Roast St Kilda in no mans land

[BrutThough]

Play to win, yes... But Saints should have been blooding youngsters like Keeler, Garcia, Collard, Hastie etc and trying to win while getting games into them.

Season was well and truly over but Ross was wanting to play 'Grinch' having spuds like Zak Jones rolling around trying to get another contract.

Don't have to go out and deliberately lose a game, but the team you put out there in the back half of the year was absurd given a chance of finals was long behind you.

We blooded plenty of kids throughout the year. But we also did that while having selection integrity.

That meant those who did earn a game got it on merit instead of their birth certificate. Those that did play would have got a lot more out of playing in competitive contests where every touch/decision had consequence compared to the kids at other clubs running around losing by 50 points every week.

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

Play to win, yes... But Saints should have been blooding youngsters like Keeler, Garcia, Collard, Hastie etc and trying to win while getting games into them.

Season was well and truly over but Ross was wanting to play 'Grinch' having spuds like Zak Jones rolling around trying to get another contract.

Don't have to go out and deliberately lose a game, but the team you put out there in the back half of the year was absurd given a chance of finals was long behind you.

Garcia has been playing, Collard got suspended, Keeler had injuries and Hastie got a taste of AFL football,

Caminiti, Wilson, Nas, Owen's and Windhager all played minutes and Phillipou chose to play VFL to get from back and had some ripper games before getting injured. Byrnes has also developed into a good running player whose kicking has improved.

Jones back end of the season was very good and he has speed.

The teams we put out were developing young players and winning games.

 

[Yoda_]

Saints are in definitive no man's land.

Miss or scrape into finals, get flogged, miss out on the elite talent of the draft, complain about a lack of star power in the midfield, go again the next year... Rinse and repeat.

Blues have the talent to contend, their issues are due to other factors. Even still at least we made a prelim last year. Saints list is in all sorts a long with the rest of their club.

this chart doubt the rounds over the past couple of days disagrees they aren't trying to make inroads into giving the youth the best possible chance

 

[Yoda_]

I’m not dense enough to think that you just emulate two clubs who have very clear advantages which plays directly into how they attract players and manage their list.

Put your fingers in your ears if you like, but you don’t have the geographical advantage the either Swans or Geelong have, don’t have the winning culture, don’t have the off-field stability, don’t have the academy that Swans have…. But sure, “we can emulate the Geelong and Swans list management styles, because we can offer lots of money…maybe…”.

its funny you say this because in theory the Saints should have the most dominant "geographical advantage" win the AFL.

South East Melbourne where private schools are rife and no other clubs within a kicks distance like others in Melbourne (I am classing Hawks as east, Melbourne are central although in Casey and Richmond and Collingwood are inner South / SE)


they could do better

 

[EconomicDecline]

Saints are in definitive no man's land.

Miss or scrape into finals, get flogged, miss out on the elite talent of the draft, complain about a lack of star power in the midfield, go again the next year... Rinse and repeat.

Blues have the talent to contend, their issues are due to other factors. Even still at least we made a prelim last year. Saints list is in all sorts a long with the rest of their club.

Sounds like excuses to me.

And a lot of talk from a club that's only won 1 more final in the past 10 years.

 

[Dogflogger]

No, it’s not trolly at all.

This poster claims that Saint Kilda want to emulate Geelong and the Swans, and I’ve asked them how they would do that?

Unless you speak for all Saints fans, I am inclined to ask specific posters to make their own point.
I’ll respond to your post when I have more time.

To emulate the swans we just need our academy players protected so they cannot be drafted by anyone else, to emulate Geelong we just need to luck into 3 gun father sons in the same team it's pretty simple but highly unlikely to happen.

 

[EconomicDecline]

its funny you say this because in theory the Saints should have the most dominant "geographical advantage" win the AFL.

South East Melbourne where private schools are rife and no other clubs within a kicks distance like others in Melbourne (I am classing Hawks as east, Melbourne are central although in Casey and Richmond and Collingwood are inner South / SE)


they could do better

I mean, we should have in the past had country zoning had been done according to where teams were geographically. Instead it was a lottery, and when Carlton and Hawthorn happened to get the pick of the litter, they kicked and absolute stink and it was cemented from there on. Imagine if St Kilda had Morning Peninsula and West Gippsland and Hawthorn had Ballarat.

 

[Elixuh]

Who is actually suggesting that the saints tank in 2025? No one. If you have to invent these extremes positions that current posters aren’t arguing it kinda devalues your claims.

 

[beside the seaside]

We've got a long way to go no doubt, but whoever suggested Cadman and Walter are better than King seriously has NFI.

 

[phantom13]

We've got a long way to go no doubt, but whoever suggested Cadman and Walter are better than King seriously has NFI.

Feels worth pointing out I said King was the most talented since Curnow, clearly he hasn’t put it altogether yet (otherwise I would have said “best”).

Comprehension not a strong suit of some

 

[Elixuh]

To be fair, I don't think any modern football person 'looks at the back 6'.

Football is a full ground team game.

Aside from the 6-6-6 rule - there is no back six anymore.

All 18 players have a role.

These 'on paper' discussions are absolutely futile and very misguided.

I would say that is correct for any gameplan bar RTB. I went to your game against the saints at marvel this year. It was the worst game of football I’ve ever watched. Saints had every player behind the ball when the suns had it and the suns weren’t good enough to figure how to move it against that style. They ended up chipping it around and then eventually turning it over. Hilariously, when the saints turned it over because they had 0 players ahead of the ball they couldn’t score either.

Anyone can limit points against if you flood your entire 18 behind the ball which is what RTB was doing and which absolutely impacts the saints supporters perception of their defensive unit and why they’re a ‘top 5’ defence on paper.

 

[Lavender Bushranger]

I would say that is correct for any gameplan bar RTB. I went to your game against the saints at marvel this year. It was the worst game of football I’ve ever watched. Saints had every player behind the ball when the suns had it and the suns weren’t good enough to figure how to move it against that style. They ended up chipping it around and then eventually turning it over. Hilariously, when the saints turned it over because they had 0 players ahead of the ball they couldn’t score either.

Anyone can limit points against if you flood your entire 18 behind the ball which is what RTB was doing and which absolutely impacts the saints supporters perception of their defensive unit and why they’re a ‘top 5’ defence on paper.

Yeah, my point was the 'back 6' on paper is irrelevant.


And FWIW, if St Kilda had an absolute monster like Harris Andrews prowling their entire D50 - they probably wouldn't need to flood the entire team back!

Man that guy is a football god.

 

[Sarcoidevo]

The best part of the Saints build is putting out their best team and fighting tooth and claw to get over the line at the last second against Carltons VFL team in rd 24. That bumped them up two spots on the ladder giving them picks 7&8 to attack the draft instead of picks 5&6

Could have taken Smillie and Langford finally bringing in some elite midfield talent they've been crying out for for an eternity.

Smillie has suspect work rate and is soft for a player his size .... think Tuggers have a dud here

Langford got bullied hard and outplayed by Barrat in a CL game earlier this year

Your choking mob had a full quota midfield playing minus a soft Cerra ..... granted you had McKay & Curnow missing but they have never done much anyway when we played you recently .... so no difference there .... we had King missing and a few other starting 18 .... like our best mid Crouch .... the leagues best tagger Windhager and livewire Henry

Your choking mob were also playing for a Finals spot and had to rely on another choking mob to get you in .... where you once again proved that you also thoroughly deserve the "no mans land" tag

Anyway good luck with your choking injury riddled aging stars

Also pretty embarrassing that your nic claims that .... Walsh is the GOAT .... big part of the reason why you are so averagely shite

 

[Sarcoidevo]

Sounds like excuses to me.

And a lot of talk from a club that's only won 1 more final in the past 10 years.

Carlton with more wooden spoons than any other side in the AFL era (since 1990) with 5

 

[Yoda_]

Yeah, my point was the 'back 6' on paper is irrelevant.


And FWIW, if St Kilda had an absolute monster like Harris Andrews prowling their entire D50 - they probably wouldn't need to flood the entire team back!

Man that guy is a football god.

Agreed

The back 6 is only as good as the pressure applied up the field.

 

[Tasmanian saint]

By remaining ‘highly competitive’ as you say, which is debatable, you’ve not really bottomed out, and as a consequence, you’ve collected a bunch of good young talents but it remains to be seen if any of them are really going to take you up the ladder or to a period where you can challenge.

In essence , this is the very reason why this thread is discussing whether the St Kilda are in no man’s land, because it certainly seems like you need a couple of top 3-5 picks(for your midfield), rather than collecting picks later on.

Geelong have shown you do not need to completely bottom out to rebuild a list capable of contending. We just need to get better at a lot of facets of running a football club from coaching player development injury management there’s lots of improvements that can be made. I liked our drafting this year took players with high ceilings

 

[Tasmanian saint]

You didn’t really address either of my queries regarding your midfield or back 7.

I’d be interested to see who you put forward for both.

There’s no doubt our midfield is average at best, but I think we’re looking pretty good down back for the future we have Wilkie and nas who are both elite we just drafted tauru and travaglia both elite junior defenders with top ten picks there’s potential for a extremely strong backline moving forward. I’m more concerned with our forward line which is still pretty reliant on king turning into a elite player

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Geelong have shown you do not need to completely bottom out to rebuild a list capable of contending. We just need to get better at a lot of facets of running a football club from coaching player development injury management there’s lots of improvements that can be made. I liked our drafting this year took players with high ceilings

As I have previously pointed out Geelong is an outlier.

You can try to emulate them all you want, but It's foolish, as they have a series of factors that sets them apart from every other Vic based club, Saints included.

Geography.
Culture.
Lifesytyle.
Success.
Outside the media eye/bubble in Melbourne.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

I mean you made the point that the Hawks jump was visible based on some back end of 23 form and big scalps but the EXACT same scenario with a prelim and grand finalist win just dont count for some arbitrary reason.

Not just back end form. Mid-season form, and the fact that Hawthorn was top 3 in the comp for centre bounce clearances in 2023, which is large part of being successful in the modern game and why we belted the two Grand Finalists. But again, this thread is about St Kilda...

3 of St Kilda's 4 biggest wins in 2024 came against 18th, 17th and 16th, and the other big win was against a nose-diving Essendon, who lost 6 of their last 7 games. The only really notable win in the last month was against Geelong(18pts) and that was the result of a bunch of players needing to find and prove something late in the year after getting an 85pt belting from the Lions in Round 22.
Outside of those 4 big wins against the bottom sides, your average winning margin was a little under 9pts.

Saints sat last in the comp for Centre Clearances in 2024 and 4th last for stoppage clearances.
Only Richmond, North and WC averaged less inside 50's in 2024.
They are damning stats for a side that a couple of posters here have claimed are a top 6 side that just had some injuries.

No, I’m not suggesting to tank. I’m suggesting that Saints would be better suited to prioritize the top end of the draft

Its not like we are trading out our first round picks for established players.
21- Nas, 22 - Philipou, 23 - Wilson, 24 - Travag and Tauru. All first round picks.

So I think what you ACTUALLY want us to do is tank for higher first round picks, cause as it stands weve picked our first rounders according to where weve finished and id argue that for 21, 22 and 23 weve scooped not just best available but top 5 talent every year. Only Nas would really be debateable and thats because that draft had Darcy, Horne Francis and Daicos (2 of whom we couldnt have drafted regardless of how hard we tanked).

Could you not have made hard calls on Jones, Howard and maybe even dangled Sharman, see what you could get in the door picks-wise? Bundle them up, and slide higher in the draft?

I'm no list manager, but there's other ways to prioritise the draft than just tanking.

I think it's highly debatable that Phillipou and Wilson are top 5 talents in their drafts, and I like them both.

 

[phantom13]

Not just back end form. Mid-season form, and the fact that Hawthorn was top 3 in the comp for centre bounce clearances in 2023, which is large part of being successful in the modern game and why we belted the two Grand Finalists. But again, this thread is about St Kilda...

3 of St Kilda's 4 biggest wins in 2024 came against 18th, 17th and 16th, and the other big win was against a nose-diving Essendon, who lost 6 of their last 7 games. The only really notable win in the last month was against Geelong(18pts) and that was the result of a bunch of players needing to find and prove something late in the year after getting an 85pt belting from the Lions in Round 22.
Outside of those 4 big wins against the bottom sides, your average winning margin was a little under 9pts.

Saints sat last in the comp for Centre Clearances in 2024 and 4th last for stoppage clearances.
Only Richmond, North and WC averaged less inside 50's in 2024.
They are damning stats for a side that a couple of posters here have claimed are a top 6 side that just had some injuries.


Could you not have made hard calls on Jones, Howard and maybe even dangled Sharman, see what you could get in the door picks-wise? Bundle them up, and slide higher in the draft?

I'm no list manager, but there's other ways to prioritise the draft than just tanking.

I think it's highly debatable that Phillipou and Wilson are top 5 talents in their drafts, and I like them both.

This really is the definition of confirmation bias.

The Geelong win doesn’t count cause reasons, the Carlton win doesn’t count cause vfl team, the Sydney win doesn’t count cause they share two of our colors.

Dangled Sharman to move up the draft order… I like Sharman but who is swapping a pick for Sharman as the carrot. We either trade out our handful of stars (who by your own admission you don’t rate anyway) which is basically tanking anyway or just actually tank.

You pretty clearly don’t really like Pou or Wilson if you don’t have either of them as a top 5 in their draft right now.

You’ve made it pretty clear you don’t really rate anyone on our list at all so I can see why you’d think we need to tank, you should just say that cause everything else is just window dressing on it.

 

[phantom13]

As I have previously pointed out Geelong is an outlier.

You can try to emulate them all you want, but It's foolish, as they have a series of factors that sets them apart from every other Vic based club, Saints included.

Geography.
Culture.
Lifesytyle.
Success.
Outside the media eye/bubble in Melbourne.

So again just give up on FAs, can’t possibly get one so just leave em for the big 4 yeh?

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

This really is the definition of confirmation bias.

The Geelong win doesn’t count cause reasons, the Carlton win doesn’t count cause vfl team, the Sydney win doesn’t count cause they share two of our colors.

Dude, you defeated Swans in the same period when they won 1 game from 6 attempts, and that 1 win was against the Roos. They were quite clearly in a form slump.
Every man and their dog could see Carlton were limping to the line when you defeated them.

Dangled Sharman to move up the draft order… I like Sharman but who is swapping a pick for Sharman as the carrot. We either trade out our handful of stars (who by your own admission you don’t rate anyway) which is basically tanking anyway or just actually tank.

You don't need to trade Sharman for Pick 2....Even a 2nd or 3rd rounder can be useful.

You pretty clearly don’t really like Pou or Wilson if you don’t have either of them as a top 5 in their draft right now.

I doubt many would neutrals would take Philippou ahead of Sheezel, Ashcroft, Cadman, Wardlaw, Humphrie or even Weddle. Some may, but I bet a whole heap wouldn't, which is why it would be debatable.

Wilson similarly, I'm not sure many are taking him ahead of Reid, Walter, Caddy, McKercher, Watson for a start and even Windsor, Rogers and Sanders would be arguable.

You’ve made it pretty clear you don’t really rate anyone on our list at all so I can see why you’d think we need to tank, you should just say that cause everything else is just window dressing on it.

I mean, if you want to ignore everything I have articulated and just say that I think you should tank, sure, be lazy.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

So again just give up on FAs, can’t possibly get one so just leave em for the big 4 yeh?

You're in "team emulate Geelong".

Do they prioritise the draft, or do they prioritise offering established players a lifestyle.change/role that other clubs can't?

It's not necessarily one or the other as I've stated, but if you don't prioritise the draft and miss on FA's your list is cactus in no time.

 

[phantom13]

You're in "team emulate Geelong".

Do they prioritise the draft, or do they prioritise offering established players a lifestyle.change/role that other clubs can't?

It's not necessarily one or the other as I've stated, but if you don't prioritise the draft and miss on FA's your list is cactus in no time.

Yeh, it’s both, much like what we’ve done… 5 first round picks in the last 4 years.

We have prioritized our core being the draft and we wanna top it off with an FA.

You want us to tank.

I’m also not specifically team emulate Geelong, it’s just circumstantial that we find ourselves in a position to do what they have done. If we were North I wouldn’t be saying this and I doubt the club would be doing it.

 

[phantom13]

Funnily for all your criticism about the draft and top up criticism it’s also the model the hawks have gone with and prior to 24 a lot of people outside hawthorn didn’t really think there was much talent on your list either.