A few lessons that we never seem to learn

[skeptic]

Hopefully we’ve caught on to these following errors that many of the more successful clubs clued onto years ago.

1. If a player has a recurring injury issue that has been highly problematic for years (aka consistently for at least 3 years) e.g. soft tissue, knee that swells, recurring OP etc then in all likelihood they will pbly keep having those issues. Don’t recruit said player from another club or if he’s already on your list and is seemingly always injured, look at plan B.
Obviously Hannebery is the key one here... but we’re also dangerously approaching a discussion point with one of my favourites in Jones... great player, has had like 3-4 big hamstring/soft tissue injuries in 2 years.


2. Meeting expectations of what should be basic effort, on its own as a trait, even to an elite standard IS NOT a desirable quality. Player X works hard, they block, they guard space, they chase, run both ways, they’re intense, they have good attack at the contest etc etc none of these things mean ANYTHING, if you don’t compliment it with the ability to get the ball, or kick it really well, or take contested marks, or kick lots of goals, or directly stop an opponent from getting the ball.
To be clearer... you can’t just celebrate effort. Effort is great because the hardest working players often get the best out of themselves but without talent/skills etc it’s pointless. Dmac, Joyce, Lonie, and Kent I’m looking at you.


3. Players that are outright delisted by their clubs... especially ageing ones that have been overtaken by younger better players RARELY actually work out. Now to be clear, we’re not talking about player X that walks out because they have a better offer on the table elsewhere... we’re talking about Hunter cut from the crows, McKernan who was canned from a terrible team and Frawley who was set to retire about 1/3 of the way through last season. If they haven’t made it after 8 years ala Mason Wood, chances are they’re not going to make it for you.
Say what you will GT, he clocked this one out back in 02-03 when he sent Capuano packing after he got towelled up by a young Josh Fraser and Matty Maguire stepped into the ruck for a better return. Collecting rejects is a loser strategy


And to a lesser degree
One acknowledges that you might trade off this last feature for inside grunt at least to a degree but in modern football you can’t be exposed like this

4. You cannot carry players in the middle that are SLOW and are godawful kicks of the ball. Now to be clear, we’re not about mids like Crouch who whilst not a deadeye dick, at least generally kicks it to the right side of a contest or does the odd helicopter kick under pressure. Streaming towards an open F50, if you can’t get it to within 20m of the contest or regularly pick out Lonie as your target when he’s one on 3 against two talls... well you’re useless to us.
At Marvel Stadium in particular, it’s a killer. The Bulldogs in particular are a side that has figured this out a build their midfield around the qualities of line breaking speed, elite disposal, punish turnovers

[WellardSaint]

Bingo.

Nathan Freeman 'ahh, we'll work with him to get his body right'....Fail
Then chuck $$$ at Hannas (see above)
Fraudelent use of money.

Effort: when Lonie was crunched in the Cats' game, Ratts praised his courage. I went all Postal on this. WHY celebrate this? He was slammed by 200 kgs because Sinclair, in the clear, had poked a stupid lazy hospital kick instead of running a bit further and choosing a better option.

McKernan, on occasion, has kicked the ball almost off his shin. If his attitude towards kicking is so amateurish, then GTFO over to the Amateurs.

With the Doggies, I laugh at Caleb Daniel and how small he is, but he hangs onto the ball and runs in circles until he spots a decent target, and usually nails it.
Our guys usually just kick in hope, knowing it adds to their possession tally. They don't give a rat's where it ends up.

[shanegrambeau]

Mnn..
I was thinking today about Jones and him as a potential captain. But with five hammies in two years, you just can't expect much from him. As a burst player he goes balls to the wall and it is just going to reignite his injury. He hasn't got the class to just turn off the jets and rest on slick skills and guile. (not saying he isn't a clever knob, eh..I mean tow ball..I mean ...oops...you know what I'm sayin')

[mad saint guy]

I'll add one that has frustrated me ever since Lyon began.

It's better to recruit/play someone with the potential to make it than to persevere with someone we know isn't going to. Why oh why do we give so many games to the likes of Robert Eddy, Cam Shenton, Ryan Gamble, Charlie Gardiner, Beau Maister, Terry Milera, Brodie Murdoch, Josh Saunders, Trent Dennis-Lane, Mav Weller, Jack Newnes, Luke Dunstan, Jack Lonie and Dean Kent when it is so obvious for all to see that they are never going to be a part of a quality team. We hang onto spuds for far too long and rarely take the best talent available in the draft.

Not to mention the 20 or so recycled players we've picked up who barely played. Rather than using list spots on the Shaun McKernans of the world, why not try and find the next Rowan Marshall? Yes 3 times out of 4 it will be a Jack Bell/Jack Mayo but I'd rather have 3 duds who can be quickly turned over to find one star than to pick up 4 known quantities who aren't up to it.

[Yorkeys]

So why not learnt?
Arrogance that against all proven wisdom you know better and occasionally a 100/1 shot comes up. No intuitional memory?
Finnis could have easily set up a checks and balances process where any injury cloud rules out recruitment and anyone cut from another club over 22 is probably no good. Its not a stretch to consider conspiracy theories, like in Hannebery's case. Not that I ever would, that one would be just bad luck - who could have known. I imagine Simon Lethlean is not getting many head hunter calls though.

[Vortex]

How much does the expanded competition effect a poor club's ability to develop a premiership capable side?

It's getting harder to draft players with all of the desired attributes and then being able to develop them into premiership players is in an 18 team competition and in a country with a small population where not every state is AFL, and in a market where there are many other sports creating competition for athletes.

If Tassie gets a side it can't be a 19th team...surely.

Sorry Skeptic for the slight thread drift but after reading your OP I asked myself, where does a poor club like ours get a critical mass of players with the desirable attributes you listed! And how can we compete with the rich club's who can develop players far better due to significantly better resources. Throw in the significant financial restrictions from a pandemic and you start to get concerned about our ability to fix our current situation.

In hindsight I can see why the club was quick to market our club as a "destination" club this past 12 months, we had to levage off the brief excitement of having recruited 5 players perceived to be our saviour. The afterglow has dimmed considerably since round 1.

This year's trade period is going to be fascinating.

[spert]

We don't learn from our mistakes, and that's why we only have one premiership (57 years ago). Can't develop a core of players(or not prepared to put the time in), top up the list with rejects or worn out players with their best behind them, poor recruiting, poor business decisions, tail wagging the dog. It goes on sadly.

[WellardSaint]

I think our glory days were when GT was coaching.
Sure we had talent then, but GT gave the guys ownership and made them proud, insisted they create their own history.

Richo and now Ratts are just going 'effort effort effort' and when we lose a close one, 'oh well, at least they tried'.
GTFO
Give the squad that comment and of course they'll get belted by 15 goals occasionally. Because they don't care.
THEY DO NOT CARE.

They're treating it like social indoor cricket, a bit of a fun outing, except they get paid a shedload of money

[The_Dud]

I'd love it if we drafted players with great football skills, and not athletes or project players.

Also how many "honesty sessions" have we had this year where "harsh truths" were told? 5, 6 so far?

[WellardSaint]

I'd love it if we drafted players with great football skills, and not athletes or project players.

Also how many "honesty sessions" have we had this year where "harsh truths" were told? 5, 6 so far?

I thought Ed Phillips had a bit of skill, not sure why he was cut.
HInd- some folk reckon he had poor accuracy but I reckon he was better than Ross, Sincs, Lonie, and a whole lot of others in our 'team'

[saynta]

We don't learn from our mistakes, and that's why we only have one premiership (57 years ago). Can't develop a core of players(or not prepared to put the time in), top up the list with rejects or worn out players with their best behind them, poor recruiting, poor business decisions, tail wagging the dog. It goes on sadly.

2021-1966= 55

[saynta]

I'd love it if we drafted players with great football skills, and not athletes or project players.

Also how many "honesty sessions" have we had this year where "harsh truths" were told? 5, 6 so far?

I thought Ed Phillips had a bit of skill, not sure why he was cut.
HInd- some folk reckon he had poor accuracy but I reckon he was better than Ross, Sincs, Lonie, and a whole lot of others in our 'team'

We didn't cut Hind. We offered him a one year contract. Druggies offered two years

[Wayne42]

We don't learn from our mistakes, and that's why we only have one premiership (57 years ago). Can't develop a core of players(or not prepared to put the time in), top up the list with rejects or worn out players with their best behind them, poor recruiting, poor business decisions, tail wagging the dog. It goes on sadly.

Err, we won in 1966, that's 55 years ago.

[Impatient Sainter]

A great post skeptic.

What I find troubling is that Ratten like others seems to 'pidgeon hole' players, which doesnt always give them the best opportunities to suceed.

Hind is the classic example of Ratts wanting to turn him into a small forward when he was recruited playing really well as small running defender Its no surprise that we could seriously do with his run out of defence this year.

Long has lost form/touch playing in defence and is second guessing himself and panicking. He was recruited as a forward, why not try him forward again and let him just get back to enjoying his footy again?

Battle they keep trying to turn him into a wingman and he just doesnt have the tools to play there. His best footy was at CHB back so Ratts now plays him everywhere other than CHB?

Kent doesnt have the talent to play as a small forward or midfielder but is a good kick and a strong body, why not try him as a small defender? He reminds me a bit of Brent Guerra who went on to become a dual premiership back pocket player at Hawthorn.

[shanegrambeau]

I feel the sentiment of the OP and have asked the same, but this morning I’m thinking, how are we any different?

Look at Carlton.
Prestige and class
Always been a ‘go to’ club.
Their 21st century has been diabolical.

Look at Essendon.
They screwed up bad, but they were not going great guns until then either, and it’s been a fair while ago now.

Look at Melbourne
Perennial basket case, having a good trot now.. nothing approaching our success so far.

Look at Richmond
Their 1980s, 90s, 00s, and mid teens was dreadful, and they went through countless changes and internal dissents

Now Hawthorn, Geelong and Collingwood?
Old school clubs have done pretty well in this century

All have made extensive use of recycled players.
Their coaching situations have been stable.
Their presidents and admin have been stable
Their fixtures have been very kind to them

So like a dog scratching chasing it’s tail, what did we do wrong?

Losing Lyon to Freo? I think we all were pretty pissed off with him when he went.
But the next coaching appointments..?

I think we became too nice…but I think as a welfare club, we sort of thought that is what we ‘should’ do…
We demonstrate’forward’, ‘progressive’, ‘woken’, ‘enlightened’ social values. And it permeates through our coach selection, player selection, drafts, fixture accommodation (New Zealand, China) Etc.,

I think St a Kilda is already a great compassionate identity anyway. We don’t need to ‘prove’ it.
I always thought I love St Kilda even as a basket case, like that dog who isn’t the brightest etc.,

Now, I think we have to do three things, 1) tweak a few nuances at the selection/drafting 2) make sure we are not going out of our way to be ‘a force for social change’ ..just ‘be’ and we are already halfway there by virtue of being St Kilda, and 3) we just have to hope those other teams continue to be basket cases.


Come on Saints..it begins tomorrow night..

[Wayne42]

When it begins tomorrow night the scores will be level, when it ends........ Oh Boy !

[Sanctorum]

I enjoyed reading your analysis Skeptic and agree with most of your findings, there's no doubting some of the facts you have listed as reasons for the team languishing in the bottom 8 this year, and personally consider that poor recruiting for many years is mostly responsible for this sorry state of affairs.

When the only 2 AA squad St Kilda players in recent times (Steele and Butler) were imports from other teams it says a lot about the poor quality of selecting draft picks and player development under Richardson particularly.

Likewise the serious lack of team leadership where only Membrey and Jones (both imports) show a streak of ruthlessness in the way they play - forget Ben Long whose aggression lacks control and costs him a lot of frees against, and suspensions.

I haven't given up on Brett Ratten at this stage but he needs far better support and I would have a complete cleanout leaving only Jarryd Roughead to remain.

The other lesson that they need to learn is to devote far greater resources to fix the inaccuracy in front of goals which has cost at least 3 games and would have St Kilda sitting in 8th spot at 8-5 instead of 5-8 and 13th - I contend that this should be a specialty rated ahead of ruck coaching, especially with Paddy Ryder there to handle that part of the game.

[spert]

We don't learn from our mistakes, and that's why we only have one premiership (57 years ago). Can't develop a core of players(or not prepared to put the time in), top up the list with rejects or worn out players with their best behind them, poor recruiting, poor business decisions, tail wagging the dog. It goes on sadly.

2021-1966= 55

My calculator has flat batteries....

[skeptic]

I enjoyed reading your analysis Skeptic and agree with most of your findings, there's no doubting some of the facts you have listed as reasons for the team languishing in the bottom 8 this year, and personally consider that poor recruiting for many years is mostly responsible for this sorry state of affairs.

When the only 2 AA squad St Kilda players in recent times (Steele and Butler) were imports from other teams it says a lot about the poor quality of selecting draft picks and player development under Richardson particularly.

Likewise the serious lack of team leadership where only Membrey and Jones (both imports) show a streak of ruthlessness in the way they play - forget Ben Long whose aggression lacks control and costs him a lot of frees against, and suspensions.

I haven't given up on Brett Ratten at this stage but he needs far better support and I would have a complete cleanout leaving only Jarryd Roughead to remain.

The other lesson that they need to learn is to devote far greater resources to fix the inaccuracy in front of goals which has cost at least 3 games and would have St Kilda sitting in 8th spot at 8-5 instead of 5-8 and 13th - I contend that this should be a specialty rated ahead of ruck coaching, especially with Paddy Ryder there to handle that part of the game.

I don’t know what the solution is here but IMO premiership teams tend to make the most of their opportunities… so sooner or later we have to address it.
It’s pbly the difference between this year and last and sadly enough it’s the thing that cost us in the near glorious 09-10 years.
2009 our kicking for goal was pbly the worst it was at anytime that year and 2010… well, yeah

[freely]

Let's not forget that we had a John Beveridge heading our recruitment to build that list - both our recent flag tilt lists in fact. Not building a reputation to market it elsewhere - as I noticed in some other thread shaneG implied was why our current recruiters won't admit a mistake. He was St Kilda through and through. It was about the club, not about him. That's our whole problem, in my view, across the board (no pun intended). Nothing we do any more is about or for the club. It's all self. Or spin. IMHO the rot started with Ross Lyon. Our motto is the saddest joke in the AFL.

[saynta]

We don't learn from our mistakes, and that's why we only have one premiership (57 years ago). Can't develop a core of players(or not prepared to put the time in), top up the list with rejects or worn out players with their best behind them, poor recruiting, poor business decisions, tail wagging the dog. It goes on sadly.

2021-1966= 55

My calculator has flat batteries....

[Teflon]

I think our glory days were when GT was coaching.
Sure we had talent then, but GT gave the guys ownership and made them proud, insisted they create their own history.

Richo and now Ratts are just going 'effort effort effort' and when we lose a close one, 'oh well, at least they tried'.
GTFO
Give the squad that comment and of course they'll get belted by 15 goals occasionally. Because they don't care.
THEY DO NOT CARE.

They're treating it like social indoor cricket, a bit of a fun outing, except they get paid a shedload of money

err..I’d suggest our recent glory days were playing back to back GFs abs being genuinely feared as almost unbeatable after 19-0 season in 09....
Sorry but GTs 10 streak sorta pales against that..

[Ghost Like]

We don't learn from our mistakes, and that's why we only have one premiership (57 years ago). Can't develop a core of players(or not prepared to put the time in), top up the list with rejects or worn out players with their best behind them, poor recruiting, poor business decisions, tail wagging the dog. It goes on sadly.

Err, we won in 1966, that's 55 years ago.

Yes spert, our history is no where near as bad as you painted Feel free to bump this in two years though

[Ghost Like]

I'd love it if we drafted players with great football skills, and not athletes or project players.

Also how many "honesty sessions" have we had this year where "harsh truths" were told? 5, 6 so far?

I thought Ed Phillips had a bit of skill, not sure why he was cut.
HInd- some folk reckon he had poor accuracy but I reckon he was better than Ross, Sincs, Lonie, and a whole lot of others in our 'team'

We didn't cut Hind. We offered him a one year contract. Druggies offered two years

We may have well have, an insulting offer in comparison to what we held on to. Essendon seized on our error. That makes for a whole lot of salt in a gaping wound.

[Ghost Like]

Excellent OP skeptic. It beggars belief that we can all see this but our paid professionals cannot. I guess this shows those with skin in the game, not just a pay cheque.

Can I add that having to pay X amount of a salary cap works against smaller / poorer clubs like St Kilda. Our list over the past 6 to 10 years would be lucky to be worth 50% of the Cap. We have young players, journeymen and superannuants getting paid way over their worth. What's their incentive?

We should be able to stockpile money to really cash in on Free Agents & RFAs. How can our lists be near the equivalent values of Richmond, Eagles, Melbourne, Bulldogs, Geelong OR the Hawthorn teams of 13, 14, 15?