Discussion Saints part ways with recruiting manager after restructure

[gringo2011]

What makes it an absolutely brilliant hit?

I mean Max is not a pick out of nowhere. He was always going to go thereabouts.

If one believes the gossip Toce preferred Connor Rozee, and Lethers overruled him.

Rozee has already won two All Australian Selections, and has been appointed the Port Adelaide Captain.

Rozee is elite but if King hits his ceiling he's one of the rarest commodities in footy. Premium KPFs are hard to find. Rarely ever come on the market either.

 

[gringo2011]

I agree we were fortunate with the 2 academy kids falling our way, however there’s no luck involved with NWM.
He was picked around the mark he was tipped to be selected, then it was the initiative of Enright to suggest he play at half back that propelled his reputation.

I know he was but there were more obvious choices and he looked quite uninspiring to me. Coupled with go home factor and I thought we'd thrown the pick away.

 

[stfan]

Rozee is elite but if King hits his ceiling

Well he may or may not. (I certainly hope he can!!!! And yes agree that King doing so could help us go up the ladder).

I have no issue King being our pick. It was more what made it being an absolutely brilliant pick I was curious about, including the logic. King was a worthy pick at his selection, but so would have Rozee based on what was known prior to his name being called out.

If it was a "needs based" selection then I believe that is unsound. If it was he was the better talent then fine. But given Rozee was the other pick, then it would seem to be a toss up decision to me rather than being an absolutely brilliant call. If it was genuine line ball, then yes you could then decide based on needs.

he's one of the rarest commodities in footy. Premium KPFs are hard to find.

Sounds like the logic we used on taking Paddy of Petracca. (Though i think Petracca was clearly the better call
at the time of drafting. Rozee v Max is a lot more subjective, and to myself was line ball. )

Dalrymple incoming seems to very clear that with all of your better draft picks that your go for best available, and never needs.

Rarely ever come on the market either.

Though if you look at the other clubs some of the best key forwards have swapped clubs:

Geelong Cameron
Tigers Lynch
Lions Daniher
GWS Hogan
Swans Buddy

 

[stfan]

I agree we were fortunate with the 2 academy kids falling our way,

Yes the luck was them slipping so much. Huge luck.

There was a lot of predictions of them going much earlier, and luckily for us we gained both at bargain picks.

however there’s no luck involved with NWM.
He was picked around the mark he was tipped to be selected,

Yes it was going with best available talent. Luckilly we did not go needs and reach for a mid.

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera

central.rookieme.com

Though yes I was nervous about the call.

then it was the initiative of Enright to suggest he play at half back that propelled his reputation.

Plus I think that Nasiah moving in with Wood has helped enormously in Nasiah transitioning from being a player with elite talent/ potential to being a disciplined professional footballer in everything he does from how he eats, to how he trains to how he plays the game.

 

[stavro#4]

I agree we were fortunate with the 2 academy kids falling our way, however there’s no luck involved with NWM.
He was picked around the mark he was tipped to be selected, then it was the initiative of Enright to suggest he play at half back that propelled his reputation.

I know he was but there were more obvious choices and he looked quite uninspiring to me. Coupled with go home factor and I thought we'd thrown the pick away.

Based on them being similar players and one being in our backyard.

Sinn was the obvious pick.

Took some balls to take Nas.

Well he may or may not. (I certainly hope he can!!!! And yes agree that King doing so could help us go up the ladder).

I have no issue King being our pick. It was more what made it being an absolutely brilliant pick I was curious about, including the logic. King was a worthy pick at his selection, but so would have Rozee based on what was known prior to his name being called out.

If it was a "needs based" selection then I believe that is unsound. If it was he was the better talent then fine. But given Rozee was the other pick, then it would seem to be a toss up decision to me rather than being an absolutely brilliant call. If it was genuine line ball, then yes you could then decide based on needs.



Sounds like the logic we used on taking Paddy of Petracca. (Though i think Petracca was clearly the better call
at the time of drafting. Rozee v Max is a lot more subjective, and to myself was line ball. )

Dalrymple incoming seems to very clear that with all of your better draft picks that your go for best available, and never needs.


Though if you look at the other clubs some of the best key forwards have swapped clubs:

Geelong Cameron
Tigers Lynch
Lions Daniher
GWS Hogan
Swans Buddy

What people forget is that King from memory was touted as the number 1 pick ahead of Walsh.

I think he played 1 TAC game before doing his ACL during a school game.

“King kicked 8.5 and took nine marks in what was described as one of the most dominant under-18 games in recent years.”

I remember going into the Good Friday game we played North and the group I went in with (mix of both supporters) raving about this kid as a generational match winning talent. (Think he may have done his knee that day?)

Little did I know how s**t our season would turn out and how lucky we would get landing him.

Rozee is a gun. But King was on track for 60 goals if he managed a full season.

His 3 full season averages:
2021 - 1.9 goals per game
2022 - 2.36 goals per game (also kicked 41 points!!!)
2023 - 2.8 goals per game (excluding Melbourne game as he was off in the first minute.) in a 12 month period where 2 shoulder recos were required.

For comparison sake - Curnow who is the best KPF in the land currently averaged 3.11 goals per game this year and 2.9 last year.

Larkey averaged 3.08 per game this year.


King was 23 in the most recent season.

Larkey and Curnow 25+.

We nailed that pick and it won’t be long before this narrative some of our supporters believe aswell changes.

Max is a deadset star of the game and when he gets to his physical peak ala Curnow. He will be scary good.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

Rozee is elite but if King hits his ceiling he's one of the rarest commodities in footy. Premium KPFs are hard to find. Rarely ever come on the market either.

Rozee is a poor man’s Wilson

 

[StCicatriz]

Remember when Finnis put Peta Searle into a assistant coaching role because it would look like great for our inclusivity instead of chasing the absolute best candidate? The days of hanging onto second-rate footy department remoras that seemed to defy normal employment systems? Richo was our second longest serving coach despite having the worst winning record of any coach over 100 games or something.

We were absolutely lost as to how to structure up a footy department so just made random grabs at people who we thought looked good on paper. Lyon's negotiation seemed be about having a guarantee on being able to make his own cals and chase his people. To me it looked like Lyon could see where the problems inside the club sat.

Pretty sure that Finnis had a pretty serious austerity program for the club unless it looked progressive and had nothing to do with footy.

 

[StCicatriz]

It was very much Finnis' MO to obfuscate his football responsibilities and Lethers was the perfect mule for that.

I still do and will always vehemently disagree that he made s**t moves regarding the list and footy dpt.
I think he probably just went for the best he could get at the time, which is still the clear policy.
Each appointment has been an upgrade on the previous and the only possible folly that comes to mind is losing Kingsly in 2018 which may or may not have been Kingsley's choice.

I see it as a steps and stairs rebuild of the footy dpt under an austerity budget.
Richo, Cox, Trout all out the door asap for Ratts, Rath, and Gags was a big upgrade. Not the best, but maybe the best he could do. Libba then moved on for Toce, Toce now for Dalrymple.

Cox, Rath, Walsh*, Misson
Trout, Gags, SOS
Libba, Toce, Dalrymple

Carroll, O'Shaughnessy, Batchlor have also been important in the background.

I think people forget just what a total basket case Lethers inherited. You couldn't just magically go from that to this in a single move.
Lethers cut out the rott and put a bandaid solution in place, also drafting Max which reset the timeline though they weren't stupid enough to advertise it this time while patients is what he preached to the supporter base.
He didn't want Ratts re-signed, Finnis and Bassat overruled. The list goes on.

Perfect no, but demonstrably progressive from day 1, till now. Steps and stairs.

I do find it funny that people will openly admit what an absolute s**t show lethers inherited whilst also in the same breath try to defend finnis and explain the great work he did.

Finnis was absolutely terrible for the primary objective of the footy club: to win a flag.

 

[Mowman]

Rozee is a poor man’s Wilson

Thought you said you were off the grog

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I do find it funny that people will openly admit what an absolute s**t show lethers inherited whilst also in the same breath try to defend finnis and explain the great work he did.

Finnis was absolutely terrible for the primary objective of the footy club: to win a flag.

He didn't even do a great job at the AFLPA.
Managed to get even more pay for a handful of superstars, while the rank and file players take below average to accommodate it or risk premature delisting.

Not sure but i'd suspect the average length of an AFL career is less than it used to be.

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

Yes despite making finals with an injury ravaged season we have strongly gone after youth and younger players. The opposite of topping up.

A good crop of new kids with Henry 22y 4 m, Dow 24 y 2 m also added.

Only the PSD pick of Bonner was older, and at 26 y 9 m that is not old.

Billings 28 y 4 m and the younger Gresham 26 y 3 m both left, but swapping for Henry and Dow makes us younger with Dow being the type of midfield player we sorely lack.

2023 was a good year of development for the younger players in my opinion.

We got rid of some players who are not going to take the next step and have hit the draft and got some trades in to compliment the list.

No idea what 2024 will have but the club is making moves in the right step in the footy department imo.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

Thought you said you were off the grog

As usual, the only thing between me and being proven correct - is time

 

[sunny3193]

As usual, the only thing between me and being proven correct - is time

And being correct.

 

[King_Steele]

Sorry but you’d take King over Rozze everyday of the week & twice on Sundays

 

[ScrappyDo]

I do find it funny that people will openly admit what an absolute s**t show lethers inherited whilst also in the same breath try to defend finnis and explain the great work he did.

Finnis was absolutely terrible for the primary objective of the footy club: to win a flag.

Thats true but Finnis also inherited a giant s*** show and I'm prepared to believe his directive was to rescue the business even at the expense of the football.
If we had someone else, they'd still have inherited Richo, Trout, Pelchan and Seaford. Plus an operating loss around $2.5M per annum and a list with Billings, Paddy, Hugh, Dunny and Acres already on it.

Honestly l think any anger towards Finnis or Lethlean is misplaced and people aught direct it straight at Netters and Westerway who should be strung up between the goalposts and used for target practice.

 

[Saints43]

I do find it funny that people will openly admit what an absolute s**t show lethers inherited whilst also in the same breath try to defend finnis and explain the great work he did.

Finnis was absolutely terrible for the primary objective of the footy club: to win a flag.

Finnis was the CEO, who was also forced to also be the head of football because we couldn't afford one.
As CEO his job is to set the culture, manage the facilities and increase income. I think he did these pretty well.
He was a terrible head of football because, I assume, he couldn't do the extra 70 hours a week the role probably requires and he was not qualified for the (non-existent) position. But he shouldn't have had to do it really, another victim of paying off Docklands on behalf of better placed clubs.

 

[StFly]

I do find it funny that people will openly admit what an absolute s**t show lethers inherited whilst also in the same breath try to defend finnis and explain the great work he did.

Finnis was absolutely terrible for the primary objective of the footy club: to win a flag.

Football dept wise sure, I mean, prior to 2018 it had spent close to 8 years as a department we just couldn't keep up in and underpaid massively, hence a guy like Sexton plugging gaps.

As a club, Summers and Finnis at the same time made us the club we are today, been a decade including what was 2023, and in that decade we went from Westaway and Nettleford to Bassat and Lethlean. In that big middle, you had Finnis and Summers to make those books and give us the cash to do things.

Legit, covid does not happen, Finnis likely doesn't stay on as CEO past the start of 2019 and we pry another head of footy appointment instead of plugging Lethlean in there. As Covid happens mid 2019, you shelve and you hold because new is scary and can properly screw you, so we held.

Finnis was the best thing to happen for our club, Summers was second best and IDGAF if we had to secrifice footy to be the club we are today, because without them, we don't get here to discuss such things like updating recruitment within that department. We continue to have things like one off drone things and spending years bitching about coffee...

So Lethers did inherit a s**t show, hence the banker as contract guy for players, that's totally fine because hey, review happened.

 

[George]

Wouldn't be back at Moorabbin without Finnis and yet some still can't see that the refusal to acknowledge the job he did for us is borderline insane.

 

[stavro#4]

Wouldn't be back at Moorabbin without Finnis and yet some still can't see that the refusal to acknowledge the job he did for us is borderline insane.

People can also be upset at the fact we stopped functioning with the primary directive of being a successful football club for Nearly a decade and say hey Matt well done and thanks for Moorabbin.

Both things can be true about his reign.

 

[George]

Remember when Finnis put Peta Searle into a assistant coaching role because it would look like great for our inclusivity instead of chasing the absolute best candidate? The days of hanging onto second-rate footy department remoras that seemed to defy normal employment systems? Richo was our second longest serving coach despite having the worst winning record of any coach over 100 games or something.

We were absolutely lost as to how to structure up a footy department so just made random grabs at people who we thought looked good on paper. Lyon's negotiation seemed be about having a guarantee on being able to make his own cals and chase his people. To me it looked like Lyon could see where the problems inside the club sat.

Pretty sure that Finnis had a pretty serious austerity program for the club unless it looked progressive and had nothing to do with footy.

I think people fail to understand just how dire things were for us when Finnis took over. Cash strapped, s**t deal with Marvel Stadium, small club and in a full rebuild. Hard to remember any CEO in footy taking on a similar role. He prioritised getting the football club back to becoming a functioning business and less reliant on AFL funding by doing things like relocating back to Moorabbin and because we had literally no money, selling games to NZ and China.

Yes the priority should be footy but if it wasn't for him we'd be still training out of Seaford and the connection between the supporters and footy club wouldn't be anywhere near us strong as it is now.

He put foundations in place to make sure we were still in the competition in 50 years time. Bit of pain in the short term for sure but he had long term future of the club in mind.

You can't say that with the Moorabbin redevelopment and record sponsorship, membership and now generating decent revenue, that it wasn't down to the pillars he put in place during his time.

And who is to say Lyon and the rest of the footy department we have now end up coming back to the club if we are a s**t show off field? You need to have solid foundations to build from. No doubt in my mind that the position we're in off field has set us up to land these key footy dept appointments. Again it was short term pain but if that was the price we had to pay to land genuine quality then so be it IMO.

 

[Tyrian Lonestar]

I think people fail to understand just how dire things were for us when Finnis took over. Cash strapped, s**t deal with Marvel Stadium, small club and in a full rebuild. Hard to remember any CEO in footy taking on a similar role. He prioritised getting the football club back to becoming a functioning business and less reliant on AFL funding by doing things like relocating back to Moorabbin and because we had literally no money, selling games to NZ and China.

Yes the priority should be footy but if it wasn't for him we'd be still training out of Seaford and the connection between the supporters and footy club wouldn't be anywhere near us strong as it is now.

He put foundations in place to make sure we were still in the competition in 50 years time. Bit of pain in the short term for sure but he had long term future of the club in mind.

You can't say that with the Moorabbin redevelopment and record sponsorship, membership and now generating decent revenue, that it wasn't down to the pillars he put in place during his time.

And who is to say Lyon and the rest of the footy department we have now end up coming back to the club if we are a s**t show off field? You need to have solid foundations to build from. No doubt in my mind that the position we're in off field has set us up to land these key footy dept appointments. Again it was short term pain but if that was the price we had to pay to land genuine quality then so be it IMO.

Yeah hats off to Finnis for getting us as far as he did.

If only our governments took such a long term view

 

[austinnn]

We are clearly better equipped these days - however I am still a touch skeptical about appointing Misson dof.

 

[Joffaboy]

I do find it funny that people will openly admit what an absolute s**t show lethers inherited whilst also in the same breath try to defend finnis and explain the great work he did.

Finnis was absolutely terrible for the primary objective of the footy club: to win a flag.

Nobody from Finnis' position were ever getting us anywhere near a flag.
If it was a house and the flag is the roof, Finnis had to dig and lay the foundations.

He was never taking us anywhere on field but his stabilisation of finances, getting us back to Linton St, and putting us on a forward trajectory has enables his successors to actually attempt a tilt at a flag.
The work done by Finnis to often critisised while barely being understood the monumental task he had.

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Joffaboy]

Thats true but Finnis also inherited a giant s*** show and I'm prepared to believe his directive was to rescue the business even at the expense of the football.
If we had someone else, they'd still have inherited Richo, Trout, Pelchan and Seaford. Plus an operating loss around $2.5M per annum and a list with Billings, Paddy, Hugh, Dunny and Acres already on it.

Honestly l think any anger towards Finnis or Lethlean is misplaced and people aught direct it straight at Netters and Westerway who should be strung up between the goalposts and used for target practice.

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[StCicatriz]

Thats true but Finnis also inherited a giant s*** show and I'm prepared to believe his directive was to rescue the business even at the expense of the football.
If we had someone else, they'd still have inherited Richo, Trout, Pelchan and Seaford. Plus an operating loss around $2.5M per annum and a list with Billings, Paddy, Hugh, Dunny and Acres already on it.

Honestly l think any anger towards Finnis or Lethlean is misplaced and people aught direct it straight at Netters and Westerway who should be strung up between the goalposts and used for target practice.

Brisbane were in a more dire situation. Offield and On. They didn't take anywhere near the time we did to turn the onfield around.

It doesn't take over a decade to play finals.