Analysis Saints Footy - what is it and what do we want it to be?

[austinnn]

Why would Nick Coffield think playing football is just a job if he is being told everything you say he is?

I never said anything about you being rude about mental health or speaking atrocities with your primitive attitude. If you think that's how you think you come across that's on you.

I think it's ridiculous to criticise anyone for wanting to attend the birth of their child or helping care for a newborn. You obviously value your employment in higher regard. And how much I am paid has nothing do with it. I could be the prime minister. I would still take time away to be with my family.

Well I guess there's no more to say. You don't really get my point, I can't seem to communicate it effectively. Thanks for discussing it anyway.

 

[Wintle]

We don't spend the money on players as top ups. When you look at Frankston they went and got very good players and started playing a lot better. There is no mystery to it, clubs that invest in it get more out of it. Clubs like the Tigers and Dogs have some very high end senior quality mature talent as well. We sacked guys like Savage and Parker and our fringe players are playing at the Saints or are so raw that they aren't much help.

Good point and I hadn't considered this. We need to follow the lead of some of these other clubs and have Sandringham more competative, at least so as our feeder club has a wider group of players capable of playing effectively at AFL level.

 

[gringo2011]

Become a beige footy club-I can remember John Kennedy(dates me) when he took over an ordinary Hawthorn footy club and they were called Kennedys Commandos -his philosophy they might not be the most skilled but they would be the fittest and hardest possible-be elie in the things you can control

That's been my issue with Ratts this year, you get the sense that he wants us to be WCE or peak Hawthorn but he doesn't have the players to do it. On top of that he's made it a nurturing modern environment but doesn't have a lot of discipline or standards. I didn't rate Richo but he seemed a much more work ethic type coach. He had s**t sides but they played a hard at it brand. In an ideal world you have both where training is fun and relaxed and the players work hard and play hard but we seem to have tipped the balance into cruise mode where standards through the whole place have gotten sloppy.

To me the Seb Ross stuff is a huge beat up but it's also representative of how the club comes across, sloppy, a bit disinterested and generally non paused while the fans think there is a crisis. There is good reason to get some strong messaging out to fans to calm the troops. I think they are kicking the can down the road again. Next year is no guarantee that we get it right again especially if Billings and others are on the way out.

They could easily call for patience, map out a plan of how long we think we are away from challenging etc. Something like we are asking for patience, we were rapt to make finals last year but we are really only half way through our plan. We expect that next year to make finals we'd need all our players fit but realistically its about bringing home the cup. We aren't going to take short cuts and we have a strong plan in place that we follow in an unwavering way, it's aim is to build a premiership list.....and actually believe in and action that message.

That will stop people being pissed off with them and actually give them breathing space to get on with the job not reacting under duress.

 

[gringo2011]

Good point and I hadn't considered this. We need to follow the lead of some of these other clubs and have Sandringham more competative, at least so as our feeder club has a wider group of players capable of playing effectively at AFL level.

It actually helps in development because good VFL players still have a lot of knowledge and set standards. Losing every week hardly gives players the best chance at success. It's a no brainer but probably costs $20,000 to $50,000 during the season per week to action but money well worth investing. Still cheaper than rebranding and being in the same position.

 

[Desperate saint]

I don't disagree. But the job that they are doing necessitates a degree of commitment. It's not just a footy match with mates. It's their job for one, and not just a job.

If our club was going great and we could spare the personnel, it wouldn't be as bad. One of the reasons I was fine with Ross going was that he isn't integral to our success anymore. Also, this year's destiny was more or less sorted weeks ago. We certainly aren't winning the cup, and if we got into the finals it would take an entire form reversal for us to be worthy competitors. If I were a player, my priorities might have shifted too.

But it's the long term effect it has on player culture. Opt in. Pick and choose. At this time in the club's progress, when our commitment is being questioned and it consistency has been objectively witnessed lacking, do you really believe this issue is unconnected?

Yes, the birth of your child is a once in a lifetime moment. So is winning a premiership. Our players have to do what they feel is right. As a club right now, St Kilda needs players who will give everything. This is not giving everything.
[/QUOTE Agree 100% could cop Members being at the Birth I was at the birth of all my kids-but Ross going home to be with his young kids no emergency when this was our LAST chance realistically at finals-we are only talking a couple of days here the players flew out Saturday night-if we think we will win an AFL premiership with this attitude we are dreaming -50+ year supporter 25 year member 6 kids

 

[Diehard Saint]

Good for you. I agree. There's probably one of the many reasons why neither of us are professional footballers. It's a tough job and requires commitment.

Let me try to rephrase:

Let's take Nick Coffield, for example. He's a young player that's been in and out of the side after a great 2020. He's been hearing all about what it takes to be a great player and a great team since he started. The commitment needed. Lots of words. He's seen how tough it is to win. Club people have clued him up on how elusive success is, and what it takes to even get close.

He's watched two of his closest mates' seasons end in possibly life-altering injuries, the most recently in a brutal collision with opposition. He's seen a teammate rubbed out for a final for his part in such a collision. He's seen the commitment from both the attacking players and victims.

He's been told that a senior teammate needs to go home to be with his partner to help with kids, or to be present when his child is being born.

He's a young lad who was until recently a child himself. He doesn't know the significance of having kids like most of us at that age. He won't really get it till it's his kid being born, his wife asking him for support.

He's been told it's important. He's feeling like he thought this season was important too. Now he's been told that the club president expects nothing this year, that it's next year they expect finals wins. Two senior players opted out of playing in Cairns for family reasons. Another one in last year's semi final. Another one missed multiple games at the start of the season because he needed family time, despite having the entire off season to see them.

He was a bulldogs supporter growing up. He loves his teammates, but at the end of the day, St Kilda is mostly a job. Is it really worth him busting his ringpiece? Others get gifted games with little effort, the whole squad has picked and chosen all year round when and how much to put in.

He understands now what commitment means at his club. What his teammates and coaches expect from him.

In short, its culture.

Jack Riewoldt can go into bat quite comfortably for Seb because, he doesn't play for the same club and anyway, he's just won 4 premierships. Of course he supports players acting like good humans. Wonder how he'd have felt if it was Shane Edwards doing the same thing in 2017. How many other players deliberately miss games to attend their children's births? Don't hear about it much. Are we to assume no other footballers children are born during the season?

On the upside, yes it does mean our players have a great perspective on life, and are very level headed wonderful citizens. That's worth plenty. Footy doesn't mean everything, like you say. Just a silly game really. And we've already had one premiership in 1966 so we've had our time in the sun.


Ok now you can curse me with your worst insults for being rude about mental health and daring to speak unspeakable atrocities with my primative attitude and so on. No, I don't know the inside stories for Paddy, Jake, Seb or Tim, and certainly not young Nick. I am wrong and stupid and ignorant and all the nasty labels.

I had to get my feelings off my chest sorry for offence caused, I will now pull my head in.

Very good post actually.
This is an incident which is open to multiple points of view, depending on where you sit.

 

[Saintbloke]

That's been my issue with Ratts this year, you get the sense that he wants us to be WCE or peak Hawthorn but he doesn't have the players to do it. On top of that he's made it a nurturing modern environment but doesn't have a lot of discipline or standards. I didn't rate Richo but he seemed a much more work ethic type coach. He had sh*t sides but they played a hard at it brand. In an ideal world you have both where training is fun and relaxed and the players work hard and play hard but we seem to have tipped the balance into cruise mode where standards through the whole place have gotten sloppy.

To me the Seb Ross stuff is a huge beat up but it's also representative of how the club comes across, sloppy, a bit disinterested and generally non paused while the fans think there is a crisis. There is good reason to get some strong messaging out to fans to calm the troops. I think they are kicking the can down the road again. Next year is no guarantee that we get it right again especially if Billings and others are on the way out.

They could easily call for patience, map out a plan of how long we think we are away from challenging etc. Something like we are asking for patience, we were rapt to make finals last year but we are really only half way through our plan. We expect that next year to make finals we'd need all our players fit but realistically its about bringing home the cup. We aren't going to take short cuts and we have a strong plan in place that we follow in an unwavering way, it's aim is to build a premiership list.....and actually believe in and action that message.

That will stop people being pissed off with them and actually give them breathing space to get on with the job not reacting under duress.

I just don't think Ratts is the man to go ahead with.

 

[Roo Ted 77]

Why would you want to have one style or brand of footy only? Having one style/brand only allows you win a percentage of games against teams that your style/brand works well against. Why not aim to win every game by being able to adapt to each different opponent and the gameday conditions in front of you? Having a particular style/brand is very short sighted as well because the game changes so quickly you need to evolve it every year.

 

[Miha]

So is Battle a CHF or CHB?

 

[Bill Mohr]

So is Battle a CHF or CHB?

No idea because he does not seem to play in those positions. Certainly not a CHF though. I have observed that he has gone backwards in his football output this year. Looks a bit slow, not marking well and kicking for goal seems average. Probably best if they put him at CHB and leave him there for the rest of the year. The way Highmore played last week , he might go past JB

 

[gringo2011]

No idea because he does not seem to play in those positions. Certainly not a CHF though. I have observed that he has gone backwards in his football output this year. Looks a bit slow, not marking well and kicking for goal seems average. Probably best if they put him at CHB and leave him there for the rest of the year. The way Highmore played last week , he might go past JB

That sounds like early Josh Battle. We seem to send players backwards in our system. Most of our players show promise early and leave as spuds. We need to address the development as much as the drafting/ recruiting.

 

[PoppedCorn]

So is Battle a CHF or CHB?

Chb

 

[Bill Mohr]

I thought I'd make a thread to give us a single space to discuss our team's footy generally rather than in a specific game. If no one cares to use it it'll fall away and that's fine but maybe it can be useful rather than having that conversation split up into various previews and autopsies.

So, Saints Footy. What do you reckon?

I'll start:
I have followed the club since 97 and Saints Footy has changed a lot over the years. Right now it's obviously been found wanting because of the lack of accountability, but when it works it's very exciting.

I think most of us would agree that we don't yet see evidence of a strong system that the players adhere to in the manner of Geelong, Sydney, Richmond or West Coast.

I am divided about System based footy. I think I want it, and it's clear clubs who use it set themselves up better for success. Additionally, the most successful era since I've been a fan was with the strongest system, the Lyon era, and I found the style quite boring. It was obviously good winning so much, but I didn't really enjoy watching us play much, even with all our stars because if the type of game Lyon played, and (without wishing to debate this point particularly) I maintain that one reason we didn't win the 09 GF was that we weren't a high scoring team, so we allowed the opposition to stay close and ultimately overtake us.

Generally St Kilda has favoured Star Power over the System, probably because stars are free to any team finishing low enough to be able to draft them, but the best coaches cost big money. We're all about the Riewoldts, Harveys, Locketts, Stevens, Kings, etc and less about the Matthews's, Clarksons, Sheedys, Thompsons and Hardwicks. We love our messiahs on field but we don't often give them a coaching system to match.

We've tried. The biggest star coach was too big for us and thought he'd phone it in from the golf course. We placed a huge amount of faith time and money into our most recent excoach hoping that he'd develop us from the ground up into an unstoppable unit, only to find that he had no actual tactics besides working hard.

But now we have the Hawthorn mastermind Rath and supposed excellent teaching coach Ratten we should be flying. Despite all that's gone wrong for us this year, certain questions are emerging: why are we playing players out of position? Why did we cut our depth so drastically? Where is the selection integrity? Where are the skills they claim to focus on? Most importantly IMO; why have we built a gameplan so heavily dependent on two specific ruckmen, one of which is nearing retirement, without any credible ruck depth?

We have the opposite to the system based approach, which normally works regardless of personnel, where you can plug a debutant into the team to play a role without exposing them. Our performance relies heavily on the form of our best players, which makes us inconsistent, and extremely vulnerable to injuries. Yes even the strongest systems depend on star players performing, but the system is what allows them to perform. They are well drilled, communicative, synchronised with each other - in contrast this year Saints play like a bunch of strangers.

I think Lethlean, Ratten and Rath are probably building towards installing a system but so far it seems chaotic and it appears the players are not capable of following it. One thing I liked about the later Richo years - and there wasn't much - was that it seemed to be pushing towards an even team effort, and not one or two messiahs. In the end though I think it was just that we didn't have any truly elite players.

I want to see us build a strong system that our players know back to front. It will obviously need a plan B and C so we are not too brittle when oppositions figure out the way to stop us, but we need players that can execute it consistently, rather than get by on lucky breaks and pure talent.

Are Ratten & Rath capable of building this? I don't know. Some say yes, and I'm prepared to keep the faith, but my confidence is slowly morphing into hope. What's clear is that we need a new approach that should be drilled mercilessly in the preseason, I would even suggest post-bye. But this preseason needs a greater emphasis on fitness and conditioning and skills too so this means a hell of a lot of extra work for players and coaches. After the confidence sapping season we're enduring, and the number of delistings likely to occur, will the players be motivated to bleed for the club?

For me, a huge problem is on field leadership. I really want to see the young group step up and grab this club by the scruff and take lead, not wait for it to be given. Though he's young, I hope Byrnes will be one of these players. I've talked before about Battle and Coffield being leaders too, I don't know if I'm being unrealistic there but when they mature and find consistency I can see their personalities being perfect. But overall the player culture seems quiet, individualistic, and relaxed. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Well anyway that's my two cents for now:

What's your view on Saints Footy? What do we want from specific players? What kind of coaches or assistants would help take us where we need to go?

A very good post. I have no idea what saints footy is. I think the club needs about 4 good players who can get the ball and have good disposal skills, have leadership and are 20-25 yrs of age and on the way up. The club just cannot put in a decent playing style/method with players who are average kicks, have no aggression or leadership capabilities. Didnt see too many players come in and support Clark when he got hit. I would like to think Dunstan, Long, Battle and Butler can kick on but I am not convinced and I dont think Carlisle will play for a while so that means no steady CHB. Not totally convinced about Ratten either, If we can win 10-11 games next year then he may be our man, but you have to look at the game tactics now and Howard kicks long from the goal square every single time and the midfielders kick it long to the goal square most of the time. This is a coaching issue and there seems to be no variance. If you think you will play good consistent football playing like that then the saints are deluding themselves. Too many players off injured or on personal leave, you cant win games in that situation. The saints have no depth either. There are quite a lot of things wrong at this footy club despite making the finals last year. Team is very reliant on Marshall, Steele, Ryder, Ross, King, Membrey and Howard. There are no all Australians in the team, this indicates that the ability/Leadership/recruitment is just not there, Check out the Adelaide game. Kicking for goal is pretty poor and should have been addressed by now but it hasnt. The Hannebery and Hill situation would have to be affecting the players. Members have lost confidence in the administration despite membership being up, Lethlean has to go, as do some of the assistant coaches. There are a shedful of problems this club has to sort out before a capable team can be developed. This club holds no fear for any team in the league at the moment. It would be a different story if the above issues could be sorted out.