On the whole they got away with it on the main board. Now that things have changed they are no where to be seen.

two bad posters. theyve been replaced by a horde of collingwood supporters obsessed with st kilda. like doppleganger above who thinks the saints will be relocated to tassie by 2016.

 

[Murraj1966]

You want to copy Port???

Port are pathetic at the moment.....way to aim high.

Dal, Montagna, Gilbert should all go...bring in kids with good backgrounds and leadership qualities.

The Saints would love L.Ball right now.

That's funny, I'm a Saints fan and I don't think lessening the speed of the group would help.

 

[Furious_G]

Re: Saints Are Finished in 2010 & Beyond

It's a tough one, a couple of lucky bounces in the first few games and they'd have the wins on the board, the mental toughness would still be there and we'd be talking about them as final 4 contenders. A bad start to the season was probably the worst thing to happen to them of any team out there this season. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I agree with the comment about the Lovett mess being a massive blow to them, as they didn't seem to fix the on field problem he was brought in to fix.

 

[Defacto]

You want to copy Port???

Port are pathetic at the moment.....way to aim high.

Dal, Montagna, Gilbert should all go...bring in kids with good backgrounds and leadership qualities.

The Saints would love L.Ball right now.

you're not very smart are you?

gold coast and gws will have alot of their concessions up until 2013-2014. if st kilda start their "clean out" now they will get 2nd's on any new draftees. its pointless.

port adelaide started their partial rebuild at the end of 2005 (after finishing 8th on the ladder, 6th after finals). in 2006 they finished 12th and in 2007 they made the grand final (easily beaten by geelong). in 2008 they bottomed out again.

if we take the port adelaide approach and start our partial rebuild at the end of the year (2011) we can potentially turn things around and not bottom out again until 2013, by that time GC/GWS would have used their draft concessions allowing us to clean out the list, perform a complete rebuild and get the best draftees available. what makes it better is that we already have a good core of players that will not reach retirement until 2013-2014.

as for luke ball. its been covered to death. i dont think he would get a game with us even now. he's in the same boat as baker and blake. however, i do think he's a perfect fit for collingwood and compliments your team nicely.

can you piss off back to bay 13 now?

 

[Darkdayz]

that is why they wont do a clean out/complete rebuild. theres no point delisting players if the players you are going to replace them with arent as good.

their best bet is to do a partial rebuild ala port adelaide, to see out the period where GC/GWS are getting the best of the best. this means keeping the core there and retiring players like baker and blake. delist the cloggers (ones who arent playing regular senior footy and are not developing).

Yea.. I dont think a clean out is going to work with all these new franchises coming in and all. Plus the added fact that priority picks arnt as lucrative as they once where. "IF" I was the saints I would aggressively trade. You have some stars/ some decent players with some flaws and then the deadwood.
Players like gilbert/jones/mcqualter are decent but they have too many flaws, that when your not going well they struggle bigtime [fyi every team has them].

The saints should try to offload gilbert to either the suns/blues or hawks. Teams that would love tall rebounding types. In return you should try and grab a decent youngster 20-23 range.

Trading like this would break up that massive high end age bracket that you currently have, would almost offset the non development over the years.

Look I dont think you guys will drop and die but you need to really bite the bullet. It should have happened last year but playing in 3 GF's I can see why you didnt. Oh and really should remove Rossy, I mean the guys a great coach when the team is there for him but he cant develop players at all. Almost the reverse Dean Bailey. Great match day coach, poor developmental coach.

 

[DAWESOME!!]

Re: Saints Are Finished in 2010 & Beyond

That 2009 trade week was just an absolute disaster for the Saints, and really the point where the apparent ends of this era that we're seeing now were sowed. Lovett for their first round pick which they could have used for a Menzel or Tappscott, and then Ball for nothing, when they could have got pick 30 for it, were two decisions that have turned out very poorly.

 

[McCrann]

Re: Saints Are Finished in 2010 & Beyond

Alan Didak and Leon Davis, oh, and Ben Johnson say hi. Tell me which of these guys are father-sons again?

The Collingwood model post 2003 is pretty interesting. Reminds me so much of the Saints position currently. 2004 we were mentally shot, went downhill fast etc. However, in terms of youth coming through/drafting it's even more similar.

If you look at Collingwood's team today (or last year), only ONE non father/son pick pre-2005 is still on the list (Dane Swan, coincidentally). Ie, we drafted like absolute s@&# every year prior to 2005. We recognised this, got Derek Hine on board, and got Pendlebury/Thomas/Nathan Brown/Ben Reid/Chris Dawes/Beams/Sidebottom etc.

Though not all were part of it, we made finals in 2006 and a prelim in 2007, losing to Geelong by five points. And then a GF in 2010. So though the period between GFs was seven years, we were back in finals within four, and made finals every year subsequently, with several top 4 finishes. All this with horrific drafting pre-2005, somewhat similar to St Kilda's position now.

 

[Defacto]

Yea.. I dont think a clean out is going to work with all these new franchises coming in and all. Plus the added fact that priority picks arnt as lucrative as they once where. "IF" I was the saints I would aggressively trade. You have some stars/ some decent players with some flaws and then the deadwood.
Players like gilbert/jones/mcqualter are decent but they have too many flaws, that when your not going well they struggle bigtime [fyi every team has them].

The saints should try to offload gilbert to either the suns/blues or hawks. Teams that would love tall rebounding types. In return you should try and grab a decent youngster 20-23 range.

Trading like this would break up that massive high end age bracket that you currently have, would almost offset the non development over the years.

Look I dont think you guys will drop and die but you need to really bite the bullet. It should have happened last year but playing in 3 GF's I can see why you didnt. Oh and really should remove Rossy, I mean the guys a great coach when the team is there for him but he cant develop players at all. Almost the reverse Dean Bailey. Great match day coach, poor developmental coach.

yeah all good points. either way they're kinda forced to play the hand they've been dealt. either way they have to work with the core group of players they already have.

alot of saints supporters are very happy with ross. but you are right our track record with developing the kids on the past 3-4 seasons has been poor. i would like ross to keep drafting kids for this next partial rebuild to prove your last point wrong or right.

 

[Strahany]

What??

Buckley, Burns, Clement, Rocca, Wakelin, Presti, Woewy and Licca all played in the 2003 GF, they were old players worth keeping.

Buckley and Rocca went down in 04 & 05, not to different to losing Lenny.

St Kilda players worth keeping > Collingwood players worth keeping

Riewoldt, Goddard and Hayes certified stars. Dal Santo, Montagna, Milne and Fisher not overly far behind.

The only certified star amongst those Collingwood players was Buckley - Rocca as well if you really want to stretch the definition. The rest sit around the Dal Santo/Montagna/Fisher level.

 

[sainter35]

Re: Saints Are Finished in 2010 & Beyond

That 2009 trade week was just an absolute disaster for the Saints, and really the point where the apparent ends of this era that we're seeing now were sowed. Lovett for their first round pick which they could have used for a Menzel or Tappscott, and then Ball for nothing, when they could have got pick 30 for it, were two decisions that have turned out very poorly.

Yeah the Lovett thing didnt work - in hindsight we all know that now. We also know Cats chased him hard in 2010....they got lucky.

Ball was poorly handled - right move to drop his 600k pay packet at Saints cause he wasnt and still isnt worth that coin...he's no Lenny. Ball aint gonna fix our slow spread capability to stop outside runners.

Where St Kilda have stuffed up IMHO is in that time we have given games to many "role" players who do a job and thats it aka Mqualter/Eddy types at the expense of Armitage who had he been played would have more than 50 games by now and be a worthy Hayes fill in....(why he was left emmergency for 2 GF's is beyond me.....over likes of Mqualter/Eddy FFS).

For those saying Lyon should be "moved on" (most Pie fans) I laugh....just as I laughed 2 years agao when many same Pie fans were calling for Malthouses head cause he kept "hugging the boundary line" (till he adopted Lyons gameplan funnily enough...). Has Lyon proven his development capabilities yet? Probably not. Has he coaches us to 3GF's over last 2 years? yep......would you be in full development of you were competing for GFs?...dont think so. Lyons record as a coach is one of the best in the game right now - he'sgoing nowhere. Infact the worst thing St Kilda could do is throw out a coach....that saints of another era. Stick with Lyon, regenerate with some kids/trades as the core is good enough and young enough for another crack in 2012.

 

[doppleganger]

gold coast and gws will have alot of their concessions up until 2013-2014. if st kilda start their "clean out" now they will get 2nd's on any new draftees. its pointless.

Delaying any clean out will hurt the club in long term, especially if going for a half ass clean out.

Need to bite the bullet and off load blokes now.

Apart from Roo (spiritual leader) and Goddard (should be given captaincy and encouraged to develop the next wave), everybody else is expendable and should be shopped around.

If you wait a couple of years you will get nothing for Dal, Montagna, S.Fisher etc

port adelaide started their partial rebuild at the end of 2005 (after finishing 8th on the ladder, 6th after finals). in 2006 they finished 12th and in 2007 they made the grand final (easily beaten by geelong). in 2008 they bottomed out again.

PA never fully rebuilt, now they are further away from a flag than they have ever been.......why because they didn't do a full re-build.

Port are stuffed because they didn't do a full rebuild.....yet you are promoting a half assed PA rebuild as the model to follow......lol!

if we take the port adelaide approach and start our partial rebuild at the end of the year (2011) we can potentially turn things around and not bottom out again until 2013, by that time GC/GWS would have used their draft concessions allowing us to clean out the list, perform a complete rebuild and get the best draftees available. what makes it better is that we already have a good core of players that will not reach retirement until 2013-2014.

Are you serious??

PA won the flag in 2004....and 7 years later are at an all time club low.

Saints need to copy Hawthorn, off load players with some currency (ie Hay, N.Thompson, J.Rawlings) to re-invigorate the list.

as for luke ball. its been covered to death. i dont think he would get a game with us even now. he's in the same boat as baker and blake. however, i do think he's a perfect fit for collingwood and compliments your team nicely.

L.Ball bust his gut, the saints need bloke who will bleed for the jumper.
L.Ball is a perfectionist in his preparation, the saints need blokes like that.
L.Ball is a leader, the saints are crying out for leaders.

 

[Mark25Jackson]

Not sure if this has been raised, but the similarities between essendon post 2000 and the Saints are frighteningly similar.

Bombers traded out Blumfield, Caracella and Heffernan. The culture and heart around the place took ages to recover. I just reckon that the whole Luke Ball saga - firstly discarding him, letting him play 2's footy, and then when he wants to leave and on the record as going for less money, to hang a guy who was loved by his team mates and had given his heart and soul to the place, by refusing to trade him. Was disgraceful. i wonder how many Saints players had a real disliking for Ross Lyon over the whole thing. Especially when you throw Andrew Lovett into the equation. Then watching Ball get a premiership medal. That would have been the final straw for some... Throw the photo scandal in plus the fact some senior players are still tught with Grant Thomas, and I reckon you have a club where the players DONT play for the coach, and even more worringly, DONT play for each other.

This list is finished. They need a new coach, an a clean out. ASAP.

 

[Defacto]

St Kilda players worth keeping > Collingwood players worth keeping

Riewoldt, Goddard and Hayes certified stars. Dal Santo, Montagna, Milne and Fisher not overly far behind.

The only certified star amongst those Collingwood players was Buckley - Rocca as well if you really want to stretch the definition. The rest sit around the Dal Santo/Montagna/Fisher level.

agree. however, clement was an excellent player and was very underated. wakelin was a very under-rated defender. st kilda should have kept the wakelin twins.

 

[Defacto]

Not sure if this has been raised, but the similarities between essendon post 2000 and the Saints are frighteningly similar.

Bombers traded out Blumfield, Caracella and Heffernan. The culture and heart around the place took ages to recover. I just reckon that the whole Luke Ball saga - firstly discarding him, letting him play 2's footy, and then when he wants to leave and on the record as going for less money, to hang a guy who was loved by his team mates and had given his heart and soul to the place, by refusing to trade him. Was disgraceful. i wonder how many Saints players had a real disliking for Ross Lyon over the whole thing. Especially when you throw Andrew Lovett into the equation. Then watching Ball get a premiership medal. That would have been the final straw for some... Throw the photo scandal in plus the fact some senior players are still tught with Grant Thomas, and I reckon you have a club where the players DONT play for the coach, and even more worringly, DONT play for each other.

This list is finished. They need a new coach, an a clean out. ASAP.

so many mistruths that have already been covered.

as for the clean out re-read the GWS/GC post.

 

[doppleganger]

St Kilda players worth keeping > Collingwood players worth keeping

Riewoldt, Goddard and Hayes certified stars. Dal Santo, Montagna, Milne and Fisher not overly far behind.

The only certified star amongst those Collingwood players was Buckley - Rocca as well if you really want to stretch the definition. The rest sit around the Dal Santo/Montagna/Fisher level.

Arguing over semantics....however Burns, Clement were absolute stars.

The point being pies relied on our top end too much, just like the aints.....we crashed and burned and were better for it in the long term, as now we have a strong list.

 

[doppleganger]

That's funny, I'm a Saints fan and I don't think lessening the speed of the group would help.

St.Kilda need blokes who will bust their gut week in week out, guys who will leave no stone unturned during the week preparing for the next game, blokes who are leaders and willing to put their body on the line for the team.

 

[Vdubs]

Not sure if this has been raised, but the similarities between essendon post 2000 and the Saints are frighteningly similar.

Bombers traded out Blumfield, Caracella and Heffernan. The culture and heart around the place took ages to recover. I just reckon that the whole Luke Ball saga - firstly discarding him, letting him play 2's footy, and then when he wants to leave and on the record as going for less money, to hang a guy who was loved by his team mates and had given his heart and soul to the place, by refusing to trade him. Was disgraceful. i wonder how many Saints players had a real disliking for Ross Lyon over the whole thing. Especially when you throw Andrew Lovett into the equation. Then watching Ball get a premiership medal. That would have been the final straw for some... Throw the photo scandal in plus the fact some senior players are still tught with Grant Thomas, and I reckon you have a club where the players DONT play for the coach, and even more worringly, DONT play for each other.

This list is finished. They need a new coach, an a clean out. ASAP.

Similar comparison was raised regarding Cats and Bombers 2000. This will be a long season, and Saints have time to turn it around. Wonder if they want to?

 

[McCrann]

Absolutely spot on. Lyon's game-plan has sickened me a number of times in the last few years, only the seemingly very close prospect of ultimate success has salved this feeling.

The other problem, and more damaging in the long-term has been Ross's drafting of duds (I'll forgove him Andrew Lovett as if he could have kept it together for 1 year it might well have made a difference last year) and his continual playing of - in particular - McQualter, Raph Clarke, Dempster (unbelievable that McQualter is almost up to 100 AFL games!) and to an ever so slightly lesser extent, Blake, Peake, Baker & Koschitzke last 2 years, and Clint Jones. Also - why is Gilbert still getting a game this year? I am mystified by that as well.

The Saints problem is what a lot of people have been saying about them prior to 2011. I didn't think they would fall like this in 2011 though.

As has been said in the past, this St. Kilda team has been exceptionally well-drilled to play a particular game plan, which was slow and aimed to stifle the scoring of the opposition.

They have a group of top echelon players - Riewoldt, Goddard, Hayes, Montagna, Dal Santo and Milne, then some decent players like Gilbert, Gram, Fisher etc. However, they then have a large second half of average players, who really only fit within the team because the gameplan allowed it.

The risk with the way St. Kilda have gone about things is that when the game plan was inevitably figured out, a lot of their players would be found out to be pretty ordinary players. Also, they relied heavily on their top echelon and if they were to go (as Hayes has) or battle with form issues (as I think they all are) then those ordinary players would be exposed further.

Now, the problem St. Kilda faces is that if they can't regain form, figure out a new way to play or get those great players playing at their best again, they will struggle to rebuild quickly as Lyon has recycled so many average players that they have filled the spots rather than going for youth.

Some say St. Kilda has no good young kids coming through. I won't say that's true, we just don't know who any of them are because none have been given game time the last few years. What happens when the cull of the average players happens and a bunch of raw kids have to come in?

I can understand if the players feel somewhat disheartened. In 2009, they dominated the competition. In the H&A season, their form was near impeccable, with the exception of two meaningless games towards the end of the season. They won 19 games in a row and bumped us off in an epic.

If they were to ever win a GF, that was their year. On Grand final day, they played well, lead for a long time but some early misses and bad decisions were mistakes that could not be made against that Geelong side.

In 2010, I think they kind of fell into the GF and no one expected them to win. The draw was more a case of Collingwood falling down then St. Kilda really improving and Collingwood proved this in the replay.

After working so hard in such a regimented game style for so long to come up with nothing must hurt, especially when their last grand final loss was a pretty big belting.

Watching a team who had been behind them shoot past them with youth and play a far more exciting brand of football defeat them must be pretty grating too. Maybe some of those top players are questioning the ability of Lyon.

 

[Defacto]

St.Kilda need blokes who will bust their gut week in week out, guys who will leave no stone unturned during the week preparing for the next game, blokes who are leaders and willing to put their body on the line for the team.

we already haves those blokes, they aint helping us. blake, baker, mcqualter were all brought in for those reasons.

what we dont need is a bloke who needs his game time managed to 8 mins a qtr at most before his man gets the better of him. he works well in collingwood due to the amount of good quality youth in the team. plays his role very well at collingwood. his role at the saints would be the same and would only compound our problems.

you need to stop commenting on st kildas problems. you clearly have no idea.

 

[doppleganger]

we already haves those blokes, they aint helping us. blake, baker, mcqualter were all brought in for those reasons.

you need to stop commenting on st kildas problems. you clearly have no idea.

Blake, Baker and McQ should all be delisted.

Ball just came 5th in the premiers BnF and is more than backing it up again in 2011. He is fit again, playing close to his 2004-5 best.

Saints fans need to accept the harsh reality, they need to cut and cut deep. If they don't they will wallow in mediocrity for 5 years before finally collapsing like Port.

 

[Murraj1966]

Every Collingwood and Geelong pleb will always have some idiotic opinion about St Kilda.