List Mgmt. Ross Lyon - Sacked

[poshman]

There’s a lot of fear of success and fear of rocking the boat on this website.

Goals change. Coming into the year, 10 wins might have been a pass mark in some eyes (pretty low bar in my mind but we are in a much touted rebuild after all).

But at 7-5 and with some statement wins on the board, you’re entitled to reassess and upgrade the goals. That “season expectation” thread charts as much, people were happy to say yeah missing finals from here would be pretty poor. Now that that’s potentially off the table, people are reverting back to oh well we never anticipated 2019 to be the year we made finals etc etc.

Given the way they were trending late last year, the Cats most likely never anticipated being a game clear on top at this stage of the season. If they collapse from here and scrape eighth do you think geelong fans will be like oh well we said at the start of the year we just wanted to make finals so 2019 was a success. Hell no.

Liverpool probably would have taken being within a game of top spot if it was offered, but given where they were at the mid point of the season it was a let down. Given our start, the dramatic fall away (yet again) is a big red flag.

I don't know how ten wins could be a low bar. Who has rebuilt faster than that? We have asked and you haven't been able to provide an example. Ten wins is ahead of the curve.

Re: Goals Change - I run a fairly large business - still a SME as we have only 70 employees. At the start of the financial year we set targets and remuneration, review and bonuses etc are then tracked accordingly. If in december we are tracking ahead of those goals and (let's use you as an illustration for this example) I as the CEO were to come to you and say 'Hey B2B - you are ahead of the goals agreed too, because you have done well we will not give you a bonus at the previously agreed result, instead to reward you and so things are exciting lets add 20%. So that 30k we had on offer, don't be upset, keep your attitude in check 'we are after all entitled to reassess and upgrade our goals'.

Given your thinking - you would be very happy were that to occur. Yet any business study and any business leader with integrity would agree - changing the goalposts according to circumstance kills team morale and trust in leadership.

Ten wins, imo, had us ahead of the curve for a rebuild. Am I pissed we lost last week? Yes. If we hit ten wins have we achieved what I consider to be an ambitious goal for the year? Yes.

The target for Geelong and GWS should be different from FFC. Some of the same people who think that Carlton should be aiming for lower wins than WCE or GWS refuse to apply the same thinking to our club.

 

[poshman]

I agree as an emotionally involved fan. I do this myself.

It makes no sense if we perform better than expected to adjust your expectations up if you are not willing to adjust them down again if we then perform worse again. Development and performance are not linear and if you treat them as such you will consistently run into this problem.

I definitely raised my expectations after the Pies game. As such, the Blues game hit hard (Dees not so much). Going into the Derby my expectation were low again (not 2-19 low) so it was easier to take than Carlton. I think we are better than last year, but not by as much as I thought at 7-5.

Agreed - I would add this to my last post.

 

[XXRL]

Agree with the above. We are on an upwards trend over the last 3-4 years and there are unfortunately going to be blips along the way.

If we can keep the core of the current squad together there's no reason we won't be contending when this group all start to hit 150-200 games.

 

[Becky2Belts]

I don't know how ten wins could be a low bar. Who has rebuilt faster than that? We have asked and you haven't been able to provide an example. Ten wins is ahead of the curve.

All of this stems from buying the rebuild line. We set the curve, so to say we’re “ahead of the curve” is to say we’re performing better than we’d thought we would. To that I say aim higher.

West Coast “rebuilt” quicker. They finished sixth and didn’t win a final in 2016. They were 12-10 in 2017 with an aging list. They went hell for leather to keep their window open with Petrie and Mitchell coming in. Old list. Trending backwards. Worse each season after their 2015 GF. It looked like they were about to enter a world of hurt.

Then last year they debuted nine new players and won a flag. They didn’t bottom out to rebuild, they didn’t gut the list. They were projected to be bottom four but didn’t set the target of “hey let’s win a few games and make sure we don’t finish bottom four”, they retooled on the fly.

The Bulldogs won a flag in the second year of their new coach. Sydney won a flag in the second year of their new coach. The Eagles made a Grand final in the second year of their new coach. Adelaide made the Grand Final in their second year of a new coach. Melbourne made a prelim in the second year of their new coach. Brisbane are sitting top four in the third year of their new coach.

We decide the direction our list goes, nobody inherits the 2019 Fremantle list and says ok in a vacuum how many games should this squad win. We decided to go down the complete rebuild road, we sold it to the fans that this is a necessary pain, when it has been proven by Sydney and Hawthorn and West Coast and Geelong that it isn’t. So sure, we might be “ahead of the curve” (I don’t think we are, but let’s go with it), but never forget we are in complete control of the curve. The club decides every facet of their future, don’t buy this hard luck story about oh gee we’re a young rebuilding side. We’re rebuilding because it was decided we’d rebuild, and three and a half years later here we are, circle jerking over the prospect of maybe winning not quite half of our games.

 

[PurpleEyes]

For mine it isn't the Lyon "game plan" that is the problem (which has changed quite a bit over the journey anyway). More generally I think we over-rate game plans. There are so many different ways to win a footy game. What all winning teams share in common though is an ability to execute their game plan consistently and under pressure.

For me, the biggest knock on Lyon as a coach is the long term track record that his teams have for being poor in execution with ball-in-hand.

You can definitely win a flag with a strong contested ball/stoppage driven/defense first strategy (which has been his most common, although not only game strategy). But on those occasions that you _do_ get the ball, you still have to execute your own offensive tactics (whatever they happen to be) with skill.

Getting the ball at the contest will give you enough drive to create inside 50s but without skill in ball movement they will be "poor" inside 50s that don't amount to much. Or without skill in actual goal kicking they will be points instead of goals. Not being able to execute under pressure also limits the ball movement tactics you can employ which makes it easier for the oppo to arrange their own defensive structures (which in turn limits your offensive effectiveness).

Ross Lyon teams that have played in grand finals have created enough opportunities to win them but have suffered from really bad luck (that bounce of the ball was a shocker for Milne) or have failed to take advantage of their opportunities to actually win.

One would think that the skill of a team would be reflected by a team's Disposal Efficiency.
But generally there is only about a 5-6% difference between the best and worst teams (for DE%) in the competition.
Although it is true that generally, the Top4 teams will be in the higher averages of those disposal efficiency numbers (about 72-74%).
(eg. Fremantle's DE% so far in 2019 is 69.7%, West Coasts is 72.1%, but then North Melbourne's is 74.6%)

But after a game like Saturday's derby, we tend to most notice our lack of skills when scoring.
I like to use a goal efficiency statistic which is goals divided by inside50s.
On Saturday with our 2 goals 19 behinds for 60 inside 50's that equates to an extremely low 3.3% of i50s resulting in goals. That is about as bad as you'll ever see.
Fremantle's average for 2019 has now dropped to 20.1%, the fourth worst in the comp. It was 28.2% in 2013.
But, once again, this statistic has been dropping for all teams. Greater Western Sydney is the only team out of the 18 who now have a better forward efficiency stat in 2019 than they did in 2013. Fremantle's has dropped 8.1% in that time. The average drop has been 4.2% and Hawthorn's drop is the worst for that period, dropping from 29.7% down to 21.4%.

I would think that none of those stats should be too shocking to most. We have understood that our Forward line and scoring abilities have appeared to be poor and a weakness for many years. Probably what would surprise some is that 2013-2015 were some of our best years in terms of forward efficiency (in comparison to other teams) ... and yet I recall many at the time being critical of Freo bombing it in to Pav. Our lack of i50s was often our bigger problem. Now our i50 numbers aren't so bad, but our Forwards aren't making the most of those opportunities.

One last comment I would make, is I have noticed that even some of our most skilled players, like Mundy, have demonstrated poor i50 kicks in 2019.
I believe that is largely due to a lack of team cohesion between the current midfield and forwards ... something I hope will improve with more games (not to Mundy, but others).

 

[PurpleEyes]

There’s a lot of fear of success and fear of rocking the boat on this website.

Goals change. Coming into the year, 10 wins might have been a pass mark in some eyes (pretty low bar in my mind but we are in a much touted rebuild after all).

But at 7-5 and with some statement wins on the board, you’re entitled to reassess and upgrade the goals. That “season expectation” thread charts as much, people were happy to say yeah missing finals from here would be pretty poor. Now that that’s potentially off the table, people are reverting back to oh well we never anticipated 2019 to be the year we made finals etc etc.

Given the way they were trending late last year, the Cats most likely never anticipated being a game clear on top at this stage of the season. If they collapse from here and scrape eighth do you think geelong fans will be like oh well we said at the start of the year we just wanted to make finals so 2019 was a success. Hell no.

Liverpool probably would have taken being within a game of top spot if it was offered, but given where they were at the mid point of the season it was a let down. Given our start, the dramatic fall away (yet again) is a big red flag.

All well and good, as long as when people are reviewing their expectations, they respect that doing so, straight after 3 wins or 3 losses in the past 3 matches, their perception may be clouded.

 

[Johnny Dalmas]

(NB: All stats are for Home & Away games only, finals not included).
Since the 2013 season, only 3 of the 18 teams have averaged more points for in 2019 (Brisbane Lions, Greater Western Sydney and Melbourne).
The average in 2013 was 92.8. So far in 2019 it is 80.2.

Fremantle have gone from 92.5 down to 74.8. That is, we average 17.7 less points in 2019 than we did in 2013. There have been 6 teams with bigger drops than Fremantle. Most notably, Hawthorn has gone from 114.7 down to 76.1, a 38.6 drop.

Geelong (the current 2019 top scorers) have gone from 109.5 down to 93.3, a 16.2 point drop.

Which is all true but immaterial. The point wasn't about what other clubs are doing but what we have sought to do but haven't been able to achieve.

That point was made in the context of other posters talking about how injury depleted we were last week as if that could account for how poorly we scored. It can to a degree (you want your best players playing) but it is absurd to ignore our long-term track record.

Since Ross became head coach in 2012 we have only once finished above the 35th percentile for points scored. That was in 2014 when we were so potent that we were the 7th heaviest scoring team in the competition:

Season - Ranking in terms of points scored
2012 - 14th
2013 - 12th
2014 - 7th
2015 - 11th
2016 - 16th
2017 - 17th
2018 - 16th

You don't have to have the most potent offense to be an effective team; especially in our current era which places such a premium on defence. The is self-evident from our best on-field season occurring when we were only ranked 12th for scoring.

But in 6 of our last 7 completed seasons our offense has been below average. That is a long time for our Football Department (ie, both coaching and list management) to create some form of effective offense. Last weekend our forward play was, once again, ineffective and, sadly, it wasn't a one-off caused by a tipping point of injuries but part of a long-term trend where our coaches cannot either (a) devise an effective forward game plan and/or (b) coach the players in their charge to execute the game plan.

It is a chronic problem and there is no evidence the current coaching staff can overcome it.

 

[sumavich]

It’s been too long. Bye Ross, and bye mrs lyon (purple eyes)

 

[Johnny Dalmas]

All of this stems from buying the rebuild line. We set the curve, so to say we’re “ahead of the curve” is to say we’re performing better than we’d thought we would. To that I say aim higher.

West Coast “rebuilt” quicker. They finished sixth and didn’t win a final in 2016. They were 12-10 in 2017 with an aging list. They went hell for leather to keep their window open with Petrie and Mitchell coming in. Old list. Trending backwards. Worse each season after their 2015 GF. It looked like they were about to enter a world of hurt.

Then last year they debuted nine new players and won a flag. They didn’t bottom out to rebuild, they didn’t gut the list. They were projected to be bottom four but didn’t set the target of “hey let’s win a few games and make sure we don’t finish bottom four”, they retooled on the fly.

The Bulldogs won a flag in the second year of their new coach. Sydney won a flag in the second year of their new coach. The Eagles made a Grand final in the second year of their new coach. Adelaide made the Grand Final in their second year of a new coach. Melbourne made a prelim in the second year of their new coach. Brisbane are sitting top four in the third year of their new coach.

We decide the direction our list goes, nobody inherits the 2019 Fremantle list and says ok in a vacuum how many games should this squad win. We decided to go down the complete rebuild road, we sold it to the fans that this is a necessary pain, when it has been proven by Sydney and Hawthorn and West Coast and Geelong that it isn’t. So sure, we might be “ahead of the curve” (I don’t think we are, but let’s go with it), but never forget we are in complete control of the curve. The club decides every facet of their future, don’t buy this hard luck story about oh gee we’re a young rebuilding side. We’re rebuilding because it was decided we’d rebuild, and three and a half years later here we are, circle jerking over the prospect of maybe winning not quite half of our games.

Post of the year.

 

[Scham]

Which is all true but immaterial. The point wasn't about what other clubs are doing but what we have sought to do but haven't been able to achieve.

That point was made in the context of other posters talking about how injury depleted we were last week as if that could account for how poorly we scored. It can to a degree (you want your best players playing) but it is absurd to ignore our long-term track record.

Since Ross became head coach in 2012 we have only once finished above the 35th percentile for points scored. That was in 2014 when we were so potent that we were the 7th heaviest scoring team in the competition:

Season - Ranking in terms of points scored
2012 - 14th
2013 - 12th
2014 - 7th
2015 - 11th
2016 - 16th
2017 - 17th
2018 - 16th

You don't have to have the most potent offense to be an effective team; especially in our current era which places such a premium on defence. The is self-evident from our best on-field season occurring when we were only ranked 12th for scoring.

But in 6 of our last 7 completed seasons our offense has been below average. That is a long time for our Football Department (ie, both coaching and list management) to create some form of effective offense. Last weekend our forward play was, once again, ineffective and, sadly, it wasn't a one-off caused by a tipping point of injuries but part of a long-term trend where our coaches cannot either (a) devise an effective forward game plan and/or (b) coach the players in their charge to execute the game plan.

It is a chronic problem and there is no evidence the current coaching staff can overcome it.

Who was our forward line coach in 2014?

 

[raffrox]

All of this stems from buying the rebuild line. We set the curve, so to say we’re “ahead of the curve” is to say we’re performing better than we’d thought we would. To that I say aim higher.

West Coast “rebuilt” quicker. They finished sixth and didn’t win a final in 2016. They were 12-10 in 2017 with an aging list. They went hell for leather to keep their window open with Petrie and Mitchell coming in. Old list. Trending backwards. Worse each season after their 2015 GF. It looked like they were about to enter a world of hurt.

Then last year they debuted nine new players and won a flag. They didn’t bottom out to rebuild, they didn’t gut the list. They were projected to be bottom four but didn’t set the target of “hey let’s win a few games and make sure we don’t finish bottom four”, they retooled on the fly.

The Bulldogs won a flag in the second year of their new coach. Sydney won a flag in the second year of their new coach. The Eagles made a Grand final in the second year of their new coach. Adelaide made the Grand Final in their second year of a new coach. Melbourne made a prelim in the second year of their new coach. Brisbane are sitting top four in the third year of their new coach.

We decide the direction our list goes, nobody inherits the 2019 Fremantle list and says ok in a vacuum how many games should this squad win. We decided to go down the complete rebuild road, we sold it to the fans that this is a necessary pain, when it has been proven by Sydney and Hawthorn and West Coast and Geelong that it isn’t. So sure, we might be “ahead of the curve” (I don’t think we are, but let’s go with it), but never forget we are in complete control of the curve. The club decides every facet of their future, don’t buy this hard luck story about oh gee we’re a young rebuilding side. We’re rebuilding because it was decided we’d rebuild, and three and a half years later here we are, circle jerking over the prospect of maybe winning not quite half of our games.

I think the curve we set reflects that we have a history of under performing. 15 out of 24 seasons with less than half our games won. It's a stat that isn't embraced compared to other stats in this thread for some odd reason.

We seem happier than most teams just being sort of close enough.

 

[Lach72]

Man, there is always an excuse offered for our forward play.

Kicking 2.19 is beyond excuses. Its not as if our coaching team has a track record of coaching high performing forward lines.

Back in 2013 after losing the GF, Ross said we need to become "a two goal better team". Regardless of who has been on the list, our average points per game has been on a downward trend ever since (for completed seasons).

The problem has been well identified; its the capability(?)/willingness(?) to do something about it that appears to be lacking.

The track record is that this coaching group doesn't coach an effective forward setup. Last week was no outlier.

Yup. And watching this game tonight and you’d swear we were playing a foreign game


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hoss]

Moderators can I please have a thread ban from this thread. All these sooks and negative Nancy's are doing my head in.

On Pixel 2 using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Bring back Drum]

All of this stems from buying the rebuild line. We set the curve, so to say we’re “ahead of the curve” is to say we’re performing better than we’d thought we would. To that I say aim higher.

West Coast “rebuilt” quicker. They finished sixth and didn’t win a final in 2016. They were 12-10 in 2017 with an aging list. They went hell for leather to keep their window open with Petrie and Mitchell coming in. Old list. Trending backwards. Worse each season after their 2015 GF. It looked like they were about to enter a world of hurt.

Then last year they debuted nine new players and won a flag. They didn’t bottom out to rebuild, they didn’t gut the list. They were projected to be bottom four but didn’t set the target of “hey let’s win a few games and make sure we don’t finish bottom four”, they retooled on the fly.

The Bulldogs won a flag in the second year of their new coach. Sydney won a flag in the second year of their new coach. The Eagles made a Grand final in the second year of their new coach. Adelaide made the Grand Final in their second year of a new coach. Melbourne made a prelim in the second year of their new coach. Brisbane are sitting top four in the third year of their new coach.

We decide the direction our list goes, nobody inherits the 2019 Fremantle list and says ok in a vacuum how many games should this squad win. We decided to go down the complete rebuild road, we sold it to the fans that this is a necessary pain, when it has been proven by Sydney and Hawthorn and West Coast and Geelong that it isn’t. So sure, we might be “ahead of the curve” (I don’t think we are, but let’s go with it), but never forget we are in complete control of the curve. The club decides every facet of their future, don’t buy this hard luck story about oh gee we’re a young rebuilding side. We’re rebuilding because it was decided we’d rebuild, and three and a half years later here we are, circle jerking over the prospect of maybe winning not quite half of our games.

Really good post.
The key word in this post is development. The development dept/program at Freo is as poor as it comes. Not only draft recruits, but players from other clubs recruited in. Hardly any of those recruits have got better coming into the club where others leave & flourish.

Brayshaw, Cerra, Crowden, Darcy, Banfield & others have not shown any improvement at all from last year & then take McCarthy, Kersten & to a lesser extent Wilson & Colyer have not offered anything further than what they did at other clubs. Which for Colyer & Kersten was bugger all.

There is far too much reliance on the older players, with that proven with the inclusion of an underdone Sandilands & the dropping of Crowden instead of the likes of Colyer. Why Ballantyne was kept on this season is beyond a joke as there was another 4 small forwards ready to go.

This was obviously the call from all Saints supporters when Lyon was brought across & there is little evidence to prove this wrong. He just doesn’t trust the young players & it appears they can feel it & are lacking confidence at this level.

I strongly believe that this lack of development includes his assistant coaches. The great coaches of the last 15 years have developed great assistants who have gone on to coach their own teams. This is the difference between great coaches like Clarkson & Roos compared to Lyon.

Most of Lyons assistants have moved on in silence because there were issues between coach & assistant.

How can this be good for team harmony? He is arrogant, pig headed & verging on a charlatan, in particular his various pressers this week where his arrogance has reached a new high.

Any thoughts? Harsh/fair?

 

[PurpleEyes]

Which is all true but immaterial. The point wasn't about what other clubs are doing but what we have sought to do but haven't been able to achieve.

That point was made in the context of other posters talking about how injury depleted we were last week as if that could account for how poorly we scored. It can to a degree (you want your best players playing) but it is absurd to ignore our long-term track record.

Since Ross became head coach in 2012 we have only once finished above the 35th percentile for points scored. That was in 2014 when we were so potent that we were the 7th heaviest scoring team in the competition:

Season - Ranking in terms of points scored
2012 - 14th
2013 - 12th
2014 - 7th
2015 - 11th
2016 - 16th
2017 - 17th
2018 - 16th

You don't have to have the most potent offense to be an effective team; especially in our current era which places such a premium on defence. The is self-evident from our best on-field season occurring when we were only ranked 12th for scoring.

But in 6 of our last 7 completed seasons our offense has been below average. That is a long time for our Football Department (ie, both coaching and list management) to create some form of effective offense. Last weekend our forward play was, once again, ineffective and, sadly, it wasn't a one-off caused by a tipping point of injuries but part of a long-term trend where our coaches cannot either (a) devise an effective forward game plan and/or (b) coach the players in their charge to execute the game plan.

It is a chronic problem and there is no evidence the current coaching staff can overcome it.

"immaterial" ... really?
Western Bulldogs won a premiership in 2016 ranked 12th for offense. I could easily say that makes your post immaterial ... but I'm not that ignorant.

 

[Joao]

What you need to compare is your prediction if we had been missing Pearce, Lobb, Hogan and the rest.

I could probably cut us a little more slack I suppose but every team gets injuries. Having most of your spine out is not ideal, but it is also not the reason we have been so poor the last two weeks.

All of this stems from buying the rebuild line. We set the curve, so to say we’re “ahead of the curve” is to say we’re performing better than we’d thought we would. To that I say aim higher.

West Coast “rebuilt” quicker. They finished sixth and didn’t win a final in 2016. They were 12-10 in 2017 with an aging list. They went hell for leather to keep their window open with Petrie and Mitchell coming in. Old list. Trending backwards. Worse each season after their 2015 GF. It looked like they were about to enter a world of hurt.

Then last year they debuted nine new players and won a flag. They didn’t bottom out to rebuild, they didn’t gut the list. They were projected to be bottom four but didn’t set the target of “hey let’s win a few games and make sure we don’t finish bottom four”, they retooled on the fly.

The Bulldogs won a flag in the second year of their new coach. Sydney won a flag in the second year of their new coach. The Eagles made a Grand final in the second year of their new coach. Adelaide made the Grand Final in their second year of a new coach. Melbourne made a prelim in the second year of their new coach. Brisbane are sitting top four in the third year of their new coach.

We decide the direction our list goes, nobody inherits the 2019 Fremantle list and says ok in a vacuum how many games should this squad win. We decided to go down the complete rebuild road, we sold it to the fans that this is a necessary pain, when it has been proven by Sydney and Hawthorn and West Coast and Geelong that it isn’t. So sure, we might be “ahead of the curve” (I don’t think we are, but let’s go with it), but never forget we are in complete control of the curve. The club decides every facet of their future, don’t buy this hard luck story about oh gee we’re a young rebuilding side. We’re rebuilding because it was decided we’d rebuild, and three and a half years later here we are, circle jerking over the prospect of maybe winning not quite half of our games.

I think West Coast list management is good, but they haven't rebuilt ****. Their spine and best players (bar maybe Yeo and Darling) are all very mature. They didn't have to replace all their KPP players.

Stop just arbitrarily picking other teams and saying "why didn't we do what they did"? It's lazy. Compare our spine in 2016 to West Coasts last year. Do you think it is comparable? Of course not, so why would you advocate the same list management model as them (or Hawks or Cats). Every team is different. You can't just complain because you think we should be better and should have done the same as some other team. It's daft, we have a completely different list to them.

Your post isn't analysis. It's just BF rhetoric. There are literally dozens of posts just like it, and all of them completely devoid or any meaningful thought.

 

[raffrox]

I could probably cut us a little more slack I suppose but every team gets injuries. Having most of your spine out is not ideal, but it is also not the reason we have been so poor the last two weeks.

I think West Coast list management is good, but they haven't rebuilt ****. Their spine and best players (bar maybe Yeo and Darling) are all very mature. They didn't have to replace all their KPP players.

Stop just arbitrarily picking other teams and saying "why didn't we do what they did"? It's lazy. Compare our spine in 2016 to West Coasts last year. Do you think it is comparable? Of course not, so why would you advocate the same list management model as them (or Hawks or Cats). Every team is different. You can't just complain because you think we should be better and should have done the same as some other team. It's daft, we have a completely different list to them.

Your post isn't analysis. It's just BF rhetoric. There are literally dozens of posts just like it, and all of them completely devoid or any meaningful thought.

And when things get a bit too close to the uncomfortable truth for some there's nothing left to say but to label someone else's opinion as "completely devoid of any meaningful thought."

 

[Caldera]

Joao - I’m not being a smartarse, but how long have you been a Freo supporter? You are right, it’s wrong to compare lists for a given point in time - but Freo have been a poor club at maintaining strength and depth in its list over its history. This contrasts to other clubs that do not bottom out like we have for the last 4 seasons, or the previous times in our history. So while we can’t compare lists, I thinks it’s fair to compare track records.

 

[Caldera]

Joao - I’m not being a smartarse, but how long have you been a Freo supporter? You are right, it’s wrong to compare lists for a given point in time - but Freo have been a poor club at maintaining strength and depth in its list over its history. This contrasts to other clubs that do not bottom out like we have for the last 4 seasons, or the previous times in our history. So while we can’t compare lists, I thinks it’s fair to compare track records.

 

[Caldera]

Joao - I’m not being a smartarse, but how long have you been a Freo supporter? You are right, it’s wrong to compare lists for a given point in time - but Freo have been a poor club at maintaining strength and depth in its list over its history. This contrasts to other clubs that do not bottom out like we have for the last 4 seasons, or the previous times in our history. So while we can’t compare lists, I thinks it’s fair to compare track records.

 

[Joao]

Joao - I’m not being a smartarse, but how long have you been a Freo supporter? You are right, it’s wrong to compare lists for a given point in time - but Freo have been a poor club at maintaining strength and depth in its list over its history. This contrasts to other clubs that do not bottom out like we have for the last 4 seasons, or the previous times in our history. So while we can’t compare lists, I thinks it’s fair to compare track records.

I was there supporting Freo at the very first Derby. Even got on the news as they picked me out as a Freo supporter to be in shot with 3 or 4 Eagles supporters.

I know everyone likes to bang on about 25 years but most of that history is irrelevant and definitely should not be used in current decision making. No amount of complaining how you'd like to have done better in the past makes you current spud players any better. If you need to turn over the list, you need to turn over the list.

You play the hand that is in front of you. The hand in front of us in 2016 was basically a half dozen good players under 26, a quality old spine and a bunch of role players (whom are now all gone). We needed to replace basically everyone bar the younger good players. I actually think most here completely under-appreciate how quickly we did it (mainly through traded players), although I still think we are 1, maybe 2 drafts short.

 

[hoss]

Really good post.
The key word in this post is development. The development dept/program at Freo is as poor as it comes. Not only draft recruits, but players from other clubs recruited in. Hardly any of those recruits have got better coming into the club where others leave & flourish.

Brayshaw, Cerra, Crowden, Darcy, Banfield & others have not shown any improvement at all from last year & then take McCarthy, Kersten & to a lesser extent Wilson & Colyer have not offered anything further than what they did at other clubs. Which for Colyer & Kersten was bugger all.

There is far too much reliance on the older players, with that proven with the inclusion of an underdone Sandilands & the dropping of Crowden instead of the likes of Colyer. Why Ballantyne was kept on this season is beyond a joke as there was another 4 small forwards ready to go.

This was obviously the call from all Saints supporters when Lyon was brought across & there is little evidence to prove this wrong. He just doesn’t trust the young players & it appears they can feel it & are lacking confidence at this level.

I strongly believe that this lack of development includes his assistant coaches. The great coaches of the last 15 years have developed great assistants who have gone on to coach their own teams. This is the difference between great coaches like Clarkson & Roos compared to Lyon.

Most of Lyons assistants have moved on in silence because there were issues between coach & assistant.

How can this be good for team harmony? He is arrogant, pig headed & verging on a charlatan, in particular his various pressers this week where his arrogance has reached a new high.

Any thoughts? Harsh/fair?

Some fair,some a bit tough I think. For me, Brayshaw has improved. Think Lobb, Matera and arguably BHill and Hamling have been better at Freo than their previous clubs. Wilson, Conca much the same. Development of Ryan, Pearce, Blakeley, Langdon has been ok to good. Obviously several of the guys like Darcy, Tabs, Logue, Hogan, Cox have had injuries which has limited their development.

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[Caldera]

I know everyone likes to bang on about 25 years but most of that history is irrelevant and definitely should not be used in current decision making. No amount of complaining how you'd like to have done better in the past makes you current spud players any better. If you need to turn over the list, you need to turn over the list.

Of course you play the hand that is in front of you - there is no other choice. But football is not poker, as each club gets to pick their hand.

I’m under no illusion, my thoughts have zero impact on what the club does in the future. But I would argue that history is not irrelevant. It’s not irrelevant for any club - it brings expectation at best, increased pressure at worst. And due to Freo’s history, that pressure is amplified for some fans and the media. For sure that pressure extends to the Freo board and footy dept. It’s up to them to defy that, back themselves to do what they believe is best for the club and let the cards fall where they may. But within the next 12mths they have to show their hand.

Derby 1. Now that was ugly.

 

[Johnny Dalmas]

I was there supporting Freo at the very first Derby. Even got on the news as they picked me out as a Freo supporter to be in shot with 3 or 4 Eagles supporters.

I know everyone likes to bang on about 25 years but most of that history is irrelevant and definitely should not be used in current decision making. No amount of complaining how you'd like to have done better in the past makes you current spud players any better. If you need to turn over the list, you need to turn over the list.

You play the hand that is in front of you. The hand in front of us in 2016 was basically a half dozen good players under 26, a quality old spine and a bunch of role players (whom are now all gone). We needed to replace basically everyone bar the younger good players. I actually think most here completely under-appreciate how quickly we did it (mainly through traded players), although I still think we are 1, maybe 2 drafts short.

And if (if) our list was in such bad shape in 2016, whose fault was that? It could only be the fault of the Freo Football department.

Lists don't get bad magically over a summer, they get bad one poor recruiting decision at a time over many years.

 

[Nothing]

And if (if) our list was in such bad shape in 2016, whose fault was that? It could only be the fault of the Freo Football department.

Lists don't get bad magically over a summer, they get bad one poor recruiting decision at a time over many years.

Is that Ross' fault? Or the fault of the now departed Lloyd and Bond?