Opinion Are we Submarining?

[tbarker]

The biggest problem with tanking is that it kills the group's confidence. Losing every game can shatter players and some never recover... The sooner young players learn how to win games the better.

 

[Feerits Elf]

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.

allofmywut.jpg

Not sure I agree with your reasoning brah. 2008 premiership players in bold.

1. Alastair Clarkson did not take over part-way through 2004. Peter Schwab coached the club to 2-15 before he was sacked and Donald McDonald installed as caretaker. McDonald subsequently coached the club to 2-3 over the remaining five games. Clarkson was appointed in early September 2004.

2. Granted, the Hawks had two pretty poor seasons in Clarkson's first two years at the helm (five and nine wins respectively). However, blokes such as Tim Clarke, Danny Jacobs, John Barker, Angelo Lekkas, Nick Ries and Harry Miller were all still getting games during this period. Richie Vandenberg was captain FFS! Clarkson adopted an extreme youth policy, getting games into young players Lewis (39), Roughead (36), Franklin (34), Sewell (34) and Young (21).

3. It should be clear from the above that Hawthorn did not use low picks in consequence of its poor 2005 and 2006 seasons to "get Roughead, Franklin etc". Jarryd Roughead and Lance Franklin were drafted at 2 (priority pick) and 5 respectively in 2004 (i.e. in consequence of results achieved before Clarkson had arrived at the club). Nathan Thompson was traded to North for picks 10 and 26. Hawthorn then traded picks 10 and 37 to Collingwood for pick 7 and a steak knife (Bo Nixon). Pick 7 was subsequently used to secure Jordan Lewis. They also picked up Clinton Young in the rookie draft.

4. In 2005 the Hawks used their priority pick to draft Xavier Ellis. Nathan Lonie and Jonathan Hay were traded for the picks used to draft Grant Birchall and Max Bailey respectively. They also picked up Brent Guerra in the preseason draft and Stephen Gilham and Ben McGlynn as rookies.

5. In 2006 Hawthorn used its only first round draft pick to select Mitch Thorp, who was cruelled by injury. However it managed to pick up Brent Renouf at 24.

6. In 2007 Hawthorn had a vastly improved season, finishing fifth, and recruited Cyril Rioli and Stuart Dew at 12 and 45 respectively.

7. Of the remaining 11, Shane Crawford, Trent Croad and Chance Bateman were of course already at the club in the 1990s; Mark Williams was recruited in 2000; Luke Hodge, Rick Ladson, Campbell Brown and Sam Mitchell were recruited in the 2001 superdraft (the Hodge and Mitchell picks secured by trading Croad and McPharlin to Fremantle); and Robert Campbell, Michael Osborne and Brad Sewell were rookie elevations in 2001 and 2003.

It's a bit of a long bow to suggest Hawthorn subtly tanked their way in 2005-06 to a 2008 premiership when 15 members of the premiership team were already at the club prior to that period and the only priority/first round pick in consequence of that period in the remaining seven is Xavier Ellis.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Peter Schwab gets a bum wrap for how his coaching career ended with the Hawks, but he and Turnbull laid the foundations on which Clarkson built a premiership-winning playing group with some gutsy trading and astute recruitment. Pelchen had a big role in that under Clarkson, and I'm sure he'll be invaluable to Watters as he works through the Saints' list.

 

[HoldenMCaulfield]

As we live a life of ease,
Every one of us has all we need,
Sky of blue, and sea green,
In our red white and black submarine.

Haha!

 

[Noidenous]

As we live a life of ease,
Every one of us has all we need,
Sky of blue, and sea green,
In our red white and black submarine.

Haha!

What a pisser.

 

[HoldenMCaulfield]

veni, vidi, pissi

 

[Persevering Saint]

My thesis is simple. To submarine, you need to look like you're still trying to be serious, while deliberately finding a subtle, unnoticeable way to guarantee losing. The easiest way to do that, is to play all your stars, except those that might win ball. Whatever happens, don't pick inside mids. It doesn't matter how talented your players are, if you're always second to the footy, you are virtually guaranteed to lose. Hell, Watters nearly managed to orchestrate a loss against Carlton.

Count how many full-time, serious inside mids we went into the Doggies game with:

• Steven.
• Ross (a kid).
• Hayes (way underdone).

That's it, friends. Three players, two of which were only half suitable to the role. Compare that to other teams. Since Hayes was left out, we have systematically eradicated, one by one, dedicated inside midfielders. Hayes was out, then instead of replacing him with an inside mid, we took Jones out when he'd been a major inside midfielder this year. Then we took Armitage out, and put Jones in... as a tagger. Joey and Dal have always been all-round mids, not great inside ball winners.

It is a surefire recipe for losing. It is also far too clever for the media to notice.

The problem? No matter how subtle it is, we are still training our youth to lose, and to think that losing is okay. St Kilda has fought for nearly 20 years to get itself out of the mess of being the rabble, the losers with the losing culture. Watters is going to send us right back down the toilet.

 

[Defacto]

My thesis is simple. To submarine, you need to look like you're still trying to be serious, while deliberately finding a subtle, unnoticeable way to guarantee losing. The easiest way to do that, is to play all your stars, except those that might win ball. Whatever happens, don't pick inside mids. It doesn't matter how talented your players are, if you're always second to the footy, you are virtually guaranteed to lose. Hell, Watters nearly managed to orchestrate a loss against Carlton.

Count how many full-time, serious inside mids we went into the Doggies game with:

• Steven.
• Ross (a kid).
• Hayes (way underdone).

That's it, friends. Three players, two of which were only half suitable to the role. Compare that to other teams. Since Hayes was left out, we have systematically eradicated, one by one, dedicated inside midfielders. Hayes was out, then instead of replacing him with an inside mid, we took Jones out when he'd been a major inside midfielder this year. Then we took Armitage out, and put Jones in... as a tagger. Joey and Dal have always been all-round mids, not great inside ball winners.


It is a surefire recipe for losing. It is also far too clever for the media to notice.

The problem? No matter how subtle it is, we are still training our youth to lose, and to think that losing is okay. St Kilda has fought for nearly 20 years to get itself out of the mess of being the rabble, the losers with the losing culture. Watters is going to send us right back down the toilet.

i'm not so sure he is. he put the kids in a position to win that game, they didnt, but they sure did give it everything they had. players like dal santo and jones hurt us. dal's 0 tackles for instance.

they will learn from it. watters just needs more time and more cattle.

 

[Squizz]

i'm not so sure he is. he put the kids in a position to win that game, they didnt, but they sure did give it everything they had. players like dal santo and jones hurt us. dal's 0 tackles for instance.

they will learn from it. watters just needs more time and more cattle.

I tend to think the selections decisions reduced our chances of winning (even if we were well placed at stages).

They would've know about the fitness of Maister and Siposs and, combining that with Hickey playing forward, took away some of our run.

The team looked tired at various stages - not just the last quarter.

Whilst we'll never know about where Lenny was at, he didn't look right (including his kicking which was surprisingly off). That hurt us too - even if it's a "wise in hindsight" thing, they've made the call and it wasn't correct.

 

[L_W_P]

My thesis is simple. To submarine, you need to look like you're still trying to be serious, while deliberately finding a subtle, unnoticeable way to guarantee losing. The easiest way to do that, is to play all your stars, except those that might win ball. Whatever happens, don't pick inside mids. It doesn't matter how talented your players are, if you're always second to the footy, you are virtually guaranteed to lose. Hell, Watters nearly managed to orchestrate a loss against Carlton.

Count how many full-time, serious inside mids we went into the Doggies game with:

• Steven.
• Ross (a kid).
• Hayes (way underdone).

That's it, friends. Three players, two of which were only half suitable to the role. Compare that to other teams. Since Hayes was left out, we have systematically eradicated, one by one, dedicated inside midfielders. Hayes was out, then instead of replacing him with an inside mid, we took Jones out when he'd been a major inside midfielder this year. Then we took Armitage out, and put Jones in... as a tagger. Joey and Dal have always been all-round mids, not great inside ball winners.


It is a surefire recipe for losing. It is also far too clever for the media to notice.

The problem? No matter how subtle it is, we are still training our youth to lose, and to think that losing is okay. St Kilda has fought for nearly 20 years to get itself out of the mess of being the rabble, the losers with the losing culture. Watters is going to send us right back down the toilet.

But you have??

Please read your own sig, in particular the part about a missing colour.

 

[sauce_head]

Are there still concessionaire draft picks for finishing below five wins or whatever the magic number is?

 

[Defacto]

Are there still concessionaire draft picks for finishing below five wins or whatever the magic number is?

its at the AFL commissions disgression, which is code word for being at the bottom of the ladder for more than 2 years and not being involved in any controversy like cap cheating, draft tampering, tanking, drugs etc

 

[Armo #20]

I don't think we are tanking but I can honestly say that sitting in the stands at Etihad as the Bulldogs ran over the top of us I started daydreaming about Tom Boyd.

 

[Persevering Saint]

But you have??

Please read your own sig, in particular the part about a missing colour.

Pretty much, yep.

Go through the media thread, and count how many times the nuff-nuffs in the media write something and we correct it, ESPECIALLY around those on our list not playing AFL.

Look, at BEST we can say that the mainstream media is looking at the game from a macro level, not a micro level. We fans, especially on sites like this and SS, look at the game at a micro level. We know about players like Curren, Ledger, Spencer White, etc. Until somebody put up a fancy goal by Spencaa on youtube, none the mainstream media didn't have a clue about any of our kids.

I'm basing my opinion on the knowledge afforded me by experts on VFL players, such as Squizz and Thunda, both of whom report virtually every week on those players.

 

[Persevering Saint]

But you have??

Please read your own sig, in particular the part about a missing colour.

Absolutely, L_W_P. Why do you think I'm so ticked. I expect this kind of underhanded incompetence from Melbourne, Carlton and Essendon. I do NOT expect it of St Kilda. We may have a history of not winning, but we also have a history of integrity - in fact, it's precisely because we have taken the high ground that we have often suffered at the hands of clubs like Carlton, who played dirty and got flags for it. I don't want us to fight dirty.

 

[L_W_P]

Appreciate the feedback.

Just really hate even a hint of that land based armoured vehicle being parked at Seaford. Not so keen on having a navy dock there either

 

[Confuscius]

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks, so I'm just going to drop this rant here.

I get frustrated hearing that we need to start bottoming out and rebuilding our list. It is heavily implied that we need to drop the elder players for youth at all costs, which in my opinion, is tanking.

Yet, when a club fully commits to this (Melbourne, Carlton, Richmond et al) and struggles over the next few seasons, what is the consensus of the media? Oh, they've gone about it the wrong way and stripped the club of its winning culture!

Example of the hypocrisy: A few weeks back Nathan Brown was crapping on about how Dal needs to be traded and how it would be the best for all parties. Saints get a pick. Other side gets a good player. Dal gets another crack at a flag. Someone asks him, 'Browny, Dal's at a similar stage of his career as you were when you went to the Tigers, do you ever wish you stayed a one club player?"

"Yeah it is something I think about and being a one club player is something special that I would have liked to achieve". Or words to that effect. Well argued you idiot.

But the thing that gets me, the real annoying thing is the universal praise Geelong receive for their list turnover. No matter what your opinion, and mine personally is that once the core of Bartel, Enright, Corey, Kelly, Chapman and others go, they will drop. Depth always looks better when you're winning, and I think this is the case again. (See rd 17 I think 2009, when we rested stars and beat Hawthorn, and our depth was receiving acclaim from all and sundry).

But it's not the praise that annoys me, because they are winning, and are a fantastic side: They deserve it. Rather, it's the guys that have been grilling our coach and club for being in a bad spot for rebuilding and deluding ourselves into playing a team which gives us the best chance of winning now are the same which pile it on to Geelong for rotating young players through the side and lauding it as 'the right way to rebuild' showing the epitome of hypocrisy without the slightest idea of how ridiculous they sound.

Tell me why, if a side can rejuvenate its playing list every second season whilst remaining in the top four and playing the majority of their experienced stars, that we cannot recreate a contending side whilst remaining middle of the road (or as it's looking now, bottom 5) and doing the exact same with the older group?

What they have told us, through these three groups is that a) you cannot sacrifice all experience as it saps a club of its culture and teaches the kids nothing, b) you need to play the youth with the experienced so they can learn from the best... yet c) we should be playing all kids as there is no point trying to win the now as it's all about the future, and maybe some of our older group should be making way for the kids.

To me, that makes no sense. Yet everyone is running with it in the media as far as I can tell.

Watching a replay of 360 currently, I'm glad Watters is our coach. It's going to be a tough period but I think he's going about it the right way. We all need to get behind him if our play gets any worse.

Also, just saw that Goodes was praised for having a beer on Sunday? That's what the soundbite sounded like... Wonder how Taylor Walker feels about that. More hypocrisy

 

[L_W_P]

Loved Scotty on 360 tonight. Gave em nothin and still had Robbo eating out of his hands. By the end Robbo was agreeing with his man management and had to resort to the 'Trade Dal' talk to try and get a reaction.

Scotty just smiled, like that one kid in class who knows he can do all the work but would rather shit stir the teacher instead hahaha

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

Loved Scotty on 360 tonight. Gave em nothin and still had Robbo eating out of his hands. By the end Robbo was agreeing with his man management and had to resort to the 'Trade Dal' talk to try and get a reaction.

Scotty just smiled, like that one kid in class who knows he can do all the work but would rather shit stir the teacher instead hahaha

You can definetly see that Watters is a con artist in the media and i believe that we are not saying rebuilding due to the connotations with the word.

 

[sammm]

Loved Scotty on 360 tonight. Gave em nothin and still had Robbo eating out of his hands. By the end Robbo was agreeing with his man management and had to resort to the 'Trade Dal' talk to try and get a reaction.

Scotty just smiled, like that one kid in class who knows he can do all the work but would rather shit stir the teacher instead hahaha

can you please give us an idea on what was said as i didn't hear it.

 

[hayes]

can you please give us an idea on what was said as i didn't hear it.

In the media thread mate.

 

[stfan]

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.

I think you are mistaken (deluded )with respect to how you think we are deliberately not playing some players in order to lose games.
IMO the Club and coaches started the year full on trying/wanting to win...but we have to put it bluntly been crap.
Some injuries to key players have not helped. But poor form is the main reason. I mean just look at Sam Fisher who is meant to be an elite player.
I think most of our older players are dispirited and are just going through the motions. And the younger ones are mainly still too raw.
More recently winning has been abandoned as the No 1 priority and the coaches have now swapped to cycling through the younger players. However they are mixing them with a solid group of older players to avoid blow-outs, as blow-outs teach nothing, but may inspire bad habits, including lack of effort.


So are we trying to lose? No don't think so. But equally I do not believe that were are doing our utmost to win at present either. IMO, the club for the rest of the year will cycle though a lot of our younger players. The best of them will play a goodly number of games. But most of them will gain at least a couple of games.

 

[Rors]

I think you are mistaken (deluded )with respect to how you think we are deliberately not playing some players in order to lose games.
IMO the Club and coaches started the year full on trying/wanting to win...but we have to put it bluntly been crap.
Some injuries to key players have not helped. But poor form is the main reason. I mean just look at Sam Fisher who is meant to be an elite player.
I think most of our older players are dispirited and are just going through the motions. And the younger ones are mainly still too raw.
More recently winning has been abandoned as the No 1 priority and the coaches have now swapped to cycling through the younger players. However they are mixing them with a solid group of older players to avoid blow-outs, as blow-outs teach nothing, but may inspire bad habits, including lack of effort.

Sam Fisher missed the majority of preseason & his fitness isn't at it's usual level, hence he's not been that great. But hey, we'll make him the whipping boy even though he made Liam Jones completely redundant last week. Give the guy a bloody break people!
Why we are so pissed off is because WE as supporters can see our deficiencies, (ie: not enough midfield rotations because there are not enough inside mids in the team to rotate forward & bench, too many small forwards that can only be small forwards, not rotating McEvoy & Hickey enough,etc) and NOTHING is being done to rectify this at the selection table during the week or in the coaches box during the game.
I wish everyone would leave the backline alone TBH, it's the only thing that's going relatively well...

Stanley - already better than Jordan Roughead & Schoenmakers
Gwilt - 1 bad game since his return
Roberton - gun... Nuff said
Gears - give him a job, he'll do it
Fisher - IS NOT PLAYING THE REBOUND DEFENDER ROLE PEOPLE.... Has been very solid in playing a man-on-man key posting
Wright - future gun
Newnes - serviceable
Webster - solid & a deadly left foot
Dempster - down on form but did break his hand/wrist remember, on top of previous injury (hamstring early yeah?)... I sure as hell would take a few weeks to get full confidence to spoil with a fist after doing that

 

[Plugger35]

Submarining or tanking or whatever you call it, not on my watch.

I don't want us to end up like Melbourne.

Even if we're rebuilding with kids they need to be taught to win and taught to believe their better than their opposition.

I've got faith in Riewoldt, Hayes, Dal Santo and Montagna to lead the way.

 

[aussierulesrules]

I think you are mistaken (deluded )with respect to how you think we are deliberately not playing some players in order to lose games.
IMO the Club and coaches started the year full on trying/wanting to win...but we have to put it bluntly been crap.
Some injuries to key players have not helped. But poor form is the main reason. I mean just look at Sam Fisher who is meant to be an elite player.
More recently winning has been abandoned as the No 1 priority and the coaches have now swapped to cycling through the younger players. However they are mixing them with a solid group of older players to avoid blow-outs, as blow-outs teach nothing, but may inspire bad habits, including lack of effort.


So are we trying to lose? No don't think so. But equally I do not believe that were are doing our utmost to win at present either. IMO, the club for the rest of the year will cycle though a lot of our younger players. The best of them will play a goodly number of games. But most of them will gain at least a couple of games.

Agree with all that except for the bit about Sam Fisher. I think it's pretty clear that he is playing injured.

I completely agree that we came out wanting to win at almost all costs at the start of the year, but then once we realised how off the boil we were (not helped by a few critical injuries to an already inexperienced/new backline) we threw a bunch of "kids" in there (5 who had 2 or less games experience v Sydney and a similar no. the next week v Collingwood) and when the team performed better for the next couple of weeks, we probably thought we'd give it one last crack at this year with what we considered pretty much our best available team, but now that they have fallen so far short in the past couple of weeks, I think the pin has been well and truly pulled on the year and now it is all going to be about development for the future.

I agree with you that we are not setting out to lose, though. I still believe that if any wins are on the table we will try to grab them with both hands, but we probably won't go all out to do so at the expense of development like we more likely would have in the first couple of rounds of the year.

When you're tanking you want to develop your younger ones, but also lose, to gain a higher DP or priority pick. I think we want to develop the younger ones, but still very much want to win if we are good enough to do so.

But hey, we'll make him the whipping boy even though he made Liam Jones completely redundant last week.

Stanley was the one with the job on Jones for the majority of the game last week, not Fisher.