General AFL thread 2016

[Saint Luke]

Looking at the draw, 10 wins for the season is not out of the question. We have:
Ess x 2
Carl x 2
Freo (home)
Bris (home)
Rich
Melb

Win those, there's 10 wins for the season. We could drop a few however win a few tougher matches.

I did the ladder predictor and have us at 11.

We'll sneak one against someone we aren't meant to, but saying that we'll probably drop a couple of those we're meant to win. Either way I think we're on par to improve last season by at least two wins.

 

[austinnn]

I did the ladder predictor and have us at 11.

We'll sneak one against someone we aren't meant to, but saying that we'll probably drop a couple of those we're meant to win. Either way I think we're on par to improve last season by at least two wins.

Which ladder position did we end up in, in your predicted season?

 

[sammm]

In 1997 St Kilda lost the first two games, beat Collingwood in Round 3, lost the next two and beat Melbourne in Round 6. We finished on top of the ladder and lost the Grand Final.

In 2016 we lost the first two games, beat Collingwood in Round 3, lost the next two and beat Melbourne in Round 6. We'll go on to top the ladder. But this time we'll win the Grand Final because no analogy is perfect.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

In 1997 St Kilda lost the first two games, beat Collingwood in Round 3, lost the next two and beat Melbourne in Round 6. We finished on top of the ladder and lost the Grand Final.

In 2016 we lost the first two games, beat Collingwood in Round 3, lost the next two and beat Melbourne in Round 6. We'll go on to top the ladder. But this time we'll win the Grand Final because no analogy is perfect.

Unfortunately, Everett and Vidovic will still be missing on the big day

 

[austinnn]

Will our Shane Ellen be Tom Lee, Hugh Goddard or Sam Gilbert?

How about a 5 goal haul from surprise pocket maestro Jarryn Geary for a GF people will talk about for decades?

Hey, even Steven Baker kicked a bag one game, so anything is possible.

 

[Jack Stevens]

Unfortunately, Everett and Vidovic will still be missing on the big day

Holmes better get ready to cover for Longer and Hickey

 

[Dr Spaceman]

Holmes better get ready to cover for Longer and Hickey

This guy will still be a huge threat

 

[Persevering Saint]

I just kept thinking of the thrown boxing match in the Bilko movie when listening to the Blues v Dons game. I was driving back to Adelaide from Melbourne, and that game gave me the lols all the way through.

 

[Saintt]

Looking at the draw, 10 wins for the season is not out of the question. We have:
Ess x 2
Carl x 2
Freo (home)
Bris (home)
Rich
Melb

Win those, there's 10 wins for the season. We could drop a few however win a few tougher matches.

Gold Coast very winnable as well. If we got over the line against the Hawks...

 

[L_W_P]

Geezuz that Richmond board is depressing. Normally I love rolling in the opposition's misery but reading their review thread feels like it's actually taking part of my soul. They are going right back to square one. They missed their chances with Deledio, Cotchin, Maric and Jroo. This was a team that actually beat the Hawks on a regular basis over the last 4-5 years but then they choked away finals.

Now they face another 2-3 years of dropping down, cleaning up the list and putting in place the coaches and players to take them back up. Could be a legit 6-8 years before they play any finals again and given the failures of the last 30 years how could any of them be confident that it'll be done right this time?

For all the shit Saints fans cop for our lack of success over the span of the comp, our work in the modern era of AFL has been top shelf. One or two tweaks in personnel (or luck) along the way and we could have multiple flags from 97, 04-05 and 09-10. Every time we went down there has always been that confidence in the club to get back up eventually and even now, with a full rebuild in motion, we all see signs of a top flight team. So much so that the media and opposition supporters are given the club recognition when 2 years ago it was all "They wont win a game. They missed Petracca. Billings over Bont was a mistake."

Supporting Richmond though... uggh that's just soul destroying.

EDIT: Just saw that they play the Hawks on Friday night. Talk about copping it. Clarko will have that mob breathing literal fire after they got smashed yesterday.

I don't want to say "I called it." but given Dan Richardson's words today I can't help but be reminded of this post from over the weekend.

 

[sammm]

They should get Ross in. They are weak mentally he would straighten them out.

Then i would havevto listen to ross most weeks. No thanks

 

[Saint Luke]

Which ladder position did we end up in, in your predicted season?

9th. We'd be the new Richmond.

 

[RoundCubic]

9th. We'd be the new Richmond.

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2016-05-02...for-recruiting-strategy-says-football-manager

I would love to make finals this year after reading this article. Richmond are claiming a rebuild takes 8 years.
Sorry Tiger the Saints did it in 4 through the compromised draft years you just suck

 

[schmuttt]

Sorry to intrude.

The media and pundits on BF astound me. Everyone was quick to talk us (Melbourne) up, then we get rolled by you guys and suddenly we're 'same old Melbourne'. I'll be honest I thought we'd win (Albeit in a close game) and was disappointed we let the margin blow out, but it seems no-one realizes teams like Melbourne/St Kilda are still super young and developing. Some weeks we will have stinkers, some weeks we look a million bucks. Everyone is quick to talk up young sides but then lay the boot in when they have one bad game (I'll cop criticism for our performance vs Essendon, was abysmal).

Just watch the media if you lose to North by a large margin. Yet they'll be all too happy to talk up Collingwoods finals chances when we both accounted for them easily after they beat Carlton.

 

[gringo2011]

Sorry to intrude.

The media and pundits on BF astound me. Everyone was quick to talk us (Melbourne) up, then we get rolled by you guys and suddenly we're 'same old Melbourne'. I'll be honest I thought we'd win (Albeit in a close game) and was disappointed we let the margin blow out, but it seems no-one realizes teams like Melbourne/St Kilda are still super young and developing. Some weeks we will have stinkers, some weeks we look a million bucks. Everyone is quick to talk up young sides but then lay the boot in when they have one bad game (I'll cop criticism for our performance vs Essendon, was abysmal).

Just watch the media if you lose to North by a large margin. Yet they'll be all too happy to talk up Collingwoods finals chances when we both accounted for them easily after they beat Carlton.

I think you probably have the same experience, A few crap years and every backwards step seems like a huge gulf has opened up but every win sucks you back in. I'm actually enjoying the fact we seem to be still fairly low profile and start the underdog against just about anyone besides Essendon. It's such an even year, just about anyone can beat anyone on any given day. You can't run a formalise of any real certainty over any game even. Anyway I'm looking forward to having a pretty good Melbourne/ St Kilda rivalry coming up for the next 5 years or so.

When we were up playing finals I loved the fact people stopped having us as their second team because we knocked them off. The ultimate respect from opposition fans is their hatred and I'm hating you guys more this year. You are on the right path and as you say it sometimes takes a rocky path.

 

[schmuttt]

I think you probably have the same experience, A few crap years and every backwards step seems like a huge gulf has opened up but every win sucks you back in. I'm actually enjoying the fact we seem to be still fairly low profile and start the underdog against just about anyone besides Essendon. It's such an even year, just about anyone can beat anyone on any given day. You can't run a formalise of any real certainty over any game even. Anyway I'm looking forward to having a pretty good Melbourne/ St Kilda rivalry coming up for the next 5 years or so.

When we were up playing finals I loved the fact people stopped having us as their second team because we knocked them off. The ultimate respect from opposition fans is their hatred and I'm hating you guys more this year. You are on the right path and as you say it sometimes takes a rocky path.

Pretty much. I was just surprised that no-one acknowledged Saints are a pretty good side when up and running, we just don't see it week to week as they are a very young side.

 

[austinnn]

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2016-05-02...for-recruiting-strategy-says-football-manager

I would love to make finals this year after reading this article. Richmond are claiming a rebuild takes 8 years.
Sorry Tiger the Saints did it in 4 through the compromised draft years you just suck

Oh, so we've finished have we? Cool, I thought we had to actually consistently take meaningful part in finals series over a number of years and enter a GF or two, perchance to win one this time, but our rebuild is in fact complete. I didn't realise that we were aiming for just getting into the finals once.

Which is a smartarsey way of saying maybe let's not get ahead of ourselves, no offence.

But poor Richmond, by far the most likeable of the Big 4 clubs. Really thought they'd finally got it right this time. Must be infuriating to be a tigers supporter.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Oh, so we've finished have we? Cool, I thought we had to actually consistently take meaningful part in finals series over a number of years and enter a GF or two, perchance to win one this time, but our rebuild is in fact complete. I didn't realise that we were aiming for just getting into the finals once.

Which is a smartarsey way of saying maybe let's not get ahead of ourselves, no offence.

But poor Richmond, by far the most likeable of the Big 4 clubs. Really thought they'd finally got it right this time. Must be infuriating to be a tigers supporter.

Take my hat off to the loyal Tiges supporters... We've had our lows, but some damn exciting highs too (the ultimate high notwithstanding) and even with the lows we have had the joy of picking up some amazing early draft picks.
Poor Tiges, perennial tenants around the middle of the ladder have not experienced any of that for decades. Must be pretty demoralizing.
On the bright side, they have the best club song.

 

[RoundCubic]

Pretty much. I was just surprised that no-one acknowledged Saints are a pretty good side when up and running, we just don't see it week to week as they are a very young side.

Its partly because we have a number of recycled players also we did well with 2nd and 3rd round picks which isn't as sexy as GWS.
Mainly though pundits are just biased and lazy we've been pretty decent since the early 90's but everytime we drop they make out like we will suck for the next 15 years like in the 80's because blah blah blah.
Melbourne also look fantastic wasn't confident going into the game thought it was a big win to get past you.

 

[RoundCubic]

Oh, so we've finished have we? Cool, I thought we had to actually consistently take meaningful part in finals series over a number of years and enter a GF or two, perchance to win one this time, but our rebuild is in fact complete. I didn't realise that we were aiming for just getting into the finals once.

Which is a smartarsey way of saying maybe let's not get ahead of ourselves, no offence.

But poor Richmond, by far the most likeable of the Big 4 clubs. Really thought they'd finally got it right this time. Must be infuriating to be a tigers supporter.

Please read the article before attacking my comments Dan Richardson was saying in 2009 they believed it would take 8 years to rebuild through the draft to make a finals not win a GF then said best case was 6.
I think we have showed that you can rebuild successfully in a shorter time and Melbourne pretty much restarted its rebuild a couple years ago it just shows a really poor mentality to aim to make finals not to win a GF.
No sympathy the amount of tiger supporters i have known who have gone on about how the Saints will never win one and how good the tigers will be next year every year.

 

[austinnn]

Please read the article before attacking my comments Dan Richardson was saying in 2009 they believed it would take 8 years to rebuild through the draft to make a finals not win a GF then said best case was 6.
I think we have showed that you can rebuild successfully in a shorter time and Melbourne pretty much restarted its rebuild a couple years ago it just shows a really poor mentality to aim to make finals not to win a GF.
No sympathy the amount of tiger supporters i have known who have gone on about how the Saints will never win one and how good the tigers will be next year every year.

I have read the article, but I'm interested in your assertion that we've taken a lot less than 6 years, talking as if we're the finished article, when we all know that's not the case.

Im not going to go on one of those P66 contrarian style arguments with you, I'm pretty sure we agree, it just read like you feel that we've completed our rebuild in your post and it raised my eyebrow.

Nothing wrong with feeling bullish, but I'd hate anyone to delude themselves into thinking we're just a gun midfielder away from dominating the comp.

Here's what we know:
Most of our players haven't been tested in finals conditions, neither has our head coach by the way.

A lot of our "players for the future" still have question marks over their futures with us, not necessarily that they aren't good, but it's just too early to tell. Everyone will have different opinions but for me the only really sure bets so far are Hickey, Steven, Ross, Billings, Newnes, Armo and Bruce. (Obviously, there are a lot more that I'm very confident about but will need to see performing consistently - or just need to see more of - before I'm satisfied that we've made it.)

Our game plan hasn't succeeded at the highest level yet. It hasn't been tried in one final yet. We've no idea if our style is even possible to sustain over a full season plus finals. Last year we seemed to run out of steam well before the end of H&A. Our young guys will build their tanks, but will that be enough?

Of course I'm just dealing with internal factors to do with our rebuild here, not external factors and luck (is: rule/style changes, injuries, other clubs dominance, etc)

I'm pretty sure we're well on our way, but I think we're too far off it to start crowing about how quickly we've rebuilt.

 

[PetWussy]

My little sister told me she gets to meet josh bruce through her primary school at Noble Park football club. I know where ill be tomorrow haha

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I'm over the whole idea of "rebuild", its purely and simply list management.
The term "rebuild" is simply and excuse for poor performance. StKilda's drastic rebuild was unnecessary, it was NOT necessary to NOT recruit any decent young talent and top up with aging hacks, all the while mismanaging the salary cap.
When we start talking 8 year rebuilds it becomes a total crazy. It means there is no point trading in players like Weller and Savage, because they will be near to retirement by the time your team is getting close.
That's not to say that it may not take 8 years, but you need to plan to be competitive as soon as possible.

Hawks bottomed out in 2004 ffs.

 

[Tom_Wilson_55]

Bit unrelated to the saints, but do you reckon Melbourne would be spewing with their Tyson-Jelly trade?
Every game I've seen Tyson play has been fairly average and you feel like Jelly is exactly what they're missing...

 

[Choomah]

Albert hird in the news again, wish that cheating maggot flog would piss off