Please answer my questions

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Does Hannerbury get a full $800k if he plays only a handful of games a year?

Is Parker a flash in the pan?

Is Gresham most damaging as a small forward?

Do Ross, Dunstan, Acres, etc., have potential to be anything more than GOPs?

Is Billings really elite?

Does Long have anything other than pedigree?

Any logic behind getting rid of McEvoy, Stanley and Hickey and retaining Longer?

What happened to Logan Austin, whom we traded for at considerable expense?

Nathan Brown has been surprisingly effective this year so why can he suddenly not get a game?

Does Richo rule the match committee or is there collective responsibility?

Was our much-vaunted fitness the only reason for our early season success?

Is our recruiting team addicted to gambling on left-of-field selections?

Who leads player development and are they ever held accountable?

Is this the most uninspiring St Kilda line up in decades?

Is Richo capable of inspiring the troops?

Are we really going to be replace a mediocre coach with another mediocre coach?

[perfectionist]

Yes to some of them and no to the rest, although not necessarily in that order.

[WellardSaint]

Logan Austin busted his shoulder early in the year, still doing rehab.
Your other questions, someone else can respond

[B.M]

Yes
Maybe, he’s not what some supporters carry on about
Gresham is a small forward/High Half Forward
Ross has finished top two in the B&F 3 years in a row, so he is above a GOP, others not even top ten player, so they are GOPs, if they were going to be better, they already would be
Billings is generally good, not elite. Not much hurt factor
Long is not much, can do some ok things, hard at it, but not consistently good
No, getting rid of a top draftee after 5 years of development and probably a future captain was a horrendous decision. Hickey, no issue with that, Stanley at the time seemed ok but of course turned out another poor decision
Austin is injured, and not that great anyway
Mystifying about Brown, would’ve been nice today
Collective decisions, but AR has final say over things
No, we had players available and played poor teams or out of form teams
We rarely take the most logical choice
Jake Batchelor, and Aaron Hamill, Ben McGlynn
We were poor in 2013/2014
Not now, he’s clearly out the door and the players know it
What’s the definition of a mediocre coach? How do you measure a coaches ability?

[JR23]

Yes Hannaberry gets his money and is laughing all the way to the bank. Whoever did the due diligence needs to be accountable. Seems we like to play the favourites.

[skeptic]

Oooooh, I'll play:

Does Hannerbury get a full $800k if he plays only a handful of games a year?

Have to imagine there are some performance based incentives in there somewhere... pretty stock standard these days but yes, he'll get the lion share. One can only hope that in addition to getting better over time that the rumor about doing a favor for Sydney and them owing one back has some legs.

Is Parker a flash in the pan?

I don't think so. Think it's hard for any first year player let alone one that's a forward on this sinking ship. Parker has all the tools and the work ethic. What he needs is for the team to be able to dominant for patches of time more often so that he has more opportunities to do his thing as opposed to feeling like he needs to capitalize each and every time. I like the kid... think he's alright. IMO if the mids lift and the structure improves, he'll look a lot better

Is Gresham most damaging as a small forward?

Absolutely. Categorically. The most damaging use of Gresh is to play him as a small forward so that he can to those impossible things that few others can... players that can do that, need to play forward because the forward role is the hardest there is in the AFL. Stewart Loewe could have easily been a great CHB but few could do what he did forward.
Gresh is playing in the midfield because we need pacey mids but this is coming at his expense... his burst speed, goal sense and arrogance aren't weapons outside of the forward 50 like they should be. Recruit the right kind of mids and free up other players to play as they are meant to... not what we need them to be.

Do Ross, Dunstan, Acres, etc., have potential to be anything more than GOPs?

Again, I'm going to say yes. The problem with our midfield is the lack of diversity... nothing wrong with slower, ball winning mids but you need the balance so that they're deficiencies aren't so badly exposed. Bare in mind that in addition to these guys you have Newnes, Steele and Armitage that have all played this season and are of a similar vain. It's simply not a good fit. God we miss Steven. I would say that along with Steven and Steele, 2 at most should be rotating through our midfield with 2 faster paced, skilled mids and running flanks.
All of Ross, Dunstan and Acre have looked good at times but they need the support and balance.

Is Billings really elite?

Yes. Easily the most necessary to tag player in our midfield in Steven's absence.

Does Long have anything other than pedigree?

Not sure what you mean. I think our forward line is an unstructured mess at the moment. We're a key forward short, we play too many FPs and we have a bomb it in style of play. All of our pockets in Kent, Parker, Long, Lonie etc uncertain at the moment... all of them have good games too. IMO, again it's structure, balance and game style

Any logic behind getting rid of McEvoy, Stanley and Hickey and retaining Longer?

Reality is that McEvoy and Stanley were excellent deals that we didn't cash in on. Hickey needed to go... simply wasn't the player to take us forward. The resulting lack of depth in our ruck stocks is a greater reflection/condemnation of our list management rather than specifically Hickey's loss. With regards to Longer... no idea what Richo sees in him. Even back in 2016 when Hickey was tearing it up, it feels as though our coaches have been waiting for Longer to take over. What they see is a mystery to me.
That said... to address this point further, Hickey had trade value, Longer didn't.

What happened to Logan Austin, whom we traded for at considerable expense?

I think he was largely injured this season. I also think we don't have a great sense of how to play him. IMO he's a better third key defender in a Sam Fisher mold, looking to exploit his opponent on the rebound. We seem intent on trying to turn him into a wrestling back like Brown...

Nathan Brown has been surprisingly effective this year so why can he suddenly not get a game?

We seem more interested in trying to turn players into what they're not. The idea is that you want less and less purely negating players which is fair enough... but that shouldn't apply as much to fullback. I think the flavor of the month idea is lets make Carlisle the full back so that he can use his running and marking to advantage... good idea except his one to one work isn't his strength. Personally, I like Brown. You need at least one of that kind of defender.

Does Richo rule the match committee or is there collective responsibility?

Am not sure. Externally looking in, Richo does not conduct himself in a manner that suggests he's in total control of anything... certainly not like a Ross Lyon or GT, yet the notion of coach's pet in Newnes, Weller, Longer etc appears to have stuck to him for several years

Was our much-vaunted fitness the only reason for our early season success?

No of course not. As many pointed out at the time, we beat mediocre opposition, teams that were in severe form slumps (like Essendon who we wouldn't get near now) and teams like Hawthorn that got decimated by injury during the match. Any objective observer didn't really believe that the Saints were demonstrating a turn around

Is our recruiting team addicted to gambling on left-of-field selections?

IMO that's a bit of a myth. We don't however put enough consideration into team balance when selecting balance... throwing the book at a guy like Shiels for example demonstrates a lack of understanding of our needs. Even Hannervery is absolutely not the type of player we needed though one can argue that he was brought in as a leader too.

Who leads player development and are they ever held accountable?

One surely has to imagine that the buck stops with the coach for player development... he has the most influence on the selected team, where they play etc. Is he held accountable..? I say not enough.

Is this the most uninspiring St Kilda line up in decades?

Yes. The last 12 months have been the most dejected I've ever felt about our club. I have a higher opinion of our list then many hence the changing of the coaching guard spells hope to me however.

Is Richo capable of inspiring the troops?

No. There's nothing about Richo's style that is daring

Are we really going to be replace a mediocre coach with another mediocre coach?

I certainly hope not. My preference is to pick a coach with proven leadership qualities and build from there. If said coach can re-balance the list, fix the structure, make Steele captain, generate some enthusiasm and excitement into the playing group, i think we could push for the finals pretty quickly. We have some talent.j

[The_President]

So much hate on Gresh between here and Big Footy over the last few weeks. He might not be a pure mid. But he is X-Factor. If we had good mid’s he’s
Probably a HFF with a license to run around and do what he wants.

I really like Long.. I might be one of the rare few.. but he is a great lead up & mark guy for his size. Has silk - that pick up and snap which was marked on the line was really nice. I’ve lost count of the amount of times he’s taken a mark and then gone to kick it and then sold candy and ran around the guy on the mark... he’s only going to get better with confidence. If he gets a string of games like Parker has had... I reckon he’ll tear a few apart.

[HardSaint]

We persevered with Rhys Stanley for a long time and couldnt get a result
In the absence of result we were right in getting rid of him
the question really is, why couldnt we get a result when another team can?

[B.M]

Gresham can obviously play, problem is he is overrated because he is flashy

He does something freakish and supporters label him a star

What he doesn’t do consistently is the basics well

Stars are consistently high level performers who make few mistakes. Gresham is inconsistent and makes frequent errors. He does occasionally do the very special.

[barneyboyz]

Does Hannerbury get a full $800k if he plays only a handful of games a year?

Is Parker a flash in the pan?

Is Gresham most damaging as a small forward?

Do Ross, Dunstan, Acres, etc., have potential to be anything more than GOPs?

Is Billings really elite?

Does Long have anything other than pedigree?

Any logic behind getting rid of McEvoy, Stanley and Hickey and retaining Longer?

What happened to Logan Austin, whom we traded for at considerable expense?

Nathan Brown has been surprisingly effective this year so why can he suddenly not get a game?

Does Richo rule the match committee or is there collective responsibility?

Was our much-vaunted fitness the only reason for our early season success?

Is our recruiting team addicted to gambling on left-of-field selections?

Who leads player development and are they ever held accountable?

Is this the most uninspiring St Kilda line up in decades?

Is Richo capable of inspiring the troops?

Are we really going to be replace a mediocre coach with another mediocre coach?

I reckon your second last one has answered itself. How sad really? none of that inspires me either

[vacuous space]

What happened to Logan Austin, whom we traded for at considerable expense?

We traded a 2018 third round pick for Austin and a 2018 fourth round pick. The third ended up getting used as steak knives in the Polec trade and dissolved into draft points by North Melbourne. The fourth round pick was traded to GWS for a 2019 fourth rounder at the draft. The Giants took Connor Idun.

If the 'considerable cost' you mentioned was our second round pick, that was part of a pick swap with Port that was separate to the Austin trade and involved 5 picks in total. In that trade, we gave up the picks that would eventually be used on Tom Sparrow, Jake Patmore and Dom Barry in exchange for the Oscar Clavarino pick and the pick that would eventually be used by Freo on Brett Bewley after being traded two more times.

Even if you combine the two trades, we got a second round pick, two fourth round picks and Austin for a second round pick, a third round pick and two fourth round picks. The second we traded away ended up being eight places higher in a draft a year later. If we eliminate the like picks going either way, We're left with Austin for a third round pick.

Richo took a shot at Austin's fitness levels in preseason and he hasn't been seen all year because of injury. But he's contracted beyond the point Richo's likely to be fired, so he'll at least get a shot under another coach. Personally, I think his numbers last year are very encouraging, as well as baffling, when you consider that Richo seemed very reluctant to use him even when he was healthy. I look forward to seeing Austin under a new, hopefully better, coach.

[Laurie]

Billings is definately not elite not sure what $ he has signed on for alongwith his 2 year contract but needs to swallow some concrete and toughen up at the contest.
Gresham needs to play in the forward pocket where he is most dangerous.
If Hannerbury is still getting paid $80000 whilst not playing Lethlean Finnis and Co do have a lot to answer for .We are an absolute joke of a footbal club run by ego driven boys club members at the top.
Let get rid of the lot of them not only the coach.
If what is being rumoured that Scott will be our next coach that will be the final straw and my membership as well.
Another boys club appointnent happening in rhe background me thinks.

[saynta]

Parker is not AFL standard imho and neither is Long, unfortunately.

couldn't be bothered with the rest of your questions.

[thejiggingsaint]

I love Jade Gresham's work as a small crumbing forward. With the greatest respect to him, I feel he is being played in the wrong posi at the moment.

[Saintmatt]

I love Jade Gresham's work as a small crumbing forward. With the greatest respect to him, I feel he is being played in the wrong posi at the moment.

He is and to be fair to the coaching group - that's more likely out of necessity. In every sense - he's playing a poor man's Jack Steven role.