Xavier College

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B

Bullet pass

Debutant
Mar 10, 2008
60
2
left of centre
AFL Club
Essendon
For about three decades, Xavier was the benchmark of APS football winning nearly 20 flags through the 80s, 90s and early naughties...

Last year was their worst finish (2nd last) since woodstock!

It doesn't seem that long ago that they were vying for a top 3 spot against cashed up Haileybury and Melbourne Grammar. In 2007, they were runners up to Caulfield. In 2008 they lost by less than a kick to eventual premiers MGS. In 2009, the wheels seem to have fallen off...

What's happened there?
They have more football teams than any other school in the country, but their top batch just didn't perform last year. The Roche oval no longer seems like the forbidable pitch that Kennedy, Ball, Watson, Richards and O'Sullivan all took for granted.
 
Simple answer really, for years they gave out scholarships and no one else did, now the others do.
Xavier is also a very poor performing school education wise, as the the VCE results show from the last 5 years, so a lot of kids are enrolled at the better schools now.
 
I was hoping to get a response from someone without an agenda!
Not too sure where to start with your comment there, but here goes...

APS schools give out scholarships to various extent, Xavier is no exception. However, to suggest that they've been filling their sides with bought players is both ignorant and fanciful - so don't make stuff up just because you harbour resentment towards them. Certainly Xavier had Casey and Cody Sibosado there a few years ago and Robbie Tarrant - but that would be it for football over the span of a decade. Those guys have already been discussed at length on this forum.

Your comment on Xavier being a 'poor performing school education wise' is a bizzarre one. They've had median enter scores well over 90 since VCAA introduced it - easily checked.
 

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i dont reckon it will be too long before you see another xavier side win a flag. i dont know how strong their under age teams are though.

they are probably a victim of their own success in the 80's , 90's early noughties. as brian mentioned the rest of the comp has probably caught up and taken over.

i dont reckon you will see the dominance though of the other APS schools that Xavier had in the 80's and 90's - i think they won 8 in a row but had a few scholarships in their teams as well as some great home grown players.
 
Bullet pass said:
For about three decades, Xavier was the benchmark of APS football winning nearly 20 flags through the 80s, 90s and early naughties...

Last year was their worst finish (2nd last) since woodstock!

It doesn't seem that long ago that they were vying for a top 3 spot against cashed up Haileybury and Melbourne Grammar. In 2007, they were runners up to Caulfield. In 2008 they lost by less than a kick to eventual premiers MGS. In 2009, the wheels seem to have fallen off...

What's happened there?
They have more football teams than any other school in the country, but their top batch just didn't perform last year. The Roche oval no longer seems like the forbidable pitch that Kennedy, Ball, Watson, Richards and O'Sullivan all took for granted.
Click to expand...

Its unbelievable that 1 time in 20 odd seasons xavier has a poor year and people jump on the bandwagon saying xavier are bad, just like the media.

Xavier had a bad year in football as all great sporting clubs do every now and again. Look at hawthorn in 2009, look at liverpool 2010.
Xavier will be back in 2010 as a force in the aps competition.
 
jazza97 said:
Its unbelievable that 1 time in 20 odd seasons xavier has a poor year and people jump on the bandwagon saying xavier are bad, just like the media.

Xavier had a bad year in football as all great sporting clubs do every now and again. Look at hawthorn in 2009, look at liverpool 2010.
Xavier will be back in 2010 as a force in the aps competition.
Click to expand...

don't know if 2010 will be their year but yes i agree that to write them off after one poor year is foolish. though the trend of the past few years has been a downward one since last winning the flag in 2003, i think we shall see a xavier over the next 3-4 years determined to once again see the silverware back at barkers rd. they have a strong football infrastructure (stronger than i dare say any other school) and they will supplement this by importing players (as other schools have done) to ensure that the premierhsip drought of 6 years is ended. mind you a drought of 6 years is hardly a drought in the scheme of things when you look at schools such as Brighton, Wesley, Carey and Geelong Grammar whose last flags were in '92, '79, '99 and 1902 (yes I repeat, 1902- no joke) respectively. I would also point out that until '08 MGS had not won a flag since '95 and that until last year SKC had not won since '97.
 
Edar 07, you mention that Xavier has a strong football infrastructure, better than most schools. They seem to have a revolving door of coaches recently. A few years ago they had John Kennedy, Stephen Silvagni, Shane Healy, Matt Hannebery, Ian Aitken and Neale Daniher there. All of those have now left. Significantly, their results at 1sts level and lower grades have also declined since their departure. Did the school run out of money to pay these good coaches or was there a change in policy somewhere along the line?
 
Bullet pass said:
Edar 07, you mention that Xavier has a strong football infrastructure, better than most schools. They seem to have a revolving door of coaches recently. A few years ago they had John Kennedy, Stephen Silvagni, Shane Healy, Matt Hannebery, Ian Aitken and Neale Daniher there. All of those have now left. Significantly, their results at 1sts level and lower grades have also declined since their departure. Did the school run out of money to pay these good coaches or was there a change in policy somewhere along the line?
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if i recall from the names you mentioned (kennedy, daniher etc), those former coaches had sons/nephews at the school and you would assume that was the cause of their involvement- as is the case at skevs with former players such as steve wallis, rod grinter and tony liberatore all having/had some sort of a coaching involvement at the school due to their sons going there. naturally as their relations move on from the school, their involvement concluded. however i was quite sure that xavier undertook the inititative to get several hawthorn players down to the barkers rd in a signigicant coaching capacity. the names sam mitchell and rick ladson spring to mind immediately. this would highlight the school's emphasis on a strong footballing infrastructure i would assume.
 
BrianSpeaking said:
Simple answer really, for years they gave out scholarships and no one else did, now the others do.
Xavier is also a very poor performing school education wise, as the the VCE results show from the last 5 years, so a lot of kids are enrolled at the better schools now.
Click to expand...

Xavier actually prided itself on never giving out sports scholarships while I was there (1993-2000). And when i recall the footy teams during my senior years, they were all kids that I started school with in grades 5-8. It may have changed since then, but scholarships were certainly not the reason for their previous success and I believe you are talking out your arse.
 
BrianSpeaking said:
Simple answer really, for years they gave out scholarships and no one else did, now the others do.
Xavier is also a very poor performing school education wise, as the the VCE results show from the last 5 years, so a lot of kids are enrolled at the better schools now.
Click to expand...

Silly comment, at least on the scholarships. Sure, Xavier gives out scholarships like everyone else, but they certainly don't go and 'buy' players to top up their team. Hannebery and Shaw, e.g., both finished last year after being at the school from Yr 5 or 7. They were probs on some form of support (IMO) but they definitely weren't bought.
Having finished there last year myself, i have it first-hand from a high-ranking teacher/coach that Xavier prides itself on not 'buying' players a la Haileybury or MGS.
VCE results? Last year's were fairly sh1t, admittedly, but really...

Clearly an agenda there.
 
dcrock said:
Silly comment, at least on the scholarships. Sure, Xavier gives out scholarships like everyone else, but they certainly don't go and 'buy' players to top up their team. Hannebery and Shaw, e.g., both finished last year after being at the school from Yr 5 or 7. They were probs on some form of support (IMO) but they definitely weren't bought.
Having finished there last year myself, i have it first-hand from a high-ranking teacher/coach that Xavier prides itself on not 'buying' players a la Haileybury or MGS.
VCE results? Last year's were fairly sh1t, admittedly, but really...

Clearly an agenda there.
Click to expand...
On the topic of buying players, caulfield seem to be doing that at the moment.
 

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in the Square said:
On the topic of buying players, caulfield seem to be doing that at the moment.
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Yeah - in the APS it seems to change between schools. Haylebury were the most corrupt at this but then started to go broke!

In the AGSV it is only the cheating thieves in Kilmore who do this - but as the rest of the AGSV schools are aware of this, they all just ignore Assumption.

P.S.I heard a rumour that the other AGSV schools are going to rest their good players when they come up against ACK as they are just not interested in this scam.
So the team that comes second this year in AGSV behind ACK will be the real winner.
 
jazza97 said:
Its unbelievable that 1 time in 20 odd seasons xavier has a poor year and people jump on the bandwagon saying xavier are bad, just like the media.

Xavier had a bad year in football as all great sporting clubs do every now and again. Look at hawthorn in 2009, look at liverpool 2010.
Xavier will be back in 2010 as a force in the aps competition.
Click to expand...

Certainly beats Geelong Grammar, think weve only won one, if any. that would have been over a hundred years ago....but dont worry, we are slowly catching up.

but unfortunately for you, the dirty xavs didnt come back as a force
 
Xavier's struggles in football are reflective of the entire school. Once the Catholic school to go to, now an also ran clearly struggling to keep up with SKC.
 
TownleyTime said:
Xavier's struggles in football are reflective of the entire school. Once the Catholic school to go to, now an also ran clearly struggling to keep up with SKC.
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BS Mate - Xavs don't do as many scholarships as the rest.

School Footy has become a Total Joke. Just look at PEGs and Assumption in the AGSV - the only 2 schools who do lots of scholarships and waht a surprise, they both played off the AGSV Grand Final.

But when you look at other sports , such as athletics, where PEGs and ACK do not do scholarships - they both finish down the bottom of the table.

What we need to do is drop this AGSK and APS nonsense, and split between scholarships and non-scholarships schools.
It would be aeasy to so - make a rule for the non-scholarship schools that only 2 players can play 1st XVIII who did not attend the school at Year 7.
Simple but effective.
 
TownleyTime said:
Xavier's struggles in football are reflective of the entire school. Once the Catholic school to go to, now an also ran clearly struggling to keep up with SKC.
Click to expand...


So much for "Xavier's struggles in football are reflective of the entire school", their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th have only lost 1 game between them this whole year, I bet skevs have lost more than 1 game between their 4 best sides.

you do the maths.
 
paulie9214 said:
In reality, how the 2nds, 3rds and 4ths go means absolutely nothing.
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thepot is absolutely spot on champ. What he is saying is that the depth in Xavier football is what makes them great football school, when you're four top sides are doing well it reflects well on the 1's when injuries do occur which has happened for the 1's a lot and unlike other schools Xavier has the depth to cover them. With what townleytime was saying when he said "Xavier's struggles in football are reflective of the entire school" pot is basically putting him in his place when that flog cannot get his facts straight.
 
paulie9214 said:
In reality, how the 2nds, 3rds and 4ths go means absolutely nothing.
Click to expand...


Why are you on this site buddy, this site is for people that actually know something about football to talk to eachother about football. you have just said that 2nd 3rd and 4th football teams dont have any difference on the performance of a school football side. unlike wesley, xavier had depth, the reason wesley have lost this year is because their AIS and Vic players havnt been playing alot, so their 2nd's players get picked to play 1st, and they're just not up to 1st football standards.
 
thepot said:
Why are you on this site buddy, this site is for people that actually know something about football to talk to eachother about football. you have just said that 2nd 3rd and 4th football teams dont have any difference on the performance of a school football side. unlike wesley, xavier had depth, the reason wesley have lost this year is because their AIS and Vic players havnt been playing alot, so their 2nd's players get picked to play 1st, and they're just not up to 1st football standards.
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yeah great call, especially coming from a wesley boy yourself you would know..
 
xavier is a great footy school, always have been, always will be - they seem to bottle that winning footy culture down at barkers road (through every level of competition, 1sts to 7s). but the real question is:

Can xavier hang their red and black blazers on anything besides football?

not likely.
 
edar 07 said:
xavier is a great footy school, always have been, always will be - they seem to bottle that winning footy culture down at barkers road (through every level of competition, 1sts to 7s). but the real question is:

Can xavier hang their red and black blazers on anything besides football?

not likely.
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don't know why i am even going to dignify this post with a reply.

Like the media you are another ignorant individual with tall poppy syndrome. Xavier's not perfect (and who is) , but it seems that all the good seems to get overlooked because of a few hiccups.

just thought you should have a look at this article champ. sums all of xavier up. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/sick-mate-a-shaving-grace/story-fn6bfm6w-1226059891815
 
catsdynasty said:
don't know why i am even going to dignify this post with a reply.

Like the media you are another ignorant individual with tall poppy syndrome. Xavier's not perfect (and who is) , but it seems that all the good seems to get overlooked because of a few hiccups.

just thought you should have a look at this article champ. sums all of xavier up. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/sick-mate-a-shaving-grace/story-fn6bfm6w-1226059891815
Click to expand...

a great story, and good on the xavs blokes for getting round jack lloyd. but yeah, hard to suffer from tall poppy syndrome when xavier have of their own accord reduced their poppy to its root structure.
 

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