Gotta love the Blake

[kosifantutti]

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2019/06/09/ ... nal-defeat

Former St Kilda utility Jason Blake still rues the heartbreaking Preliminary Final loss to eventual premiers Port Adelaide in 2004.

The Saints went down by six points in a thrilling contest and Blake believes the fan invasion after Fraser Gehrig kicked his 100th goal halted the team’s momentum.

[guitars4]

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2019/06/09/ ... nal-defeat

Former St Kilda utility Jason Blake still rues the heartbreaking Preliminary Final loss to eventual premiers Port Adelaide in 2004.

The Saints went down by six points in a thrilling contest and Blake believes the fan invasion after Fraser Gehrig kicked his 100th goal halted the team’s momentum.

I agree Kosi & underrated by many. He had his limitations but IMO was a very serviceable player for us over a long period

[ausfatcat]

Blake direct cost a dozen games through bad decisions or bad bad kicking.

Until about 2006 or 7 when he became very reliable and consistent just took a long time to get there. This also explains it took 7 years to get to 100 games, and only 5 to get to 200

[skeptic]

Blake’s probably a really good example of an average player made better by good coaching. Was a solo, reliable player in the Ross era because he played to his strengths

[Sainternist]

That PF was the last footy game my brother watched. We had reserved seats together that year. After that heartbreaking loss, he decided following the Saints was too emotionally taxing for him. He doesn't follow AFL anymore and follows basketball instead. He's 36 years old and doesn't have one grey hair on his head.

[Junction Oval]

Jason rated Ross Lyon very highly as a great tactician and football strategy leader, something we have slipped up on since then.

[saynta]

Blake direct cost a dozen games through bad decisions or bad bad kicking.

Until about 2006 or 7 when he became very reliable and consistent just took a long time to get there. This also explains it took 7 years to get to 100 games, and only 5 to get to 200

Cost us a dozen games?

Got any evidence to back that up?

.

[ausfatcat]

go back and watch a few games from 2002 to 2006 and you will see, he was the clanger king when the pressure was on during that time, but much improved after that

[freely]

Blake’s probably a really good example of an average player made better by good coaching. Was a solo, reliable player in the Ross era because he played to his strengths

Ross drilled the players like soldiers. They had their role and they didn't have to think. Is that good coaching? It's a good way to use average players - they can be used interchangeably. It stifles the creative players. And it depends on the coach having come up with a gameplan where everything has been worked out in advance. Plan A, Plan B and Plan C all have to have been drilled into the players so that the runner - or a senior player - can switch everyone from one plan to the next.

It worked brilliantly for a while - insofar as we won games - but how sad it was to see players like Dal Santo used that way.

[kosifantutti]

Blake direct cost a dozen games through bad decisions or bad bad kicking.

Until about 2006 or 7 when he became very reliable and consistent just took a long time to get there. This also explains it took 7 years to get to 100 games, and only 5 to get to 200

Cost us a dozen games?

Got any evidence to back that up?

.

I’d like to see that list as well.

[WellardSaint]

Blake’s probably a really good example of an average player made better by good coaching. Was a solo, reliable player in the Ross era because he played to his strengths

Ross drilled the players like soldiers. They had their role and they didn't have to think. Is that good coaching? It's a good way to use average players - they can be used interchangeably. It stifles the creative players. And it depends on the coach having come up with a gameplan where everything has been worked out in advance. Plan A, Plan B and Plan C all have to have been drilled into the players so that the runner - or a senior player - can switch everyone from one plan to the next.

It worked brilliantly for a while - insofar as we won games - but how sad it was to see players like Dal Santo used that way.

Lyon's coaching methods seemed to stifle goal scoring, both with us and Dockers.
The Dockers' final that they lost narrowly, i think they only kicked 8 goals.
Maybe our forwards were too conscious of the forward press and couldn't score freely,
because we had talented forwards but I would be amazed if our highest score was over 13 goals.

edit: just checked AFL Tables website, our highest score was Rd 3, 2009, we beat WCE
by 97 points, score was 25.11 to 9.10.

I had driven with my girlfriend at the time, to spend the Easter weekend, to with her father and his new wife,
a 5 hr drive. He was taking us sightseeing at the time the game was on,
but he recorded the game for me on Foxtel, and he let me listen to
the game on the car radio (for updates only, to keep GF happy)

[saynta]

Blake direct cost a dozen games through bad decisions or bad bad kicking.

Until about 2006 or 7 when he became very reliable and consistent just took a long time to get there. This also explains it took 7 years to get to 100 games, and only 5 to get to 200

Cost us a dozen games?

Got any evidence to back that up?

.

I’d like to see that list as well.

Yep. I get sick and tired of posters coming on here making outrageous statements denigrating saints players and expecting the rest of us to accept such statements as fact, without any backing evidence.

[SaintPav]

Blake’s probably a really good example of an average player made better by good coaching. Was a solo, reliable player in the Ross era because he played to his strengths

Ross drilled the players like soldiers. They had their role and they didn't have to think. Is that good coaching? It's a good way to use average players - they can be used interchangeably. It stifles the creative players. And it depends on the coach having come up with a gameplan where everything has been worked out in advance. Plan A, Plan B and Plan C all have to have been drilled into the players so that the runner - or a senior player - can switch everyone from one plan to the next.

It worked brilliantly for a while - insofar as we won games - but how sad it was to see players like Dal Santo used that way.

Lyon's coaching methods seemed to stifle goal scoring, both with us and Dockers.
The Dockers' final that they lost narrowly, i think they only kicked 8 goals.
Maybe our forwards were too conscious of the forward press and couldn't score freely,
because we had talented forwards but I would be amazed if our highest score was over 13 goals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_St ... lub_season

[skeptic]

Look I'm not a huge RL fan by any stretch of the imagination at all... I think he's very overrated for reasons that I've posted elsewhere.

But even in that context, I don't think you can reasonably argue that he wasn't a successful coach even if he fell short of the ultimate goal on three separate occasions. His teams won football matches and average players played better in his teams/

[cwrcyn]

Is he the only player to have played regularly as a tagger, a ruck, a back flanker, and a full back. Maybe Blicavs from Geelong has, too?

[older saint]

Blake’s probably a really good example of an average player made better by good coaching. Was a solo, reliable player in the Ross era because he played to his strengths

Ross drilled the players like soldiers. They had their role and they didn't have to think. Is that good coaching? It's a good way to use average players - they can be used interchangeably. It stifles the creative players. And it depends on the coach having come up with a gameplan where everything has been worked out in advance. Plan A, Plan B and Plan C all have to have been drilled into the players so that the runner - or a senior player - can switch everyone from one plan to the next.

It worked brilliantly for a while - insofar as we won games - but how sad it was to see players like Dal Santo used that way.

Devils advocate here, but could it be argued that your premise is exactly why STKFC have won 1 premiership despite having so many great individual players ?
Great teams win Flags and Lyon had a group with a superstar, many stars and many foot soldiers and apart from some woeful kicking, not his fault would have won a flag with that style. Many don't like what Lyon did when he left, fair enough, but he was part of one of the most successful eras in the clubs history, mid 60's to 1974 aside.
Perhaps in the past too many have bowed to the needs to the elite few at the cost of the overall team success? Just saying

[ace]

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2019/06/09/ ... nal-defeat

Former St Kilda utility Jason Blake still rues the heartbreaking Preliminary Final loss to eventual premiers Port Adelaide in 2004.

The Saints went down by six points in a thrilling contest and Blake believes the fan invasion after Fraser Gehrig kicked his 100th goal halted the team’s momentum.

I still haven't forgiven those treacherous fans for their selfish behaviour.

[freely]

Blake’s probably a really good example of an average player made better by good coaching. Was a solo, reliable player in the Ross era because he played to his strengths

Ross drilled the players like soldiers. They had their role and they didn't have to think. Is that good coaching? It's a good way to use average players - they can be used interchangeably. It stifles the creative players. And it depends on the coach having come up with a gameplan where everything has been worked out in advance. Plan A, Plan B and Plan C all have to have been drilled into the players so that the runner - or a senior player - can switch everyone from one plan to the next.

It worked brilliantly for a while - insofar as we won games - but how sad it was to see players like Dal Santo used that way.

Devils advocate here, but could it be argued that your premise is exactly why STKFC have won 1 premiership despite having so many great individual players ?
Great teams win Flags and Lyon had a group with a superstar, many stars and many foot soldiers and apart from some woeful kicking, not his fault would have won a flag with that style. Many don't like what Lyon did when he left, fair enough, but he was part of one of the most successful eras in the clubs history, mid 60's to 1974 aside.
Perhaps in the past too many have bowed to the needs to the elite few at the cost of the overall team success? Just saying

I see what you're saying and, even though I didn't really enjoy watching our games back then, I loved us winning and being feared and I really believed we'd win premierships both years. The danger of Lyon's approach is that so much needs to go right: coach has to have absolute faith in his own plan/has to have thought of everything, the players have to have absolute buy-in and be willing to put their own creativity on the back burner for the good of the team, and the gameplan has to be new enough that the opposition doesn't know how to combat it.

Could argue that of course for any team to win any premiership any time 'so much needs to go right'. But the above is all extra to the usual things - like injuries, stability, facilities, conditioning, etc., etc.

That said, if a coach walked in with a new gameplan that they had absolute faith in, seemed to have thought of everything and could get the players onside - I'd forego the occasional speccy from Parker and be a very happy freely!

[vacuous space]

I'm sure Jason would be not at all comforted by the fact that the momentum he imagined was a trick of his brain, conflating independent events and assigning them a narrative. He probably shouldn't be comforted either. If the players dropped off at all after the ground invasion, that's their fault. Probably better to blame it on some otherworldly influence, like the mystical powers bestowed on the Power by Steven Baker's dad.

[Special]

That PF was the last footy game my brother watched. We had reserved seats together that year. After that heartbreaking loss, he decided following the Saints was too emotionally taxing for him. He doesn't follow AFL anymore and follows basketball instead. He's 36 years old and doesn't have one grey hair on his head.

I’m 49 and don’t have any and have followed us since 1983

[Special]

The Blake was a GOP who played 200 games for us. I think he got a Brownlow vote once. Not bad.

I reckon we have a few GOP’s in our current team that could crack the double ton

[kosifantutti]

That PF was the last footy game my brother watched. We had reserved seats together that year. After that heartbreaking loss, he decided following the Saints was too emotionally taxing for him. He doesn't follow AFL anymore and follows basketball instead. He's 36 years old and doesn't have one grey hair on his head.

I’m 49 and don’t have any and have followed us since 1983

No grey hair or no hair?

BTW. Blake scored Brownlow votes twice in his career, including his last game. Retired too early based on that.

[Sainternist]

That PF was the last footy game my brother watched. We had reserved seats together that year. After that heartbreaking loss, he decided following the Saints was too emotionally taxing for him. He doesn't follow AFL anymore and follows basketball instead. He's 36 years old and doesn't have one grey hair on his head.

I’m 49 and don’t have any and have followed us since 1983

No grey hair or no hair?

BTW. Blake scored Brownlow votes twice in his career, including his last game. Retired too early based on that.

You'll probably find Special puts boot polish in his hair. Unless he has no hair, which in that case, he'd rub boot polish on his scalp

[Special]

That PF was the last footy game my brother watched. We had reserved seats together that year. After that heartbreaking loss, he decided following the Saints was too emotionally taxing for him. He doesn't follow AFL anymore and follows basketball instead. He's 36 years old and doesn't have one grey hair on his head.

I’m 49 and don’t have any and have followed us since 1983

No grey hair or no hair?

BTW. Blake scored Brownlow votes twice in his career, including his last game. Retired too early based on that.

You'll probably find Special puts boot polish in his hair. Unless he has no hair, which in that case, he'd rub boot polish on his scalp

Something like that.

I am Special.

I am Bruce.

I luv Cyril

[shanegrambeau]

That PF was the last footy game my brother watched. ...He's 36 years old and doesn't have one grey hair on his head.

Is he bald? Not that guy on your signature is it?

I noticed my temples receding in 1982, at 18! At 17, still a full hairline but Jezza came and it rubbed off on me.

I think GT could have taken us higher but I never forgave him, and still don't, for not choosing a specialist Ruckman in the last game he coached. Just expecting Kosi to do it on the basis that (externally at least, as he said to the press) basically that rucking contests don't mean squat because the clearances don't match them. At least that is how I read it.

RL tightened up things, but the game was really changing wasn't it. In 2007 it seemed very kick, mark, stop and possess.