List Mgmt. Ross Lyon - Sacked

Is Ross still the man for the job?

  • Total voters
    332

Remove this Banner Ad

yakka man said:
I'm not praising his coaching ability; mainly his ability to rebuild a club and develop players, Fyfe and Hill for example (Morabito was gonna be great too). Your second statesman is irrelevant. I don't doubt the fact that with a mature, well-developed list Lyon can win games.
Click to expand...

What evidence is there that he can't rebuild a club / develop players?

If we go with the Narrative that the rebuild started in the 2016 draft (Logue), how long should he be given to rebuild the list?
 
salim malik said:
Please you lose all credibility praising Harvey.
PS Lyon had us playing and winning a final away from home in his first season,;)
Click to expand...
As soon as Chris Scott left, Harvey was totally out of his depth and lost the players. I don't see the point in blaming Ross, the club
promoted Scott, without a contingency plan, and if it all fails they have their fall guy.
Its the same bull with the Saints, and the truth is they are still wandering the wilderness.
I doubt WC supporters claim Woosha is behind their success, and Simpson is reaping all the rewards. Its a team sport on and off the
field.
 
yakka man said:
Why are you comparing our rebuild to the Saints? I only used them as an example to show how Ross leverages a playing list, leaving only one way to go, down. Maybe compare it with Mark Harvey who had us playing finals and exciting Footy in its second year. I swear some supporters are just happy with us being perennially s***. Ross needs to change his ways, I pray that Belly can make him do so. And please don't be childish & condescending, clearly a lot of staff that work under Lyon (as per the quoted article) get frustrated by him, as do supporters; because I'm not the only supporter who is sick of him.
Click to expand...
Your the one comparing the Saints, I simply noted that our rebuild is shorter. I think you lose all credibility if you bring up Mark Harvey, he's gone onto how many Head coaching gigs since the Dockers?
 

Log in to remove this ad.

Clems Knee said:
Did Harvey develop Fyfe and Hill? They were drafted while Harvey was coach, but not developed well. Lyon can take credit for developing both players.
We only had one year of Morabito so no development there can be attributed to Harvey.
Click to expand...

Fyfe was a star is his second year. Hill kicked 19 goals in his second season and sixteen the year after while getting good amount of ball. His goal numbers have dropped under Ross to the point where it's rare to see him score. As a result Lyon puts a talented goal scorer in defence, something he does too often.
 
Yeti said:
What evidence is there that he can't rebuild a club / develop players?

If we go with the Narrative that the rebuild started in the 2016 draft (Logue), how long should he be given to rebuild the list?
Click to expand...

I actually think that the rebuild is going quite well. Ross has been FORCED to play the youth, and as such, a lot of them are thriving. I dislike the game plan still, and again, the query will be whether Lyon plays the youth when the team is competitive again.
 
yakka man said:
I'm not praising his coaching ability; mainly his ability to rebuild a club and develop players, Fyfe and Hill for example (Morabito was gonna be great too). Your second statesman is irrelevant. I don't doubt the fact that with a mature, well-developed list Lyon can win games.
Click to expand...

Harvey wanted to recruit Bastinac over Fyfe.
 
malpaso said:
Your the one comparing the Saints, I simply noted that our rebuild is shorter. I think you lose all credibility if you bring up Mark Harvey, he's gone onto how many Head coaching gigs since the Dockers?
Click to expand...
The only comparison with the Saints is off the field, and that is where both clubs have failed to implement change, or
chase, develop the best off field leaders.
I'm actually glad that there was some change at the club, just not enough for my liking, at least Belly is a strong
character and a breath of fresh air.
 
malpaso said:
Your the one comparing the Saints, I simply noted that our rebuild is shorter. I think you lose all credibility if you bring up Mark Harvey, he's gone onto how many Head coaching gigs since the Dockers?
Click to expand...

You can't say that our rebuild is shorter when it's unfinished. Saints did stuff there's up, maybe that's why Ross deserted a sinking ship. What's that saying about a captain and his ship again???

It's stupid to say that, 'you lose all credibility if you bring up Mark Harvey' when he's the previous coach before Ross in our history, and he's literally the only recent person in our club to compare Ross to.
 
yakka man said:
And Ross passed on Cyril Rioli and preferred Jamie Cripps to Darling. He also wanted Max Duffy. Don't forget that it was only Phil Smart who wanted Fyfe
Click to expand...

Yeah I read the article, Peake happy to handball all draft * ups to Ross and make himself look good. Not exactly an objective source.

Only 3-4 decentish players taken after Duffy including Hunter who was always going to the doggies. Not sure who the recruiters had in mind instead but odds are they wouldn't have been that much better then Duffy.
 
yakka man said:
I actually think that the rebuild is going quite well. Ross has been FORCED to play the youth, and as such, a lot of them are thriving. I dislike the game plan still, and again, the query will be whether Lyon plays the youth when the team is competitive again.
Click to expand...

We went in to 2016 after finishing top of the ladder the year before, the youth we had available has been well documented. Not having high first rounders due to finishing very in 2012-2016. Which of those guys should he have been playing?

Now that he has talented young guys he is playing them. So is he playing them because he is FORCED to or because they are good enough?

If the rebuild is going quite well and you acknowledge that Ross Lyon is a great coach with a prime list there doesn't seem to be any reason to punt him.
 
yakka man said:
The sacrifice is the state that St Kilda and us are in now. Clubs like Hawthorn win, but don't do it at the expense of the future. What's the point of drafting young talent if you aren't going to properly invest in their development? Perhaps Jack Steven might have given St Kilda the X factor required to win the GF. It's part of the reason why Lyon's game plan is not sustainable and is dull to watch.
Click to expand...

Which is in response to JMT's "Making a grand final and almost winning a premiership must have been such a hard sacrifice".

The club needed and wanted a flag (still do), it threw everything it had at it and we would think far differently if the gamble paid off. If you are gunning for a flag - which was the saints at the time and Freo in 2013 to 2015, you don't play 18 year olds if you can help it, they just aren't ready. You get 1 and if the planets are all in line, several chances with your team at it's peak, the club might not have another shot at a GF appearance for decades, clubs can't afford to develop da yoof at that point as the GF is so important - the competition is basically defined as 1 winner and 17 losers, doesn't matter if you had a blinder of a year it's a GF win or bust.

18 year olds make newbie mistakes, they don't have the tank, the muscle mass and they don't accumulate much of the ball, they may be a better player when they are older, until then the 24 year old c grade player who doesn't run out of legs is the better option when you have to win (e.g. gunning for the flag). Also, when you are doing poorly, that 18 year old could be pick #2, but when the team has been doing well that draft pick is more likely to be #12 to #18 and no elite robbed of a spot in the team.

As for the dull to watch... The saints were not dull as a team, they were dull games to watch because the games were so one sided and a near automatic Saints win with the exceptions of grand finals... 2009, they won the first 18 games then lost 3 (probably a sign of things to come a few weeks later), 2197 points for. Yes they were defensive and gave away a miserly 1411 points and everyone focuses on how good there defence was as if it were all they were good at - but 2197 for is an aggressive haul, 3rd most points that year and more than this years grand final teams managed to get.
 
FreoMonocle said:
it threw everything it had at it and we would think far differently if the gamble paid off.
Click to expand...

It really didn't, not even close.
The rhetoric at the time was about 'sustained success' and sitting on our hands at the trade table so as to not sell the future.
We ended up with neither - no flag and a pretty short unsustained period of success.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Square Peg said:
It really didn't, not even close.
The rhetoric at the time was about 'sustained success' and sitting on our hands at the trade table so as to not sell the future.
We ended up with neither - no flag and a pretty short unsustained period of success.
Click to expand...

I forgot about the 'sustained success' mantra. That's pretty poor really. You don't want to be re-building every 7/8 years. We really should have been competitive for longer.
 
yakka man said:
I forgot about the 'sustained success' mantra. That's pretty poor really. You don't want to be re-building every 7/8 years. We really should have been competitive for longer.
Click to expand...
There's no such thing as "should" if you want to talk reality. There is only what did happen.

How Freo got where they did had a bit to do with them looking to steer away from undertaking a rebuild in the GC/GWS-draftathon-years. It was hugely successful propulsion up the ladder early on thanks in no small part to landing Barlow. Having Pav and McPharlin was the biggest factor (and always felt they gave Freo the wood over WC for so long) as long as there was enough contested mids to make the most of Sandi's dominance.

Pav, McPharlin gone, Sandi (and Fyfe) missing big patches all key factors in the slide. The key reveal will be once they've got Hogan and Lobb integrated and Darcy up and away.
 
I think some people want it both ways. They want to blame Ross when the team isn't performing but not give him any credit when he had us winning.

If he inherited a great list and the list management crew are the main reason behind our earlier winning form, then why aren't they also the main culprits responsible for us now needing to be in the middle of a full rebuild?

Personally I think Ross inherited a solid (experienced) list with some fundamental flaws and got about as much out of them as we could have hoped for.

We complain about him not playing attacking football but look who has been in our forward line since his tenure... Pavlich, Walters and Ballantyne the only players you'd dare call dangerous inside 50. So a 191cm key forward and two short people is pretty much all he's had to work with to kick big scores. When Matt Taberner is your best KPF (since Pav retired) it's no wonder he's relied almost solely on a defensive game plan to date.

We also complain about him not developing players and therefore leaving the list needing a rebuild. But who has been on our list that we let go or walked away that's gone on to dominate the AFL for another team? Anyone looking at it without any bias can see our drafting has been bloody woeful up until the last couple of years. Would any coach do any better developing talent when 1st rounder after 1st rounder ended up wasted?

Ross inherited a list where more than half of it was average role players. He implemented a game strategy that a less skilful list could implement effectively and we reached a GF and later crawled to a minor premiership. The elite few on that list started to get injured continually and then most retired and our poor drafting meant we had no-one capable coming through to replace them. At the same time Ross started experimenting with new game styles (buying in some knowledge through new assistants who had played under other successful coaches) knowing that our old game plan no longer cut it (eg attacking from half back and more uncontested transition due to rule changes). Our below average list smattered with some stars struggled to execute the tweaked game plan and we fell off a cliff.

Over the past three off seasons we've turned our list around, having traded in as best we could (many aren't world beaters but are at least good enough to play AFL and be depth) and our drafting has also been considerably better. Both our back line and forward line are taking shape nicely, our midfield has some quality youngsters that will all mature together (like Melbourne's has) in a few short years, and we still have some stars to lead from the front like Fyfe and Walters. Our list is by no means perfectly balanced but I'd be confident their future potential (as a whole list not just a handful of individuals at the top) looks ahead of the list we had in 2012.

I'm excited for 2019 because I think Ross now has far better tools at his disposal (especially in the forward line) and injuries perhaps won't cripple us as much as they have in recent seasons because we have a lot more coverage across most positions.
 
Clems Knee said:
Left St. Kilda in the black? That’s a good thing, surely?

Which teams haven’t spent time at the bottom to rebuild?
Hawthorn has special circumstances because of the timing of their premierships and buying in established players at the expense of their draft picks.
Geelong never bottoms out completely because they have the most favourable fixture in the league, every single year. But they haven’t been successful in finals for years. A wasted finals place.
Sydney have been very successful in bringing players in and getting academy bargains.

No other team has got to the top without having a full rebuild. Richmond, Bulldogs, Melbourne (maybe), West Coast, Collingwood, GWS, Brisbane (back in the day).
St. Kilda has failed with their rebuild after Lyon left because of poor coaching and recruiting. They will need another rebuild.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

I did an analysis on Hawks a few months back and they built their 2008 cup team from sitting on rock bottom (i.e. a rebuild). They didn't get the established players in until after 2008.

Geelong built their champion team from two (to 3) drafts while on the bottom plus a handy FS pick (i.e a rebuild)[1999 (11th) - Mooney, Corey, Chapman, Ling, Enright; 2001 (5th)- Bartel, Kelly, SJ, Ablett, 2002 (12th) - Mackie, Loneragon. They now have just 3 great players who will be 29, 31, and 35 next year and not a lot else. Their drafting most other years bar 2006 has been apalling. They are approaching a very steep cliff.

Sydney had the extra COLA cash which allowed them to outbid for the best forward in the game in his prime. Then, they got academy picks comprising Heeney and Mills, both considered top mid in their draft even though the Swans were at the top of the ladder. Not bad when you're competing for a flag to also pick up the best young mid in the draft at the end of your finals campaign.
[Cameron Rose Sep 2016:"First came Isaac Heeney at pick 18 in the 2014 draft, followed by Callum Mills at pick 3 in 2015. Isaac Heeney was seen by many as the best player in his draft year, and nothing he has done on the field since has done anything to refute those claims."]
 
Last edited:
yakka man said:
I'm not praising his coaching ability; mainly his ability to rebuild a club and develop players, Fyfe and Hill for example (Morabito was gonna be great too). Your second statesman is irrelevant. I don't doubt the fact that with a mature, well-developed list Lyon can win games.
Click to expand...
He's in the middle of proving if he can or can't rebuild a club but to question he can't develop players? What do you mean by develop? My understanding is that you think the young players would've developed the same as they have irrespective of Ross becuase they're playing games? I think Ross can take some credit for developing (either now or in the future) A Pearce, Logue, Luke Ryan, Tabs, Walters (challenged him early on), Neale, Brayshaw, Cerra, Banfield, Blakely, Darcy, Langdon, all of whom I see were/are in our best 22-25.
 
I rate Harvey slightly above Drum as a coach. Brought some good things, but not a good fit for Senior Coach of any club. Did okay while he had a great assistant.

Lyon is in another stratosphere, but is obviously flawed. The club has done some things (such as keeping list management away from him) to support his weak areas, but I think can improve, especially in the injury management and fitness side of things.

The players vote seems pretty clear. Past players mostly say good/great things about him (Pavlich isn't moping around wondering what might have been if we had kept Harvey that's for sure). Very few of our present players seem to want out, which given how demanding and abrasive he is surprises me. We are bringing in a raft of established players all wanting to join the Lyon led Dockers. I wonder what would happen if we brought in an untried coach? Wouldn't be expecting players of the caliber of Hogan and Lobb to come here that's for sure.

At the moment he is far and away our best chance of winning a flag in the next few years. The main reason you change the coach is if you think there is someone else who is more likely to do that for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
  • Poll
Opinion Who to sack poll
2
Replies
36
Views
2K
theGav56
T
G
Sack Dale Alcock and David Walls
2
Replies
28
Views
1K
Purple Jesus
Purple Jesus
Back
Top