Rumour Bluemour Discussion thread

[HARKER]

I must be getting old - because my first personal reaction to change is always - negative!!

Change is good.............The right change is better.

Whether Lyon would be an upgrade on Malthouse would remain to be seen and as much as many of us don't like the Lyon model, he does know what he's doing and has plenty of steam left in him.
At this stage I think Malthouse is doing a great job in pooling together a cohesive unit, but whether he can again take that group to the top via his game-day coaching remains to be seen.

If Mick wants to remain coach he'll likely have to fight and that in itself isn't a terrible thing................even for an established coach.

 

[Canyouhearthedrums]

Of all the people I would want to come to the club......Ross Lyon is very low on that list.

Had several teams in their prime, who havent been good enough. Ross Lyon burns teams by loading up on old guys and completely ignoring the growth/future. Even if he snags a flag....he wont create a dynasty.

It's too convenient an argument to dismiss him as being lucky. Fact is he has now taken two different sides to become consistent top 4 challengers. And that Saints team was pretty limited in a lot of ways.

You can argue the toss about whether his teams play a style that can win the flag but you can't fault his success, nor the performances he gets out of his players. If Mick decided to walk, I would be perfectly happy with Lyon.

But I would rather MIck stay

 

[Blue Pulse]

Does that mean he will bring his son Zac?

Don't think it will be an improvement on MM, but nothing should be decided until at least 1/2 to 3/4 way through the year

 

[slashin_velvet]

It's too convenient an argument to dismiss him as being lucky. Fact is he has now taken two different sides to become consistent top 4 challengers. And that Saints team was pretty limited in a lot of ways.

You can argue the toss about whether his teams play a style that can win the flag but you can't fault his success, nor the performances he gets out of his players. If Mick decided to walk, I would be perfectly happy with Lyon.

But I would rather MIck stay

I'm not saying he's a bad coach as such....but more that he isnt a coach I would want at my club given his reckless list management. Look at the position he left St Kilda with (and what Freo are likely to end up like when Sandi, Pav and the like fall away). He's joined teams as they are entering the window, and when they havent achieved success, he's dumped them to squander at the bottom with the list he's left behind.

 

[HBF]

Pass on Lyon.
I'd rather stick with Mick who has spent two years building the list and learning his game plan.
No way we would simply "chuck that out the window" to get Lyon.

 

[Canyouhearthedrums]

I'm not saying he's a bad coach as such....but more that he isnt a coach I would want at my club given his reckless list management. Look at the position he left St Kilda with (and what Freo are likely to end up like when Sandi, Pav and the like fall away). He's joined teams as they are entering the window, and when they havent achieved success, he's dumped them to squander at the bottom with the list he's left behind.

What is he supposed to do? Sacrifice the chance at a flag to secure long term 6th placed finishes?

 

[slashin_velvet]

What is he supposed to do? Sacrifice the chance at a flag to secure long term 6th placed finishes?

I dont think you have to have one or the other. I think you can manage a list in a way that doesnt ignore youth, but also allows for the team to have a chance at a flag. Those teams win multiple flags in a generation.....and are ultimately the ones that have been successful in recent times. (Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney (albeit with a lot of concessions)).

The harshest part of it is that Ross Lyon has sacrificed the future of the club for no flags.

 

[HARKER]

I'm not saying he's a bad coach as such....but more that he isn't a coach I would want at my club given his reckless list management. Look at the position he left St Kilda with (and what Freo are likely to end up like when Sandi, Pav and the like fall away). He's joined teams as they are entering the window, and when they havent achieved success, he's dumped them to squander at the bottom with the list he's left behind.

To be fair to Lyon, we don't really know the full context of his situation at The Saints, as the coach alone hasn't all the say on who comes in and out of the club and there may well have been pressure on St.Kilda to just push for the now rather than mix and match for the future.

Not setting out to endorse Lyon, but I could understand should we be having a look.

 

[slashin_velvet]

To be fair to Lyon, we don't really know the full context of his situation at The Saints, as the coach alone hasn't all the say on who comes in and out of the club and there may well have been pressure on St.Kilda to just push for the now rather than mix and match for the future.

Not setting out to endorse Lyon, but I could understand should we be having a look.

Yep, thats a fair criticism of my perspective....it may not all have been him, and his time at Freo has been better than St Kilda in terms of loading up and ignoring kids. Still not a fan, not that it really matters.

 

[HARKER]

Yep, thats a fair criticism of my perspective....it may not all have been him, and his time at Freo has been better than St Kilda in terms of loading up and ignoring kids. Still not a fan, not that it really matters.

Yes, there aren't many fans of his negative style but he does get results.

Whichever way though, I'd be happy risking trying to jump the pack, than just catching up and if a negative game-plan allowed us to do that, then fine.

 

[Canyouhearthedrums]

I dont think you have to have one or the other. I think you can manage a list in a way that doesnt ignore youth, but also allows for the team to have a chance at a flag. Those teams win multiple flags in a generation.....and are ultimately the ones that have been successful in recent times. (Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney (albeit with a lot of concessions)).

The harshest part of it is that Ross Lyon has sacrificed the future of the club for no flags.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Geelong have managed the transition because they started with an absolutely ridiculous list and they have staggered departures. They also benefited from the Ablett compensation. Hawks still have the core group, it remains to be seen how they will manage once MItchell and Hodge retire. Same goes for Sydney.

At any rate, for those examples there are just as many on the other side of the ledger - Brisbane and Port from the mid 2000s immediately spring to mind. Essendon in the early 2000s. St Kilda had a limited list built around a few star players and a bunch of modest blokes playing well, they were never going to cope as well once their guns rode off into the sunset. It's easy to bad Lyon now that they didn't quite get over the hump but would we be talking about it if that ball had bounced the wrong way and they won a flag? I doubt it.

 

[DaVillaBlues]

The only coach I would want to replace Mick if MM wanted to step down is Al Clarkson ...

Lyon's stifling, conservative game plan is not suited to our playing list ..

And then there's the fear Rosco would bring over Australian Sniper (Ryan Crowley) with him.

Its all academic anyway, Mick still has the fire in the belly, and I believe he will be re-signed before round 1 (just going by Trigg's media release a couple of days ago)

 

[ShanDog]

I'm not a fan of Ross Lyon and would rather we didn't have him as a coach, but I don't think the criticism he gets about the list management at the Saints is fair. We don't know who made the decisions there but it's more than likely that it wasn't him alone.

At least if the club does get him, we will have a dedicated list manager to make sure he doesn't suddenly direct the staff to trade in a dozen 30 year olds lol.

For what it's worth, Malthouse should be given every chance to work with the core group of players for several years.

 

[mickelboy182]

I think Lyon is one of the very best, but I'm only interested if Mick doesn't want to go on.

 

[DaVillaBlues]

To be fair to Lyon, we don't really know the full context of his situation at The Saints, as the coach alone hasn't all the say on who comes in and out of the club and there may well have been pressure on St.Kilda to just push for the now rather than mix and match for the future.

Not setting out to endorse Lyon, but I could understand should we be having a look.

Well if you believe the rumours I heard on SEN (I think from Mark Fine), Lyon had lost a lot of money from failed investments during his last couple of years at St Kilda, and actually offered his services mid-season to Melbourne during the last season he was at the Saints (and I think around the time Dean Bailey got sacked) but it seems eventually he piqued Freo's interest (apparently Freo.were going to replace Mark Harvey at season's end anyway, he had lost the players)

I cannot begrudge Rosco for bailing on the Saints to take the big bucks at Freo, he is a good family man with a couple of young kids, and wanted to shore up his family's financial future ..

TBH I still feel Ross Lyon thinks Freo's flag window is open, and the historic lure of becoming Fremantle's first ever premiership coach is too strong for him to accept an offer to coach another team next year.

 

[jj1978]

I'm putting this 'rumour' in here not because I believe that there is a skerrick of truth in it but because I heard it yesterday when I had to attend a business meeting, I put less credence than usual on such stuff because it came from the mouth of a Collingwood Director. Apparently - Ross Lyon is heading to Carlton as the next coach next year.

Don't shoot me/

Would next year be 5 already for him at freo... geez time flies... depending on what Mick wants to do with his footy career and his age we may be needing to look for a new coach soon.. so sounding out Ross quite likely may have occurred from a due dilligence perspective but until we know Micks status with a new contract or not this rumour is one that is not out of this world.

Wouldn't be surprised.. get Mick to build the list and get Ross to finish it off and get the cup...

 

[HBF]

To be fair to Lyon, we don't really know the full context of his situation at The Saints, as the coach alone hasn't all the say on who comes in and out of the club and there may well have been pressure on St.Kilda to just push for the now rather than mix and match for the future.

Not setting out to endorse Lyon, but I could understand should we be having a look.

Don't mind the club looking at all - we should be doing our due diligence on any coach that comes out of contract at years end.
Much will depend on how we go this year, especially since MM has spruiked about how we are finally coming to grips with his gameplan.

 

[cookie monster]

Lyon doesn't coach a brand of footy that wins premierships.

Fact

 

[Matty411]

Close family friend recently told me about the true circumstances of Ross's exit from the Saints - safe to say that he is a despised man by all Saints fans and a lot of players/people involved at the club. Pretty good football coach but dick of a man. Do not want his type of character at the club - would much rather put faith in Mick for another few years to see if he can follow through on the good work he's done.

 

[mickelboy182]

Lyon doesn't coach a brand of footy that wins premierships.

Fact

No offence, but the guy has got two different teams to the big stage, and was a bee's dick of a bounce away from winning one. Why exactly do you think that?

 

[HARKER]

I'm not a fan of Ross Lyon and would rather we didn't have him as a coach, but I don't think the criticism he gets about the list management at the Saints is fair. We don't know who made the decisions there but it's more than likely that it wasn't him alone.

At least if the club does get him, we will have a dedicated list manager to make sure he doesn't suddenly direct the staff to trade in a dozen 30 year olds lol.
For what it's worth, Malthouse should be given every chance to work with the core group of players for several years.

Lyon did get Freo to the big stage and may have still been in the hunt but for seeming inability of Fremantle to recruit players.

They reached for Franklin and got Gumbleton. They've been wanting to be aggressive but not many want to go there.

 

[gbatman]

I'm very sceptical of Ross Lyon's coaching. I don't think the success he had with St Kilda and Fremantle had much to do with his coaching at all. Lyon's biggest skill is being able to identify a list that is ready to rise to the top of the ladder before it does.

You get teams who rise to success and usually the period before this is a long prolonged period of mediocrity, maybe a few crashes in finals after successful home and away seasons and all of a sudden you get people at the footy club who loses patience with the current coach start believing they should be doing better than they have been with their list that shows a bit and they sack the coach.

Sometimes they don't sack the coach like with Bomba Thompson at Geelong when he was under the pump, had they have sacked him and replaced him with Joe Blow from the pub at the time Joe Blow would have been credited as being a master coach. Ross Lyon has arrived at two clubs full of young talent that was not quite ready to go. His timing at both St Kilda and Fremantle have been impeccable and this is why he has had success. I haven't seen him take a bottom side and oversee their build to a top side. You really need to look past the results and look at how these results came about (the team). You don't rock up at the end of building a house, put the last few bricks in the wall and claim credit for it do you?

The other thing is I'm not keen of a few of Lyon's tactics. I think it's very restrictive and they don't score heavily enough though many parts of it I do like. I think their defensive congested style holds them well against good/better sides. I don't like how he's structured his forward lines with one gun key forward, a forward ruck and some good small forwards, I've always found it a bit short, though this may not be his doing entirely. I think teams work hard for too little score under his system. I'm also not impressed with the state St Kilda's list was left in though I am sure others are at fault here. Still hasn't won a premiership after plenty of opportunities. Lyon's team seem to have lacked the ability to grab gun players they need like a second key forward and not being able to really use Luke Ball at St Kilda was strange even though they had a really good midfield. Fre could do with a key forward and so far they seem to be going everywhere else.

I've seen Malthouse build teams over long periods of time from the ground up to win a premiership. I've seen Al Clarkson do it. Mark Thompson has done it to an extent. These guys are truly great and proven coaches. They have all taken plenty of time to get their teams to the top. Any club willing to give these guys plenty of time will be rewarded.

The other thing about changing the coach is that you can unsettle some players (see Buckley/Collingwood), you can change the direction of the team tactically which means the new coach may require a whole heap of players your team doesn't have or hasn't been drafting, you can step backwards a year in development as some players who should be cut survive because the new coach needs a year to see all the players play and where and how they fit into his plans (our first year). Or you get a new coach who continues the good work and just nails everything and keeps the build going or betters it. It's a real gamble and I don't think changing the coach while you are going in the right directing and still putting things in place is a good idea, especially if you have a proven experienced person in charge.

If say we get rid of our coach, again it sends the wrong message to our new coach and recruiting staff, we are Carlton, nothing has changed and we want quick success which is not what is coming out of the club. It's either quick success or we wait and try and win a flag, we can't have both.

I don't think Malthouse will retire unless perhaps we are dreadful next year. The guy is fit, healthy, passionate and a real competitor with a realistic view on how we should be going. Can't see him as being a person to just give up.

 

[HARKER]

Interesting cross sections of views on Lyon but I guess that's to be expected.

Anyway, whilst Mick is firing and still has the capacity to lift staff and players to the next level, he'll likely remain.

 

[Aphrodite]

Ross Lyon

 

[FlowersByIrene]

Imagine Lyon with our current list (which I think talent wise is better than fremantle, bar fyfe) and our ability to pull free agents and trades (Boyd exception) Lyon would do very well here. We are a bigger and better club than Saints and Freo

That being said I think Mick is just as good. If Lyon wants to coach us after Mick retires then bravo, but I'm not going to shaft Mick

Especially as they have similar but still different game plans and all of Micks work at rebuilding the list these last two years would be a waste.