Opinion Are we Submarining?

[Persevering Saint]

So, when is tanking not tanking? I just am beginning to wonder... HoldenMCaulfield was just joking the other day, I think, about this, but yeah, I'm now just starting to explore the question. I'm putting forward the argument (of which I am not myself convinced of!) that we are silently, secretly tanking, but trying to hide it under the surface. We are submarining.

Here's my basic arguments:

1. There is no way that any team will say they're tanking in the current climate, if they ever would. But as well as that, precisely because everybody is so keenly aware of tanking now, they would have to find ways to LOSE without using the utterly pathetically obvious tactics that teams like Melbourne and Carlton did.
2. One sure-fire way to ensure you lose, is to keep playing all the best players... except in the middle. It doesn't matter how amazing your forwards, backs, or outside mids are. If you can't get the pill from the start, you are 90% of the way to losing. Deliberately not picking available clearance specialists like Ledger, Curren, and Jones, is far more subtle than dropping all the senior players, but is just as sure-fire a way to lose. I have, up to this point, thought that not selecting them was simply negligent, or prejudiced against those particular players. But submarining is another possibility.
3. The most successful club at submarining in the past is, hands down, Hawthorn. You might remember (or actually, probably don't - that is its genius!) that from part-way through 2004 onwards when Clarkson took over, Hawthorn was TERRIBLE - weirdly terrible. In 2005, over 700 games of experience left the club, and it became all about playing the kids. Despite Hodge having a breakout season, the Hawks failed miserably in 2005. In 2006, they were at one point 5-13. During this time, they used the consequent low picks to get Roughead, Franklin, etc. But by 2007, they had finished 5th, and of course in 2008, won the Bradbury premiership. And the person largely attributed with their climb to greatness was... none other than our own, Christopher Pelchen. The 2004/05 seasons break saw a string of big-name senior players leave, including players that are very reminiscient of Brendan Goddard. But by being subtle in their tanking - submarining - they got themselves a premiership, without all the recriminations other tanking clubs have.

So, I guess I have two questions. Firstly, how likely do you think it is that this is what's happening? Secondly, how do you feel about it if that is what's happening?

 

[Persevering Saint]

At the risk of being inflammatory (and I SWEAR I'm not, dearest Moderators!), I'm interested to get some Hawthorn posters to chime in, if they don't mind. So Dixie Flatline, Messenger, eldorado, Leather Poisoning - and anybody else who can chime in. Do you think my description above is flawed? Now that I point it out, do you guys see any resonances between our current decision-making, etc, and the way you guys did things in that dark period of 2004-2006?

 

[Defacto]

i think we are just developing players and are willing to lose games to do so, but at the same time the coaching panel is holding players accountable for their performance and expect them to perform

 

[hayes]

I'm not totally convinced that's what we're doing, but I'm perfectly fine with it if we are. Can you really argue against it if you look at your Hawthorn example? They built a young nucleus with draft picks that they nailed for the most part, similiar to what we did in the early 2000's and have had a long period of grand final/prelim appearances and made the finals almost every year since and they're still not done. I've had a gutful of coming close, if a couple of years of pain ultimately gives us that premiership side then I'm all for it. Before anyone quotes me and uses Melbourne as an example, I'm banking on us getting those picks right and developing them.

 

[Manimal_Dunstan]

I've had same sort of feeling, Thinking we may be playing for draft picks. So many things this year i have notice are very questionable, Personally i think getting few of the best talents in the draft could set us up perfectly, Look at Eagle won the wooden spoon after getting Gaff + Darling next year Top 8

But at the same time i don't think it is exactly what we are doing, We are just backing in the kids getting games into them with our senior core all just about getting into the 30's.

 

[saintsrfreak]

I would be extremely disappointed if this was the case, no matter the circumstance no team should want to lose.

 

[Manimal_Dunstan]

i think we are just developing players and are willing to lose games to do so, but at the same time the coaching panel is holding players accountable for their performance and expect them to perform

This. I think it is just really backing in all the young guys and getting as much AFL game time into them as possible to set us up for the future.

 

[Radius]

Well, I don't think we're desperate to win.

Watters is safe as the club acknowledges that he's here to rebuild. For most players, If they know they're not playing for finals/a premiership then they're not going to throw everything into it. You see it every year when a team goes towards the bottom: decorated, experienced players really fall away.

I also think the club would like an early pick to nab an up-and-coming star, especially now that there aren't all these concession picks for the expansion clubs.

That said, no I don't think we are tanking. From an article from a couple of months ago:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/afl/saints-this-is-the-future/story-e6frey09-1226623717340

Without the start-up club concessions clouding the quality of draft, this year the club is more likely to hang on to its top pick. But there is no chance the Saints will deliberately dip to the lower reaches of the ladder.

"I don't believe any club should have aspirations to go to the bottom of the ladder. In an 18-team competition, it's a long way up,'' he said.

"We think there is a much better cause to be served by developing players in a winning environment than in a losing one.''

In a bid to fast-track their players' progress, St Kilda has invested heavily in its academy program, based on the model at soccer giant Barcelona.

Development, sports science and welfare staff have been doubled, helping the club put a near-equal emphasis on players' on and off-field development.

Our players aren't exactly high on confidence, and our skills have been bottom-four quality at times this year. We're also having to work extra hard to counter-act the mismatches in our backline and the inexperience in the midfield, and consequently getting burned in the 4th quarter.


Are we really going that much worse than we thought at the end of last year? I was thinking 10th-12th, and we look on track for 12th ~ 14th...

 

[Noidenous]

The process is less about tanking and picks for me. More about the first thorough test of our newly implemented development system, training facilities etc. during this period in which we're clearly not going to be genuinely competitive.

Installation of such resources is for the purpose of fast-tracking talent to AFL standard at the same time as providing the player a personal incentive to stay, early in their career. Foster their ability, make them feel at home and ram home the club's values along with the life skills they may otherwise be missing out on.

People can have their views on Grant Thomas and whether he was a game day coach or not, but one thing he did for the senior core of our playing group is make them gel through a common focal point. Now, that process has much more substance behind it.

 

[Messenger]

So, when is tanking not tanking? I just am beginning to wonder... HoldenMCaulfield was just joking the other day, I think, about this, but yeah, I'm now just starting to explore the question. I'm putting forward the argument (of which I am not myself convinced of!) that we are silently, secretly tanking, but trying to hide it under the surface. We are submarining.

Here's my basic arguments:

1. There is no way that any team will say they're tanking in the current climate, if they ever would. But as well as that, precisely because everybody is so keenly aware of tanking now, they would have to find ways to LOSE without using the utterly pathetically obvious tactics that teams like Melbourne and Carlton did.
2. One sure-fire way to ensure you lose, is to keep playing all the best players... except in the middle. It doesn't matter how amazing your forwards, backs, or outside mids are. If you can't get the pill from the start, you are 90% of the way to losing. Deliberately not picking available clearance specialists like Ledger, Curren, and Jones, is far more subtle than dropping all the senior players, but is just as sure-fire a way to lose. I have, up to this point, thought that not selecting them was simply negligent, or prejudiced against those particular players. But submarining is another possibility.
3. The most successful club at submarining in the past is, hands down, Hawthorn. You might remember (or actually, probably don't - that is its genius!) that from part-way through 2004 onwards when Clarkson took over, Hawthorn was TERRIBLE - weirdly terrible. In 2005, over 700 games of experience left the club, and it became all about playing the kids. Despite Hodge having a breakout season, the Hawks failed miserably in 2005. In 2006, they were at one point 5-13. During this time, they used the consequent low picks to get Roughead, Franklin, etc. But by 2007, they had finished 5th, and of course in 2008, won the Bradbury premiership. And the person largely attributed with their climb to greatness was... none other than our own, Christopher Pelchen. The 2004/05 seasons break saw a string of big-name senior players leave, including players that are very reminiscient of Brendan Goddard. But by being subtle in their tanking - submarining - they got themselves a premiership, without all the recriminations other tanking clubs have.

So, I guess I have two questions. Firstly, how likely do you think it is that this is what's happening? Secondly, how do you feel about it if that is what's happening?

I don't accept the premise of your argument re: Hawthorn.

1. Hawthorn 2004 were a vastly inferior side to St Kilda 2013. It's not even close. Far closer in quality to the Dogs current team but older and more highly paid. They didnt need to tank. If they were tanking they would have lost the late season game against Richmond known at the time as the "Brett Deledio Cup". Clarkson was at Port Adelaide in 2004.
2. Hawthorn 2005 turned over their list severely and were younger, less well paid but still as shit. And they didnt finish last (in fact 14th).
3. It is true we were 5-13 in 2006. We finished 9-13. Hardly the act of tankers.

 

[stkildathunda]

I don't think we are tanking, I think it's just the harsh reality of where we are at.

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

if the teams tanking maybe someone forgot to tell Roo

 

[Dixie Flatline]

I don't think we are tanking, I think it's just the harsh reality of where we are at.

if the teams tanking maybe someone forgot to tell Roo

Pardon the interruption (although I was invited ) but having Riewoldt in one of my fantasy teams as a draftee, I follow the Saints more closely than I would otherwise. I don't think the Saints are tanking. I think Watters is doing a good job for the Saints in preparing them for a tilt at premiership glory in the next few years by putting games into the younger players, and I believe the Saints have a good core of young players around which to build. Riewoldt is leading by example and has been in tremendous form for the first stage of the season.

 

[Defacto]

Pardon the interruption (although I was invited ) but having Riewoldt in one of my fantasy teams as a draftee, I follow the Saints more closely than I would otherwise. I don't think the Saints are tanking. I think Watters is doing a good job for the Saints in preparing them for a tilt at premiership glory in the next few years by putting games into the younger players, and I believe the Saints have a good core of young players around which to build. Riewoldt is leading by example and has been in tremendous form for the first stage of the season.

well said mate

hows roo going in your fantasy team? giving you value?

 

[Kildonan]

Every club must make the decision to play kids to develop them as part of their on-going development as a club.
Strictly speaking, the club may perform better on the day by playing an experienced player, but the decision is made based on the long term survival of the club.
If there are no players developing, the the club stagnates. Every club has players coming through the ranks. It is just a matter of how many.
Even in our Ross Lyon era we had some kids play. Sure he liked to pick a squad and only play that squad all season, but natural attrition through injury allowed a few kids opportunities. Most clubs have a few kids coming through every year. We have a lop-sided squad based on age - so we have a lot of kids, a lot of experienced players and fewer in-betweeners. It is well past time that we develop inexperienced players and let them find their place on our list. Not all of our inexperienced players are bottom-aged kids - many are of that in-between age that we had too few of. We find ourselves getting games into both the bottom-aged kids and the in-betweeners and neither can be expected to excel yet. They are being fast-tracked - even moreso than at other clubs. There are some elite players among the experienced group that are waiting for these inexperienced players to get enough matches under their belt. Some of them still think they can make a run at finals this year. Maybe they can - I don't know - but if they do that would surely answer the "Are they tanking?" question.

Given the spread of player ages and the number of matches played by many of the players representing us now and, I expect, into the future, it is not unreasonable that we play a lot of inexperienced players now. It is not tanking - it is catching up to where we should be in the development of our playing group.

 

[Baldur]

Tanking died when the priority pick died. It was the chance of getting two picks instead of one in the first ten that created tanking.

So no we are not submarining.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

well said mate

hows roo going in your fantasy team? giving you value?

Been my best player so far.

 

[The Punter]

Percy

There are the obvious Richmond/Carlton 2007 & Melbourne 2009 displays of tanking - ensuring you don't win games to get priority picks.

Then there is Collingwood 2004/2005. A clear and sudden drop, the collection of draft picks, then an equally sudden rise. No one will convince me that Collingwood were not tanking in the second half of 2005.

Then there is St Kilda in 2000 and Hawthorn in 2004 - just bloody terrible.

Now, the most valuable games to the young players in the St Kilda group through the 2000-2002 period where we won 11.5 games from 66 were:

Round 22 2001 v Hawthorn
Round 9 2002 v Richmond

because they were wins against the odds. Young players learn much more from winning than losing, and I'm sure our senior players are instilling this in our younger players, just as Burke/Loewe/Harvey/Thompson were doing through 2000-2002.

Having said that, it's not the guns who are missing out to play the kids, it's the mid-range mid-age players. Guys like Farren Ray.

For me, it actually feels a lot like 2002. Now, that's not to say we'll be 11-11 next year. We may have a few years that feel like 2002 before we get to our 2003 moment. It's actually most important that 2003 only lasts a year. Richmond have been there for three years and counting. It's the biggest step.

 

[Sunshine Saint]

Tanking died when the priority pick died. It was the chance of getting two picks instead of one in the first ten that created tanking.

So no we are not submarining.

Dont believe we are submarining, more like aqua-planing.

 

[Murraj1966]

Spot on about 2003 Punter, you can't stay in that "great potential" stage for too long.

2003 was a great year, I still remember the heritage round caning of Richmond fondly, as well as the G-Train giving North a hiding and even Luke Power marking the ball a second after the siren went. But Punter is right, we can't stick around when we get there. We need to move on to 2004-5 but this time with a competent coach who enforces gameplans and training regimens. If we ever get a list the quality of 2005, with a coach who knows what to do with it, then we're home and hosed

Our 2005 list felt like Geelong in 2007 but we just couldn't keep them on the park long enough because GT was an idiot...

 

[L_W_P]

Please don't start this kind of talk guys

This kind of discussion is the reason Carlton aren't quite getting to the top end of the ladder. Their fans, staff, players etc. fall back on the crutch of "We've never been shit, we just tanked and got the best picks because we are so smart hahaha" rather than just accepting that they were terrible and deserved to be at the bottom of the ladder.

I don't want a culture growing around the young blokes at the club where losing is acceptable because we 'control' it and that after we stockpile some picks and free agents we will just flip the switch and shot back into the top four. It just doesn't work like that.

Regardless of what the club is thinking and saying internally we, as supporters, need to hold them to a higher standard. We may not go into every game expecting a win, but we should expect that the coaches, players and staff are doing everything they can to achieve it.

I don't want our guys becoming downhill skiers ala Carlton or even worse, hopeless hacks like the Dees...

 

[Murraj1966]

I don't believe we're the club to tank. 2000 was shocking but the club lapped up the win against Geelong in round 17 (my first match ever to see us win ) Every win we had was celebrated and every loss was disappointing not accepted.

I don't think anything has changed we all loved beating the Blooze

Edit: Just bought Round 17 2000 Vs Geelong on Name a Game

 

[The Punter]

Baker on Buddha

 

[Murraj1966]

Looking forward to this coming by the doorstep

 

[gilbert the best]

if the teams tanking maybe someone forgot to tell Roo

if the teams tanking maybe someone forgot to tell Roo

the idea of the senior players is to lead by example and roo is the classic player to play this role, we need a few other senior players to step up to get more knowledge into all the kids while they gain experience, considering the amount of kids in the team we are doing all right they will always fade in the second half,
we need lenny back in the side and to improve kicking,
there is no way we are tanking.