Just how dire is St Kilda's predicament over the next decade?

[Kenno27]

How are the saints going to look if they trade 3+21 and Fischer to GWS for Pick 1? And use 17 to land Longer.

Still dire?

They would have used Pick 13 to get Hickey & Pick 17 to get Longer. They could have used 1 of these picks to get a much superior ruck in Grundy in 2012.

Still dire

 

[Hot Pocket]

How are the saints going to look if they trade 3+21 and Fischer to GWS for Pick 1? And use 17 to land Longer.

Still dire?

Boyd learning from Riewoldt... yikes.

 

[GarnerSmash]

Unfortunately they kinda remind me a bit of North post 99, but with a new facility and what seems to be a more lenient AFL admin. They have had probably the most successful decade in their history yet are financially worse off than North, who had a pretty bleak decade. How did they capitalise off field on their relative success on field?

Combine this position with the current list situation and things look pretty dire. If they hit the draft hard now it will still be 4-6 years before the benefits are reaped, if at all, because there is always a risk that development of players will be stunted from a lack of older players given Roo and Hayes are likely on their last legs.

 

[nussbuster]

There must be something in the Watter.

Watter you thinking?

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

They would have used Pick 13 to get Hickey & Pick 17 to get Longer. They could have used 1 of these picks to get a much superior ruck in Grundy in 2012.

Still dire

Yeah, I don't see what Grundy has to do with anything.

We're talking about what could transpire this trade period.

 

[Desi Van_83]

Staggered at the amount of horse s$@t being carted out by supporters of other clubs, not the mention the OP on this thread.

Saints fan will be very sad to say good bye to Big Boy. But his game has flaws that we've (saints fans) all talked about for a while now. No doubt the trade is a risk, but we are in the midst of a massive re build and need to plan for the future with a strategy of calculated risk. Clearly the list management team thought hard before making the trade.

As far as the other rubbish about being cellar dwellers for a decade, or even out of the competition. Give me a break. We have survived 140 years. We ain't going anywhere.

 

[The Goon]

Beaten to it!




Really should read all the way through the thread before replying... but I never do.

Amazingly no one else seems to get it. The only alternative explanation is we have a punny sense of humour that no one else appreciates, which is obviously wrong.

 

[The_Wookie]

Staggered at the amount of horse s$@t being carted out by supporters of other clubs, not the mention the OP on this thread.

Saints fan will be very sad to say good bye to Big Boy. But his game has flaws that we've (saints fans) all talked about for a while now. No doubt the trade is a risk, but we are in the midst of a massive re build and need to plan for the future with a strategy of calculated risk. Clearly the list management team thought hard before making the trade.

As far as the other rubbish about being cellar dwellers for a decade, or even out of the competition. Give me a break. We have survived 140 years. We ain't going anywhere.

I tend to agree with this.

St Kilda arent going to suffer that much from trading McEvoy, they do gain Savage and an extra pick. Their financial state is nowhere near as bad as some clubs, like Port Adelaide and Brisbane for instance, and probably still better than the Dees. And if they didnt go anywhere when they won 26 wooden spoons, I dont see them being doomed now.

 

[NarklesHelmet]

This thread represents Big Footy at its worst/finest. The Saints have their first losing season in 10 years this year, make a trade involving a player that 90% of Saints supporters on our trade thread have talked about for months and apparently our club is stuffed for 10 years. What a joke.

At the start of this year our supporter group were pretty split on what the next few years would be like. Some thought a "traditional" re-build would be the way forward where we would bottom out. Others (myself included) having listened to Watters and Pelchen predicted that we would be going the Sydney/Geelong re-build route.

It is pretty clear now of course that we will no longer be going the Sydney/Geelong re-build route and have now fully committed to a traditional re-build. We will be planning our future around the next 3-4 drafts and targeting midfielders especially this year and KPs next year. There is no need to panic or make insane predictions about our future: we have been up for a long time and in a competition like ours, you can rarely stay up for ever.

We have a strong winning culture built up over the past 10 years and the beauty of that is that the older players will be able to pass on their experiences to the younger group that will emerge over the next few years. The aim will be to be playing finals again in 2017/18 and I firmly believe that with our excellent recruiting staff this will be achieved. 90% of Saints supporters on our board are fully behind the club regarding their plans and vision.

Regarding the McEvoy trade it is a really good one. For some reason (and we see it here on this thread) McEvoy has a reputation that exceeds his ability and output. What I will say about him is that he has a massive tank and can take an eye-catching grab. But that is about it. Most of us fans on our trade thread have been calling on the club to sell Ben while his stock is still high and the club has done that. It will enable Hickey to spread his wings and get us in another excellent midfield prospect with the first round pick as well as add depth in Savage. It is a really astute trade and one I am happy with it.

 

[Croweater]

It doesn't look promising for the Saints.

Jack Steven is the only player that looks like a 200-gamer. People talking about the future, it's all speculation. "If this happens and that happens, then they'll be alright."

If's and but's don't win you flags. Keeping your number one ruckman and gun midfielder do. Or certainly help. Admittedly Dal Santo's move would be for one last tilt at a flag before his career ends in a couple of years, but to let McEvoy, a top 10 ruckman go when you have no real back up is stupid. The guy's 24, nearing his prime and they traded him for a dime a dozen midfielder and a late first round draft pick.

The whole club is a shambles. There's no rise up the ladder without the building blocks in place. Montagna, Riewoldt and players of that age will be retiring in a year or two, so the Saints needed to start planning for the future last year.

And yeah, I know, Saints fans will tell me I'm wrong and that things are going to get better quickly. I respect your relentless optimism, but you're naive. I doubt the Saints will be playing finals football in the next five years.

 

[Bosun]

I really don't know enough about the Saints list atm, it was a genuine question.

As you say Adelaide and West Coast had fast rises up the table as well recently [followed by a fall back down the ladder which I hope we dodge]. Your point about the fitness base is an excellent one, I really don't see Port having the year we did in '13 without snaring Burgess - he really did set the guys up well for it.


As for Port I had high hopes for Wingard, Boak and Hartlett, was a little disappointed Hartlett didn't really seem to come on as expected this year and was a little surprised Ebert [which was the third] made it to be honest. We had a shocking prior 5 years and our last few years of recruiting seemed good so I was hopeful they would step up and produce this year.

That said, I thought the same thing at the end of '11.

Farkin hell, I thought Hartlett played some top games this year.

 

[cammo78]

How you let go a ruckman who is just about to break out is simply mind boggling.

 

[RonSon]

Farkin hell, I thought Hartlett played some top games this year.

He did, he wasn't bad by any measure, I just thought he'd have a bigger year than Boak for some reason and that didn't happen.

 

[Jezzitizle]

Following the stint of Ross Lyon where they came oh-so close to a premiership, the warning bells were there for the Saints that dire times were on the horizon as Ross neglected to plan ahead of that premiership tilt.

A divide was created on the list between the proven senior players who took them so close and young players who merely made up the numbers.

Now, we reach a point where those senior players are either gone, leaving or a very close to the end and the young talent looks to be no where near the calibre of those players.

Further to that, McEvoy, who along with Stevens, is one of their few bonafide young players, has now been traded out.

With the Saints also being in pretty big trouble financially, just how dire is St Kilda's predicament?

I honestly think they have a fight for their survival coming up over the next decade. They may be the next tea, to get a tap on the shoulder from the AFL, similar to North in 2007.

Brilliant troll, you almost seem compassionate whilst gloating over the temporary demise of a rival club.

I'm sure you are aware there are measures in place in the AFL to help prevent smaller clubs becoming noncompetitive for long periods of time, but great insight into the fact the saints are one of the smaller clubs, well done. If their football staff think their best chance of getting a premiership is by trading out some of their older players whilst they still have value, and a serviceable but far from star ruckmen, good luck to them.

 

[aussierulesrules]

It's not so much the decision to trade him, but what you got in return. It's a complete disaster imo, I don't know he they can justify it.

As I said, I wasn't happy when I heard that 19 and Savage was all we'd be getting for him, but there is now a suggestion that once Hawthorn get their Buddy compo pick we will get that in exchange for our 2nd rounder, so that makes me a fair bit more happy with the result, if true, as the draft seems to thin out a fair bit after about pick 20-22, so if we convert our 23 to 20 that may only seem small, but is still a good result, as it gets us in on the back of that top 20 that are rated pretty highly. We may now end up with 2 or 3 picks around that area, as you guys did last year when you drafted so well, getting a couple of "sliders" in Grundy and Kennedy. The top 20 is rated similarly highly to last year, from what I can gather.

It may also be that we shopped Mac around to all the clubs and found that most clubs just didn't rate him as highly as some "casual observers" do and as such just took the best offer we could, so that we could move on and allow Hickey to have the no.1 ruck role next year, which I for one think he is ready for and will benefit greatly from. It just didn't work playing both of them in the same team this year and many of us didn't see it ever working well enough to persist with long term, so that's why I was one of plenty on our board pushing for us to trade Ben, if we got a good enough deal.

 

[ScreaM.]

And people call Ross Lyon the best coach in the AFL

 

[aussierulesrules]

How you let go a ruckman who is just about to break out is simply mind boggling.

He's been threatening to "break-out" for each of the past 3 or so seasons and continues to not do so and even he admitted as much in an article before the season, saying that he "seems to do one of these interviews every year, saying that I really need to step it up" and yet again he didn't do so. Maybe he just never will. It's not like he was a "project player", he was drafted in the top 10 and about as ready-made as you get at that age for the ruck.

He's now on the short side for "ruckmen", has very little leap and is not particularly strong and was apparently ranked last in the league this year for hitouts and hitouts to advantage, which is what those who follow our club know full-well about, but most who don't follow us are completely unaware of.

The club rate Hickey and Pierce very highly and undoubtedly have plans to get someone else relatively cheaply, at least for the short-term, so I for one am excited to see how our new ruck combo goes. We almost certainly won't be any worse in the hitouts department and Mac has been very meh around the ground for the past couple of seasons (apart from the odd game, every couple of months), so we wont be missing much there, either. We will miss his leadership, though, it wouldn't surprise me if he went on to captain Hawthorn.

 

[Bollox]

Rucks of that quality now entering their prime are normally a seriously expensive commodity. Especially one that isnt injury plagued.
How good can he be at a competitive club ? He can quite conceivably be the #1 ruck in the game within 1-2 yrs.

I'm with the crowd...i cannot believe they've traded one of their biggest assets for sweet FA.

Must be a reason surely.

 

[aussierulesrules]

He can quite conceivably be the #1 ruck in the game within 1-2 yrs.

How, he was apparently (according to SEN today) ranked last in the AFL this year for hitouts and hitouts to advantage? Don't you think you need to be able to actually ruck to be ranked anywhere near 1-2 in the league in the ruck?

 

[Nathanmmx]

It doesn't look promising for the Saints.

Jack Steven is the only player that looks like a 200-gamer. People talking about the future, it's all speculation. "If this happens and that happens, then they'll be alright."

If's and but's don't win you flags. Keeping your number one ruckman and gun midfielder do. Or certainly help. Admittedly Dal Santo's move would be for one last tilt at a flag before his career ends in a couple of years, but to let McEvoy, a top 10 ruckman go when you have no real back up is stupid. The guy's 24, nearing his prime and they traded him for a dime a dozen midfielder and a late first round draft pick.

The whole club is a shambles. There's no rise up the ladder without the building blocks in place. Montagna, Riewoldt and players of that age will be retiring in a year or two, so the Saints needed to start planning for the future last year.

And yeah, I know, Saints fans will tell me I'm wrong and that things are going to get better quickly. I respect your relentless optimism, but you're naive. I doubt the Saints will be playing finals football in the next five years.

St Kilda could pull off a trade and bring Tom Boyd into the club, keep Dal Santo and have another couple of mids rise like Steven has in 2014 and all you scaremongerers would still say its time for St Kilda to head to the slaughterhouse.
Wouldnt matter what we do list or club wise you will all still complain, so really there is no point listening to any of you because clearly we cannot do anything right no matter what we do......
Got no doubt some of you would still think Riewoldt was a bad choice for us too at Number 1 pick.

 

[Falchoon]

lol you are going to be dreaming about a result like that while rebuilding.

Rebuilding? you've been rebuilding since at least 2003.

If in 10 years we're talking up a 10th place finish and yet again talking about next year........

Something that helped us

gimme a spell, "something that may have helped us, we don't know yet"

 

[Bobby_]

wouldn't say it's dire myself. I think every club is entitled to go through a re-build whichever way they feel best and St Kilda are now seeing which players will be in for the long haul and which ones they think will make it.
Seems like a dire situation right now but so too did the Western Bulldogs 18 months ago and Melbourne currently but give them a couple of seasons and we will see unheard of players stepping up for the Saints and they will begin pushing for finals again.

 

[Tas]

Rebuilding? you've been rebuilding since at least 2003.

If in 10 years we're talking up a 10th place finish and yet again talking about next year........





gimme a spell, "something that may have helped us, we don't know yet"

lol it is gold a St Kilda supporter judging other clubs based on success.

 

[krisholio14]

Minson was a s**t ruckman a few years ago as well. Ruckman can significantly improve their hit-outs to advantage, the other aspects are not so easy to improve on.

Minson has always been a better tap ruckman than McEvoy.

 

[Adam H]

They would have used Pick 13 to get Hickey & Pick 17 to get Longer. They could have used 1 of these picks to get a much superior ruck in Grundy in 2012.

Still dire

This is a joke right?