Coach Fages and the coaching group

[Gadzorks]

How is Payne' long term contract looking? Not looking too bright. What about Lester? Surely he has earned another year.

Lester definitely deserves another year. Peak career.

I believe we start players at elite level too early and protecting and developing them in the twos means when they get to seniors they are better for it and last longer in the system. Aka Lester

 

[Kernel Kurtz]

Stats on the way home from Nick Cave. Recorded it on Fox - Watched on Fast Forward, Watched the 'highlights package'. Watched Presser. I saw much less than those WITH CREDIBILITY and believe I am well and truly in front.

A few of us just kept reading posts instead of watching, more entertaining.
Well that would of been from about the 3rd quarter onwards .

 

[3KZ is Football]

A few of us just kept reading posts instead of watching, more entertaining.
Well that would of been from about the 3rd quarter onwards .

Credibility - NONE
Sanity - MAINTAINED

 

[M Malice]

I always think of my own time at school from 1965 to 1976 when I hear it Kernel Kurtz .

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I'm not even remotely close to the opinion of sacking the man who took us out of the mire.

In saying that, I'd be incredibly disappointed if he signs on for another few years. Been saying for a while now I'd love a succession plan to begin formulating.

This is where I'm at too. Don't sack him now, but don't extend him either. We should be trying to get our next coach in now and have a handover process.

 

[mpal6]

How is Payne' long term contract looking? SIGNED TO THE END OF THE 2029 SEASON! Not looking too bright.
What about Lester? Surely he has earned another year.

I believe both Hipwood and Payne are shrewd investments by the club. They come from academy, would not have demanded top dollar and happy to stay long term.

As crappy as North is, they would love a Payne + Hipwood right now to straighten their spine. I'm glad we have sorted our spine out in Andrews, Payne, Hipwood - all academy - while we try to build around them. Those 3 will continue to be a solid core even if we bottom out and come back up again in next 3 years.

Both have their limitations but I'm sure club is happy to work with them since we've got the key position body maturing phase out of the way. It'll be silly to dump them now after doing all the heavy lifting in developing them.

 

[On the quiet]

How is Payne' long term contract looking? SIGNED TO THE END OF THE 2029 SEASON! Not looking too bright.
What about Lester? Surely he has earned another year.

This is the third time in the last few weeks you have banged on about Paynes long term contract. No one has responded so I thought I would so you can move on. With Doedee out Lester will get another year and deserves it.

FWIW, I would have offered Payne a contract until end of 2026 or 2027. Perhaps the Lions were worried about the new club (Tassie) coming in and offering inflated contracts to experienced KPD, which filters throughout for all KPD. Also the fact the draft will be compromised with so many early picks going to the new franchise.

Payne is from QLD, so I suspect Payne is not being paid overly well by a QLD club and the fact that it is a longer term contract. Despite playing KPD, and matching up every single game on the oppositions best forward, I doubt Payne is in the top 10-12 paid players at the Lions.

Lester is not a KPD who takes on the best opposition forward each week. We saw in the third Q against Freo when Lester was forced to play on KPF he let in three goals, by three different Freo forwards.

Brown's first two goals last night was when Lester was marking him. Hogan (who is leading the coleman count) was mostly marked by Payne last night scored one goal and one behind. The second behind was when Harris was marking him. Hawkins scored no goals on Payne last week and Larkey (3rd in last years coleman) scored 1 goal. I would have to check replays, but I think Ben Brown 1 goal in the Melb game, so whilst Payne at this stage is not Sam Taylor, he was pick 50 something in the 2017 draft is arguably not in the top 15 paid players in the club, so I reckon all things considered is doing OK.

Are you upset that a 31/32 year old Lester missed out on a longer term contract because of Payne? Not even relevant.

 

[twhowler]

Does anyone think we planned well for this game? The much spoken about orange tsunami - we let them absolutely waltz through us at times. What was our tactic to counter it? We seemed to be constantly backing off them and it was exactly what they wanted. At one stage the got it from a kick in in the third quarter to TWO free key forwards who didn't have anyone within 25m of each other. The giants supporters were laughing saying don't spoil each other fellas.

Zorko seemed to start mid / forward? Why move him from the role he has been so good at???

Fagan has been great for the club. but his pressa was utterly depressing. paraphrasing - well when i came in we improved because i backed everyone in...

So many things wrong with this. We are at SUCH a different time. In a flag window, we shouldn't constantly need encouragement. We should have players knowing they are based on performance and adhering to team rules and structure. i still think we seem to have 19-21 undroppable players even though we are 2-5. WE HAVE NO SELECTION INTEGRITY.

A succession plan would be a good idea in my view - in particular because we would hopefully give it to an experienced quality assistant, who could as of 2025 bring some fresh ideas on gameplan and be much more dynamic in on the day moves.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Does anyone think we planned well for this game? The much spoken about orange tsunami - we let them absolutely waltz through us at times. What was our tactic to counter it? We seemed to be constantly backing off them and it was exactly what they wanted. At one stage the got it from a kick in in the third quarter to TWO free key forwards who didn't have anyone within 25m of each other. The giants supporters were laughing saying don't spoil each other fellas.

Zorko seemed to start mid / forward? Why move him from the role he has been so good at???

Fagan has been great for the club. but his pressa was utterly depressing. paraphrasing - well when i came in we improved because i backed everyone in...

So many things wrong with this. We are at SUCH a different time. In a flag window, we shouldn't constantly need encouragement. We should have players knowing they are based on performance and adhering to team rules and structure. i still think we seem to have 19-21 undroppable players even though we are 2-5. WE HAVE NO SELECTION INTEGRITY.

A succession plan would be a good idea in my view - in particular because we would hopefully give it to an experienced quality assistant, who could as of 2025 bring some fresh ideas on gameplan and be much more dynamic in on the day moves.

We weren’t playing well enough to execute any sort of gameplan. We were looking good though while we were winning contested footy until Neale started sooking

Zorko was playing basically the same role except he didn’t need to defend, his role last night was perfectly suited to the ability he has remaining. He just played poorly not helped by our teams total breakdown when trying to move the footy.

At 2-3 none of us had any issues sticking with the guys who have brought us so many wins in the past 5 seasons but clearly the Melbourne game is an outlier and I think now we have to make changes but it was perfectly reasonable to give our team 5 weeks to find form, which they did, but unfortunately it didn’t last

Just as fans we need to look further backwards than just 2 weeks

 

[twhowler]

We weren’t playing well enough to execute any sort of gameplan. We were looking good though while we were winning contested footy until Neale started sooking

Zorko was playing basically the same role except he didn’t need to defend, his role last night was perfectly suited to the ability he has remaining. He just played poorly not helped by our teams total breakdown when trying to move the footy.

At 2-3 none of us had any issues sticking with the guys who have brought us so many wins in the past 5 seasons but clearly the Melbourne game is an outlier and I think now we have to make changes but it was perfectly reasonable to give our team 5 weeks to find form, which they did, but unfortunately it didn’t last

Just as fans we need to look further backwards than just 2 weeks

Zorko has been defending until now though. He has been quite good at it too. Just as kiddy pulls off some great intercepts / tackles. It seemed Zorko was told just roam free and i don't understand why you would do that against an attacking team that likes to run in waves. The best thing to do against such a team is to be able to intercept and catch them on the hop. Playing like we did meant not many intercepts. And when we did it was usually in the hands of our not so good distributors.

 

[3KZ is Football]

Are you upset that a 31/32 year old Lester missed out on a longer term contract because of Payne? Not even relevant.

But who’s counting? On Lester, not at all. I just think that Payne’s senior selection lacks credibility based on his form and obvious shortcomings. The longer he is horrendously out of form, the worse his very long contract looks.

 

[ZoBlitz]

You can't win arguments with gimmick posters, it's worth remembering.

 

[On the quiet]

But who’s counting? On Lester, not at all. I just think that Payne’s senior selection lacks credibility based on his form and obvious shortcomings. The longer he is horrendously out of form, the worse his very long contract looks.

like I said your not a true supporter.

 

[3KZ is Football]

like I said your not a true supporter.

Uncritical support is the most damaging sort of support.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Payne kept the Coleman medal leader to 1 goal in a game where our midfield was belted

If that's out of form.i can't wait to see him in form

 

[On the quiet]

… while you seem to support the status quo, including our terrible form and poor decision making from the coach. Uncritical support is the most damaging sort of support.

I have not said once, I support the status quo.

Unlike you, my comments are mostly positive (i never post during a game) and unlike you, I watch the game live and on a replay before I post any comments about the game. Something you certainly did not do before making comments on a game you did not watch live, nor watch the full reply before sprouting your usual negative crap.

 

[Pride of lions]

I thought Payne played quite well last night considering the ball was coming in so fast and with no pressure on the kicker. He actually beat Hogan and as someone noted above has only had about 3 or 4 goals kicked on him in the last 4 weeks. He may have his limitations but he is definitely the best option we have to play on the big forwards. He had a bad game against Carlton but apart from that he has been far from the worst performer in the team. He makes mistakes which are no worse than many of the other defenders but seems to cop it on here with relentless negativity. Andrews,Starcevich and even Lester make mistakes too but don’t seem to be held to the same standards. And next week he will have to line up on King who has towelled up Andrews previously, so he will be under the most pressure of all our defenders again. He is still quite young and inexperienced in terms of a key defender so let’s not put him down yet.

 

[3KZ is Football]

I have not said once, I support the status quo.

Unlike you, my comments are mostly positive (i never post during a game) and unlike you, I watch the game live and on a replay before I post any comments about the game. Something you certainly did not do before making comments on a game you did not watch live, nor watch the full reply before sprouting your usual negative crap.

 

[KissKiss]

But who’s counting? On Lester, not at all. I just think that Payne’s senior selection lacks credibility based on his form and obvious shortcomings. The longer he is horrendously out of form, the worse his very long contract looks.

Nah Payne has found form now and deserves to be in the team (plus we need him in there as the big body). Problem in the team is not in the tall back department as all three are playing well

 

[3KZ is Football]

Nah Payne has found form now and deserves to be in the team (plus we need him in there as the big body). Problem in the team is not in the tall back department as all three are playing well

Ok - as ever. Happy to be proven wrong.

 

[FeastOrFamine]

I was at the game and thought Payne was one of our better players on the night. Kept Hogan fairly quiet and took a few good grabs. I think it's safe to say that he's back in form currently however there's not much he, or the other defenders, can do when the ball is being delivered into the 50 under zero pressure.

 

[briztoon]

But who’s counting? On Lester, not at all. I just think that Payne’s senior selection lacks credibility based on his form and obvious shortcomings. The longer he is horrendously out of form, the worse his very long contract looks.

Are you actually watching games?

Everyone was giving plaudits to Andrews, Payne and Lester last night, because they stopped the score being much worse, even though Lester was caught out the most last night.

Payne isn’t out of form. He’s actually holding up pretty well, and almost back to where he was in the first half of last year.

With the way our midfield is underperforming, expect our tall defenders to be under the pump most weeks.

 

[Squizz89]

The golden run injury wise we’ve had over the last however many years has actually come back to be a curse this year. Not only has our luck run out in that aspect, but because we haven’t had to (and because we have chose not to), expose any of our depth we’re now finding out we don’t have a whole lot.

Couple that with the fact a large number of senior guys are well done on their past form, which in some instances may be permanent given some of their ages, it’s not exactly hard to see where things are starting to fall down.

This doesn’t even start to question mentally how the group would be feeling. Getting so close after a number of years, only to blow it at the end. Come back to the new year and everyone patting them on the back, saying we just had to turn up and we’ll be back there on GF day. Round 1 comes and we lose our most important ball user and injuries have just continued to mount from there with results heading the same way.

I honestly shudder to think how bad the second half of our season might be if we are out of contention and subsequent motivation by then.

 

[On the quiet]

I was at the game and thought Payne was one of our better players on the night. Kept Hogan fairly quiet and took a few good grabs. I think it's safe to say that he's back in form currently, however there's not much he, or the other defenders, can do when the ball is being delivered into the 50 under zero pressure.

Apart from the flogging, I hope you enjoyed your first visit to the ground on such a special day, although the ACT RSL branch president had a moment he would like back

 

[SpecialBruce]

I view it on the same ilk as Ross Lyons at both Saints and Fremantle. Murmurings from supporters for a few seasons before ultimately being 'moved on' in both roles even with 'success'. Ross Lyon is a good coach and Fagan is a good coach. I think most here would accept that on results. But sometimes things can go in a way that paper over the systemic weaknesses in a club. In our case having a dual Brownlow medallist, strong list experience compared to other teams and the Gabbatoir.

I don't think it's too farfetched to suggest that maybe some people have seen the warning signs a lot longer than just 7 games into 2024. There has been many discussions and posts both on this board and in private on Fagan and his coaching ability. So yeah... again I'm saying this isn't a season 2024 thing. Just more are starting to see the light now that poor results are a direct consequence and not just poor moments in a game.

Spot on.

For me I have been saying it for 2 years. I was talking to my old boss this morning. He said what happened last night. I brought up Fagan and he said, yeah you have been saying it for a while and you are right. He is a Saints supporter and he is starting to see it with Fagan. The last two years he didnt neccessarily agree with me. He does now.