"Judge us on the 2nd Half of the Season"

[meher baba]

Pick 6 and 31 for Brooks


McIntosh + one of the Selwood brothers or Brooks


Just one example of how we stuffed up our recruting and there are many, many others

We had pick 6 in the draft and gave it away for what? and we threw in a second round selection 31 as if 6 wasn't enough for Brooks

FAIR DINKUM

Yes, and we might have ended up with Luke Brennan and Brad Murphy.

yeah yeah, hindsight is a wonderful thing,

Got it in one.

[Oh When the Saints]

The fact is, I don't remember a period since 2004 where we were in a position to win 11 in a row ...

Our average losing margin came down from over 6 goals to under 2 goals ...

Something changed, and the very fact that we were in a winning position in more games had to be a good thing.

[meher baba]

We genuinely should have won them all

That is exactly why the second half of the season was good.

Ask yourself this:

Since the streak in '04, how often have we been in a position where we can correctly say that we should have won 11 in a row?

IMO never.


The very fact that we were in 11 matches right up until the last few minutes, and gave ourselves a chance to win 11 games, is a massive tick for the playing group.

Last year ... whilst we had some success, we never looked a chance in 3 of the games after the break (Adelaide, West Coast, Fremantle).


Even against Fremantle (first time), Kangaroos and Hawthorn (first time), we were in the match at three-quarter time.

With the one exception of the Geelong game, of the last 17 matches of the season, we were our own worst enemy.

Of those 17, we were in a position to win 16.
.

Some interesting points OWTS, but statistics can show a lot of different things.

You must remember that 14 of these 17 games were played in Melbourne, 11 at the Dome. We ended up losing 5 of these and drawing another.

In 2006, we lost only 4 of our games played in Melbourne in rounds 6-22: these certainly included 2 pretty large losses to West Coast and the Crows, but in the same period we also thrashed the Pies, Bulldogs and Hawks and had good wins over the Roos and Geelong.

In 2005 we were arguably in a position to win 13 in a row from rounds 10-22 inclusive (and we did win 10 of them, out of the 11 we played in Melbourne). In fact, the only game we really never looked a chance in during 2005 was the game at the Dome against the Crows, and even in that one we were miles ahead at quarter time after missing quite a few chances at goal.

From my point of view, we were much worse this year than in 2005, and somewhat worse than in 2006: given that we had a much easier draw (no games at Aurora, very few 6 day breaks) and three of the teams against whom we had had so much trouble in recent seasons (Eagles, Crows, Dockers) had come back to the pack. We only had to play three of the top four teams in 2007 - Geelong, Port and North - once each, and we got to play the Eagles at Subi without Judd.

If we had produced our 2005 form this year, we would have easily made the top 4, and quite possibly the top 2 (Port aren't that good IMO, and the Roos certainly aren't).

[Oh When the Saints]

Thanks for pointing that out in 2005 meher baba ... I thought the Adelaide loss was later in that year.

The draw has certainly played a role. A significant role.

Nonetheless, you can only play where you are scheduled, and if you are good enough you will win away from home under pressure.

The reason I made those points was not so much to argue that we had a passable year in 2007 --- we certainly didn't, it was very disappointing --- but to say that IMO our second half of 2007 gives optimism that things will improve. It was an okay 11 rounds ...

I mean, you can say we had shaky games against the Blues, Pies, Dogs and Tigers ....

But at leasty in shaky games you are in with a chance to win.

If you are getting blown away when you lose, you don't give yourself a chance to win.


Of course, it is a bit of a glass half full or half empty argument.

The season can only be judged on the ladder, and for St Kilda it says 9th.

[meher baba]

I mean, you can say we had shaky games against the Blues, Pies, Dogs and Tigers ....

But at leasty in shaky games you are in with a chance to win.

If you are getting blown away when you lose, you don't give yourself a chance to win.

Fair enough, but if we'd been blown away by the Blues, Tigers or (on their 2007 form) Dogs, I reckon even Teflon and B4E would have been on here calling for GT to be brought back!!