Preview 2012 Ladder Prediction

[The House]

There's a difference between coaching philosophies and gameplan though.

At St Kilda he inherited a list which was filled with mediocre players along with the stars. Guys like MacQualter, Clarke x2, Eddy etc. are really pretty shit, so he built a game plan where his stars could star and the rest he could make do with role players. He didn't have a strong defence, so he set up a style where he could put bit part players in key positions and have weight of numbers help them out. In other words he played to the very limited strengths of his squad after about player #10.

On the other hand at Freo, he has a completely different list. He has a top 3 full back in McPharlin, the best ruckman in the league when fit in Sandilands, and the list fillers, the guys who aren't the stars, are more flashy players than St Kilda's were.

He'll build his team around Pavlich, Sandilands, McPharlin, Mundy, Barlow and Fyfe just like he built around Riewoldt, Dal Santo, Hayes and Montagna. But the likes of Hill, Suban, Ballantyne, Silvagni and co have a lot more attacking prowess than any of St Kilda's mid to bottom tier players did - he's not going to try and turn players like that into bit part players like MacQualter.

Well said....it's going to be one of the more interesting aspects of 2012 to see exactly how he approaches his gamestyle with a very different list.

Obviously there's a number of ways he may go, but one thing i'm confident of is that their stucture and as a result the game style, will be vastly different to that of St.Kilda during his time.......if it's not, then i suspect he is not as good a coach as i thought.

 

[Slattery_20]

Is this the whole "Lyon's gameplan will not work at Subi" thing again?
Despite having a bloody good record there?
I'm baffled by it. Sure, it'll need tinkering, but it has embarrassed both sides over there.

 

[The House]

The hate is strong in this one!

Go Blues!

Haha, maybe.....or maybe i have some sort of crazy theory that their KP players still aren't up to the standard of the elite sides ......and maybe, just maybe, this could become more evident in September when the pressure on the ball carrier is higher, resulting in more long balls to KP players in contested situations.

Having said that, of course i could be wrong......i like the ladder prediction exercise, but i'm phylosophical as to how accurate they ever can be - if ANYONE ever selects the 18 teams in order, then i'm calling blind luck...it just doesn't happen!!!

 

[The House]

Is this the whole "Lyon's gameplan will not work at Subi" thing again?
Despite having a bloody good record there?
I'm baffled by it. Sure, it'll need tinkering, but it has embarrassed both sides over there.

I can only speak for myself, but no, that's not what i was getting at....I was getting at Lyon surely being astute enough to develop a game plan that best suits his squad, not his home ground.

If the Freo list was very similar in make up to St. Kilda's, then I would think he may go with a similar set up....but it's not, so I doubt he will....

 

[Keystone agony]

Is this the whole "Lyon's gameplan will not work at Subi" thing again?
Despite having a bloody good record there?
I'm baffled by it. Sure, it'll need tinkering, but it has embarrassed both sides over there.

I agree S20 and also the the zoning has worked extremely well for the eagles just after one year of giving it a go and understanding it on the big subi field.

Freo IMO have one of the best if not best list in the comp. Thats how much i rate them.

Stars: Mcpharlin, Pavlich, Sandilands, Mundy, Barlow, Fyfe, Hill
good - very good players: Ballantyne, Broughton, Duffield, Ibbotson
Upcoming talent: Suban, Morabito, Z.clarke, Mayne, Silvagni
Role players: Deboer, Lower, Pearce, Crowley
Talent yet proven but IMO will be good/Mainly depth for now: Pitt, Spurr, Neale, Sheridan, Crozier, Forster, Sutcliffe
Hacks: Dawson (Lyon will consider him a role player and get the most out of him).

May have missed a few.

 

[Bombermania]

Lots of people rating freo? I don't get it....

1 - Home ground advantage
2 - Had a long list of injuries, at one point about 12 of their best 22 and yet they still nearly made the eight

 

[table tennis]

1 - Home ground advantage
2 - Had a long list of injuries, at one point about 12 of their best 22 and yet they still nearly made the eight

Thier best players are always injured. Have had career of injuries.

Until they stay on the park, they will be mediocre, and I think a few are overrated.

 

[stugots]

Guess we will find out about the new Freo soon enough, but I just dont rate Lyon. He may have been a bee's dick away from being a premiership coach but at what cost?

His coaching style reeks & if the rumours of his people management skills are even 1/2 right, then this is one very unpleasant individual.

I can easily envisage the Freo faithfully turning nasty very quickly unless the side Lyon puts on the park produces a very different game style from the one he dished out at StKilda. Is he capable of doing that? I doubt it.

 

[Slattery_20]

He can't be a worse man manager than Harvey.
"Broken bone? Knee injury?? Pfft... neck up, stop being soft, get out there. We can still make 9th!!!"

Far too many blokes got re-injured last year and if you believe what you hear, Harvey was putting far too much pressure on them to get back when they weren't right.

 

[Keystone agony]

I personally dont see why people dont rate Lyon. Came up with this defensive pressure styled game that won games, they were the first to really raise it to another level and it was because of his coaching. Has hardly had a super duper team and has taken them to GF day on 2-3 occassions. one they lost by two kicks one which was taken after the final siren and one by Hawkins which clearly hit the post. On the other had the ball bounced another way they hold the cup for 2010 and Collingwood wouldnt have one to this date.

Since Lyon has come in he has shown he can find roles for those players that are considered hacks by others and wouldnt get games in other teams, yet they perform the role well. He has also been very good with injury, before Lyons time Stkilda had a team that continuously got injured, since Lyon they have had a dream run with injuries.

He really hasnt done anything wrong, he needs to find a way to kick a score on subi otherwise scoring 60-80 every week just wont win you games. But than again he has taken over a better list.

 

[stugots]

Happy to be proven wrong about Lyon, but if it was Essendon he had made the move to rather than Freo, well 'spewing' doesn't really do justice to the emotion I would be feeling right now.

 

[table tennis]

Grant Thomas got the bullet after making a prelim. This "no good" St.kilda side was more than capable.

If he had so many "duds" well that would be after his recruiting.

I will wait to be proven wrong!

 

[tesseract]

Guess we will find out about the new Freo soon enough, but I just dont rate Lyon. He may have been a bee's dick away from being a premiership coach but at what cost?

His coaching style reeks & if the rumours of his people management skills are even 1/2 right, then this is one very unpleasant individual.

I can easily envisage the Freo faithfully turning nasty very quickly unless the side Lyon puts on the park produces a very different game style from the one he dished out at StKilda. Is he capable of doing that? I doubt it.

With Sumich leaving West Coast to join Freo as an assistant, and WC's success in implementing the press, I wouldn't be surprised to see Lyon using Sumich's knowledge and adopting WC's version of the press, that Sumich has intimate knowledge of.

 

[Keystone agony]

Happy to be proven wrong about Lyon, but if it was Essendon he had made the move to rather than Freo, well 'spewing' doesn't really do justice to the emotion I would be feeling right now.

But we had Jimmy Hird. Although im a fan of Harvey think he has done well recruiting wise with freo, however has poor management of players and is hard to get along with from what ive heard. Ala plenty of negativity.

If we got Ross Lyon after Matthew Knights, than what would people think? not knowing Hird was available like he said

@Table Tennis. Grant Thomas had Riewoldt, Hayes, Luke Ball, R.Harvey, Gehrig, Hamill, Aussy Jones, Andrew Thompson, Goddard, Montagna, Milne, Maguire, Guerra, Max Hudgton, Fisher, Baker and Gram back than (Heath Black, Powell) cant remember too much about the last two besides black but both were pretty solid players at the time from memory. If you cant make the finals with that side, than you shouldn't be coaching.

 

[table tennis]

So 12 months after with pretty much the same squad, you shouldn't miss the finals then should you?

 

[stugots]

But we had Jimmy Hird

you missed the point

 

[fishardansin]

So 12 months after with pretty much the same squad, you shouldn't miss the finals then should you?

.Zing!

 

[Keystone agony]

So 12 months after with pretty much the same squad, you shouldn't miss the finals then should you?

In a perfect world probably not. I dont remember the year exactly but Stkilda certainly had injury problems around that time.

But we dont live in a perfect world and i would have thought players need more than one year to understand such a different game plan. Hawks won the GF than didnt make the finals. It happens all the time, successful seasons followed by poor ones, poor seasons followed by great seasons.

 

[yaco55]

I can only speak for myself, but no, that's not what i was getting at....I was getting at Lyon surely being astute enough to develop a game plan that best suits his squad, not his home ground.

If the Freo list was very similar in make up to St. Kilda's, then I would think he may go with a similar set up....but it's not, so I doubt he will....

I will disagree.

Can't see Lyon changing his game plan/coaching style which is very much moulded on the Sydney Game Plan.

Everything StKilda did was based on defence, defence, defence.

This plan may not work with all squads.

 

[yaco55]

But we had Jimmy Hird. Although im a fan of Harvey think he has done well recruiting wise with freo, however has poor management of players and is hard to get along with from what ive heard. Ala plenty of negativity.

If we got Ross Lyon after Matthew Knights, than what would people think? not knowing Hird was available like he said

@Table Tennis. Grant Thomas had Riewoldt, Hayes, Luke Ball, R.Harvey, Gehrig, Hamill, Aussy Jones, Andrew Thompson, Goddard, Montagna, Milne, Maguire, Guerra, Max Hudgton, Fisher, Baker and Gram back than (Heath Black, Powell) cant remember too much about the last two besides black but both were pretty solid players at the time from memory. If you cant make the finals with that side, than you shouldn't be coaching.

Disagree.

The list at Fremantle that Lyon inherits is not as talented as StKilda's list when Lyon became coach.

StKilda had had a talented enough list to win a GF for the last 4 or 5 years.

Only saving grace for Lyon is that Fremantle probably has more upside.

 

[table tennis]

I will add, more injury prone too.

I think that Lyon realized that he was going to be coaching a side with a poor squad next year and bailed. Has done poor list management at St kilda and left them stuffed.

Now inherets a new list with more talent, so he never looks like a failure. But when sandilands and mcpharlin break down, then watch the wheels fall off.

Zac Dawson. Massive LOL

 

[Keystone agony]

I will add, more injury prone too.

I think that Lyon realized that he was going to be coaching a side with a poor squad next year and bailed. Has done poor list management at St kilda and left them stuffed.

Now inherets a new list with more talent, so he never looks like a failure. But when sandilands and mcpharlin break down, then watch the wheels fall off.

Zac Dawson. Massive LOL

Any team that loses two players of that such calibre and importance to the structure and lineup of the team will struggle. Take Hurley and Watson out next year? it would be the same.

He has picked Zac Dawson purely for the above. To help with depth in the backline, fremantle needed one more tall defender and i dont think he is guaranteed games ahead of Grover just yet.