The big picture

[dg102]

After watching some of our games from 08 again. Ive had time to reflect on our progress which got me thinking about our past and where we are heading as a club.

After loosing the GF in 1997 our team went to:
1999 - 10th
2000 - 16th
2001 - 15th
2002 - 15th
2003 - 11th

Fortunatly during this time we picked up most of our core group players that we have now.
Unfortunatly between the years of 2001 - 2006 we had MAJOR injuries to most of our KPP that included:
Luke Ball
X Clarke
R Clarke
B Goddard
L Hayes
J Kositzkie
M Maguire
N Rewoldt
F Gehrig
A Hamill
Alot of these MAJOR injuries happened 2003 - 2004. When our stars were blossoming.

Interestingly enough also during this time between the years of 1999 and 2006. ONLY 7 YEARS. We changed coaches 4 TIMES! Tim Watson, Malcolm Blight, Grant Thomas, Ross Lyon. Thats less than 1 and half seasons aproximatly between coaches and remember this was going on during the time when all of our best draft picks were evolving.
I guess "Strength Through Loyalty" went out the back door. Big Big mistakes by El Presidente and the board.

Taking all this into consideration, beside the fact that most of our core group of guns have had serious injuries and the longest weve kept a coach is 3 years in almost a decade. We made 3 Prelim Finals!

Now we have a new board, new coaching staff, a new way of running the club. Since Ross Lyon took over its only been 2 seasons but theres already been so much improvement. They changed the medical staff, they changed Fitness coaches, and we can already see theres less and less major injuries happening, not to mention how quickly players like BJ and Lenny recovered from there recos, and just look at the quality of football they played this last season. Look at Kosi, who all of sudden has been able to string together 1-2 seasons with out injury or look at the football Raph Clarke started playing not surprising, since he couldnt get over injuries for 4 years.
Look at the quality football some of these new kids are playing like Robert Eddy (who mind you only debuted in 08) and Armitage.

I was a bit skeptical of Ross Lyon in the start, but I was so wrong. He's made some big changes now. Good on him! I have no doubt, he's gonna make this team champions.

STRENGTH THROUGH LOYALTY!

 

[wheels4]

Good summary, Agree 100%

 

[Jimmy 35]

for some reason i started to feel that the saints are gonna win a premiership in the next 3 years, maybe becouse of Ross your right!

 

[Cheerthesaints]

Ross Lyon is a Professional.

Grant Thomas is a..... lets just say, not professional. Not AFL standard.

Everyone says Thomas had great people skills, he had the players respect. But did he dead set ever know what he was doing as a coach-a team manager as they say in the UK? how to manage people, manage injuries-NOT A CLUE!

If Thomas could have managed injuries, instead of just worrying about lining his pockets, we would have 2-3 flags in the last couple of years. Thomas and Butters are a disgrace. Poor Blighty, shafted like no other...

We now have the best chance since 1966, of winning another premiership. 2 reasons for this:

1/ professional people in charge of the club, on and off the field;
2/ a great bunch of players. Premiership players. We have the best players in the league.

 

[StFly]

Grant Thomas is a..... lets just say, not professional. Not AFL standard.

Everyone says Thomas had great people skills, he had the players respect. But did he dead set ever know what he was doing as a coach-a team manager as they say in the UK? how to manage people, manage injuries-NOT A CLUE!

If Thomas could have managed injuries, instead of just worrying about lining his pockets, we would have 2-3 flags in the last couple of years. Thomas and Butters are a disgrace. Poor Blighty, shafted like no other...

I think that's somewhat 1 dimensional, GT had a fair enough clue with drafting, the culture didn't fix itself and it was under Gt that Bazza Hall left our club for Sydney for 3 picks with 2 inside 20 (13 & 17) now who did we get with 13? Nicky Dal, same draft we got Goose, Ball, Joey and X, 03 traded 23 for Gram, Raph & Chips, our first pick in 05, Sammy Gilbert not to mention that he took over at the end of 2000 after Blighty and traded for Hamill & the G train plus giving the then kids responsibility with rotating captains, whether you agreed with it or not they got experience leading. So to say the man had no idea how to coach is a riduculous thing to say.

That being said, Ross has taken a far more professional approach to the caper and not just that, Footy First and Westaway have stuck to their guns and there is emphatic progress being made off the field. Like it or not, our history is still our history, the current administration have set out to start improving the offield facilities & therefore performances, using the rookie lists & identifying kids to don the jumper, but their success is also on the back on the previous board and so on so forth, To dismiss one is to dismiss them all.

 

[Cheerthesaints]

So to say the man had no idea how to coach is a riduculous thing to say.

Coach-that is the key word here. In todays game you have to manage. That is why Premier League clubs call their coach's Managers. You have to Manage people. Anyone can coach!!!!!!!!! for God sake, I can Coach better than Grant Thomas.

You are wrong-if you were not wrong-Grant Thomas would be at the helm of another AFL club. Why did no other club appoint Grant Thomas as their senior coach, assistant coach, etc, etc, some role at least. He cannott manage player injuries, and after what he did to Blighty, he will never get a job at another AFL club-if he does-I must be wrong, and not you!

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I was under the impression that it was new medical staff that were helping with the injury management, and that this was representing some of the money we have been spending on the football department under the new management.
I would also not say that Grant Thomas was unproffessional. His use of processes to address problems , and his conduct in public was very proffessional, and I am sure that he could be very successful in a number of roles in business.
I consider that Grant Thomas was given too much responsibility for too many things without being an expert in any field, where he may have been better had he been able to focus on a single aspect of his role.
Sometimes we see Lyon as being somewhat of a "plodder" particularly with trying new idea's on the field or trying different players or roles. This may be because he takes a more cautious/methodical approach after we were used to Thomas sometimes being a bit more active trying different things.

If the Saints had not been struck down with injuries and we had gotton the flag, would people be saying that Thomas was a bad coach?

 

[cartwright]

After watching some of our games from 08 again. Ive had time to reflect on our progress which got me thinking about our past and where we are heading as a club.

Interestingly enough also during this time between the years of 1999 and 2006. ONLY 7 YEARS. We changed coaches 4 TIMES! Tim Watson, Malcolm Blight, Grant Thomas, Ross Lyon. Thats less than 1 and half seasons aproximatly between coaches and remember this was going on during the time when all of our best draft picks were evolving.
I guess "Strength Through Loyalty" went out the back door. Big Big mistakes by El Presidente and the board.

agree, a stable coaching panel is important for success - which is why I liked it when Westaway backed Ross for "10 years" ...

Taking all this into consideration, beside the fact that most of our core group of guns have had serious injuries and the longest weve kept a coach is 3 years in almost a decade. We made 3 Prelim Finals!

Now we have a new board, new coaching staff, a new way of running the club. Since Ross Lyon took over its only been 2 seasons but theres already been so much improvement. They changed the medical staff, they changed Fitness coaches, and we can already see theres less and less major injuries happening, not to mention how quickly players like BJ and Lenny recovered from there recos, and just look at the quality of football they played this last season. Look at Kosi, who all of sudden has been able to string together 1-2 seasons with out injury or look at the football Raph Clarke started playing not surprising, since he couldnt get over injuries for 4 years.
Look at the quality football some of these new kids are playing like Robert Eddy (who mind you only debuted in 08) and Armitage.

I was a bit skeptical of Ross Lyon in the start, but I was so wrong. He's made some big changes now. Good on him! I have no doubt, he's gonna make this team champions.

STRENGTH THROUGH LOYALTY!

I'm a Ross fan, mostly for the things you've pointed out above, the added professionalism, the better medical & fitness staff

 

[Cheerthesaints]

I consider that Grant Thomas was given too much responsibility for too many things without being an expert in any field

I agree 100%. He was not up to the job of a senior AFL coach. IF he was a professional AFL coach, he would not have had too much responsibilty, he would have just taken the responsibily in his stride and organised a back room staff worthy of maintaining our players for a serious tilt in September-instead of fizzling out in late August, but he was NO expert-and therefore, as a club we underachieved in his period as Coach.

Sydney are a terrible side to watch, but they have had success with shit players. Our players are 10 fold better quality than theirs, and we should now see another Grand Final appearance this coming year.

I was very frustrated during the Thomas years, he squandered great chances-and in my veiw, even ended players carreers early. No idea how to manage a senior AFL club, and Butters-he was no better, at whatever he did...which was not much.

 

[krusden]

I think thommo wouldve been a 10 year coach back in the day where they could run everything - however the game is such now that they cannot and I think he took too much on and that this affected the on field performance to a degree.
However, the board shouldve taken responsibility for this and pulled him back and convinced or coerced him to concentrate on less aspects.
Personally I am very pleased with Ross, he is a quieter bloke who fades into the background a bit and this suggests to me he is more concerned than other coaches with the performance of the team rather than media appearances (see: mark williams etc where the coach becomes the story at time).

 

[Plugger35]

I agree 100%. He was not up to the job of a senior AFL coach. IF he was a professional AFL coach, he would not have had too much responsibilty, he would have just taken the responsibily in his stride and organised a back room staff worthy of maintaining our players for a serious tilt in September-instead of fizzling out in late August, but he was NO expert-and therefore, as a club we underachieved in his period as Coach.

Sydney are a terrible side to watch, but they have had success with shit players. Our players are 10 fold better quality than theirs, and we should now see another Grand Final appearance this coming year.

I was very frustrated during the Thomas years, he squandered great chances-and in my veiw, even ended players carreers early. No idea how to manage a senior AFL club, and Butters-he was no better, at whatever he did...which was not much.

I think you're maybe being a bit harsh on Thomas. After all we did play some exciting footy under his coaching and were pretty successful making three finals campaigns and two prelims. I think he did a number of good things including changing our culture into a more professional and positive one. He seemed to instill a lot of confidence and belief in the playing group which was reflected in the brash, exciting footy we played under his reign.

Unfortunately he also had a number of faults which may have hindered our progress. The main one was that he put his ego ahead of the team and had too much influence and control within the club. He was trying to take on too many roles, that were outside his field of expertise, which meant that certain off field areas like injury management suffered. Although in fairness we also had a lot of bad luck with injuries during his time that probably couldn't be put down to just poor injury management.

Another fault of Thomas was his media skills. He was too outspoken and opinionated at times which was detrimental to the team. That included openly criticising the umpires which meant they then turned against us, ie. the 'Whispers in the Sky' controversy.

I also think his lack of experience may have cost us at finals time. We always seemed to play very well under Thomas during the home and away rounds but just couldn't get the job done when it came to finals for whatever reason. I know we had a number of crucial injuries during finals which cost us but you also wonder whether we may have performed better with a more experienced finals type coach such as Blight, Sheedy or Matthews.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I think you're maybe being a bit harsh on Thomas. After all we did play some exciting footy under his coaching and were pretty successful making three finals campaigns and two prelims. I think he did a number of good things including changing our culture into a more professional and positive one. He seemed to instill a lot of confidence and belief in the playing group which was reflected in the brash, exciting footy we played under his reign.

Unfortunately he also had a number of faults which may have hindered our progress. The main one was that he put his ego ahead of the team and had too much influence and control within the club. He was trying to take on too many roles, that were outside his field of expertise, which meant that certain off field areas like injury management suffered. Although in fairness we also had a lot of bad luck with injuries during his time that probably couldn't be put down to just poor injury management.

Another fault of Thomas was his media skills. He was too outspoken and opinionated at times which was detrimental to the team. That included openly criticising the umpires which meant they then turned against us, ie. the 'Whispers in the Sky' controversy.

I also think his lack of experience may have cost us at finals time. We always seemed to play very well under Thomas during the home and away rounds but just couldn't get the job done when it came to finals for whatever reason. I know we had a number of crucial injuries during finals which cost us but you also wonder whether we may have performed better with a more experienced finals type coach such as Blight, Sheedy or Matthews.

A lot of that is pretty much what I wanted to say but didn't phrase it as well.
I'd like to add, there was a falling out with Butthead, and you can speculate that Thomas may not have gotton everything he asked for as far as the football department budget is concerned.
Whether he was right or wrong to speak against the umpires, there is no way in hell that the repurcussion should be a corrupt vengence by the umpires. It still stinks that the AFL didn't clean out the mess.

Wonder where Nexus is, she would be sticking up for her Granty big time

 

[Half Back Pocket]

One point to consider: The current board may seem to be more professional - with better funding of the football department, injury management etc...but if we can't be profitable this is just bad management, and cannot be sustained in future years. Does anyone know if we made a profit in '08. Have we had any profit projections for '09?

 

[StFly]

Coach-that is the key word here. In todays game you have to manage. That is why Premier League clubs call their coach's Managers. You have to Manage people. Anyone can coach!!!!!!!!! for God sake, I can Coach better than Grant Thomas.

It is quite easy to sit there and make the claim that you could, but have you to compare?

You are wrong-if you were not wrong-Grant Thomas would be at the helm of another AFL club. Why did no other club appoint Grant Thomas as their senior coach, assistant coach, etc, etc, some role at least. He cannott manage player injuries, and after what he did to Blighty, he will never get a job at another AFL club-if he does-I must be wrong, and not you!

What he did to Blighty? Wow so he's solo taking the fall for that is he, good to know you're coming from an unbiased viewpoint with this. GT was good for the time he was in, he and his team helped restructure the Saints to what they are today, he's only human, he had faults yes but you cannot blame him singularly for every single thing that went wrong during his tenure, it's unrealistic.

As to why they did not appoint him, because his exit was treated as a shock and ended up being disgraceful, he had excess baggage not because of just himself but because of Butterss as well. You forget that GT is only the 2nd coach in the history of our club to make 3 consecutive finals campaigns, even if he could not manage injuries or had anyone to manage injuries. Perhaps GT decided he did not want to stay in the system? perhaps he thought since he was rather outspoken he'd be better suited for the media (which is 50/50 really). To say that without a shadow of a doubt, that just because the man chose to have a media career over staying int he system = failure as a coach is just dumbfounding, there are numerous reasons why one may not want to stay in the system, not all attributed to massive failures.

 

[Plugger35]

A lot of that is pretty much what I wanted to say but didn't phrase it as well.
I'd like to add, there was a falling out with Butthead, and you can speculate that Thomas may not have gotton everything he asked for as far as the football department budget is concerned.
Whether he was right or wrong to speak against the umpires, there is no way in hell that the repurcussion should be a corrupt vengence by the umpires. It still stinks that the AFL didn't clean out the mess.

Wonder where Nexus is, she would be sticking up for her Granty big time

Yes Thomas probably wasn't helped by his falling out with Butterss towards the end of his tenure. I don't know whether or not the board denied him all the resources that he asked for but it sounds like there was quite a bit of cost cutting in areas like injury management. I don't think Thomas helped his cause though by trying to take control of too many areas himself and not delegating enough responsibility elsewhere.

I also agree that the AFL and the umpires were also at fault for letting criticism by Thomas affect their performance. Thomas was probably right in criticising umpiring as being too ego driven but he probably went about it the wrong way. I still believe that umpires today let their egos get in the way of their umpiring, ie. they indulge in too much talking, posturing and paying needless free kicks for the sake of it. So it's hard to blame coaches or supporters getting frustrated and annoyed about it.

All in all it's hard to be too critical of Thomas or Butterss. They are both St Kilda people who I think genuinely had the club's best interests at heart and wanted to make it successful. The club did make quite a lot of progress during their era but unfortunately their clash of egos and subsequent falling out probably undid a lot of their good work.

 

[the_riddler]

I think that's somewhat 1 dimensional, GT had a fair enough clue with drafting, the culture didn't fix itself and it was under Gt that Bazza Hall left our club for Sydney for 3 picks with 2 inside 20 (13 & 17) now who did we get with 13? Nicky Dal, same draft we got Goose, Ball, Joey and X, 03 traded 23 for Gram, Raph & Chips, our first pick in 05, Sammy Gilbert not to mention that he took over at the end of 2000 after Blighty and traded for Hamill & the G train plus giving the then kids responsibility with rotating captains, whether you agreed with it or not they got experience leading. So to say the man had no idea how to coach is a riduculous thing to say.

Incorrect. Thomas first game as coach was rd 16 2001 against the dogs. Hamill and the G-Train both came to the club when Blight was there, in fact alot of the reasoning being that Blight was coaching was what enticed them to the Saints.

Blight was also coach when Roo and Kosi were drafted to the club.

 

[StFly]

Incorrect. Thomas first game as coach was rd 16 2001 against the dogs. Hamill and the G-Train both came to the club when Blight was there, in fact alot of the reasoning being that Blight was coaching was what enticed them to the Saints.

Blight was also coach when Roo and Kosi were drafted to the club.

yeah just looked over when I wasn't tired, missed the 1 in that, my bad.

 

[JeffDunne]

It amazes me the number of St Kilda supporters that keep going over this subject again and again.

Everyone has a view on the Thomas years and I don't think anyone's opinion is going to be changed now.

I do laugh though when people claim crap like "we'd have won 2-3 flags" if . . .

Talk about delusional.

 

[Cheerthesaints]

I do laugh though when people claim crap like "we'd have won 2-3 flags" if . . .

Talk about delusional.

Not delusional mate. I have heard at least 3 senior players state that if Blighty was maintained-and not knifed in the back by Grant Thomas, we would have won "a" premiership in this period of our history. I have never heard any players come out and say 2-3 premierships, but it is not unreasonable to think that we could have won 2-3 flags in the last 10 years. Why not? wasn't Rob Harvey, Lenny Hayes, Nick Rewoldt, etc good enough? I do not consider Ablett, Bartell & Mooney any better, and comparsions could be done with the rest of the Geelong squad. I have used Geelong, as they have ben the bench mark in the last few years-and we were looking closer to a premiership in 2004 than them...we fogged them in 2004, pre season and round 1. Bomber Thompson can manage a list, Thomas...completly out of his depth...

 

[JeffDunne]

At the time GT was sacked there weren't too many claiming Bomber as the next messiah. Maybe . . . nah, I won't go there.

See that's the thing. We can all play the woulda/coulda/shoulda game. It's easy because it's all conjecture.

However, as Geelong showed this year, you need a lot to go right to win the flag and timing is everything. Port showed that too when they eventually won one.

Premierships don't fall out of Cornflakes packets (pardon the pun) and I'm afraid anyone that thinks 2 or 3 were a monty with any list is delusional.

 

[sammm]

At the time GT was sacked there weren't too many claiming Bomber as the next messiah. Maybe . . . nah, I won't go there.

See that's the thing. We can all play the woulda/coulda/shoulda game. It's easy because it's all conjecture.

However, as Geelong showed this year, you need a lot to go right to win the flag and timing is everything. Port showed that too when they eventually won one.

Premierships don't fall out of Cornflakes packets (pardon the pun) and I'm afraid anyone that thinks 2 or 3 were a monty with any list is delusional.

i think hawthorn will win 2-3 wityh their list.

i think the saints have missed the boat as we are behind geelong and hawthorn. and i'm not sure how the saints can bridge the gap.

franklin and roughhead alone kicked nearly 200 goals.. it doesn't look like anyone will stop franklin.

 

[Look2Me4Guidance]

Not delusional mate. I have heard at least 3 senior players state that if Blighty was maintained-and not knifed in the back by Grant Thomas, we would have won "a" premiership in this period of our history. I have never heard any players come out and say 2-3 premierships, but it is not unreasonable to think that we could have won 2-3 flags in the last 10 years. Why not? wasn't Rob Harvey, Lenny Hayes, Nick Rewoldt, etc good enough? I do not consider Ablett, Bartell & Mooney any better, and comparsions could be done with the rest of the Geelong squad. I have used Geelong, as they have ben the bench mark in the last few years-and we were looking closer to a premiership in 2004 than them...we fogged them in 2004, pre season and round 1. Bomber Thompson can manage a list, Thomas...completly out of his depth...

Get over it. It's clear you have a hatred of Thomas, but give it a rest.

 

[Look2Me4Guidance]

At the time GT was sacked there weren't too many claiming Bomber as the next messiah. Maybe . . . nah, I won't go there.

See that's the thing. We can all play the woulda/coulda/shoulda game. It's easy because it's all conjecture.

However, as Geelong showed this year, you need a lot to go right to win the flag and timing is everything. Port showed that too when they eventually won one.


Premierships don't fall out of Cornflakes packets (pardon the pun) and I'm afraid anyone that thinks 2 or 3 were a monty with any list is delusional.

Spot on JD. Ask Essendon how many flags they should have won between 1999-2001. The answer doesn't matter, it will always be one.

 

[Look2Me4Guidance]

i think hawthorn will win 2-3 wityh their list.

People said the same thing about Geelong.


i think the saints have missed the boat as we are behind geelong and hawthorn. and i'm not sure how the saints can bridge the gap.

franklin and roughhead alone kicked nearly 200 goals.. it doesn't look like anyone will stop franklin.

Er except Maxy Hudghton?

 

[I wuz there in 66]

The wheels can fall off the apple cart pretty quick if things don't go your way with injuries etc.

Runs like Brisbane's era do not happen all the time.

They made the most of nearly all their chances and reaped the benefit.

No guarantees Geelong will hit those heights again, the hunger has to be there. The psychological loss to the Hawks in the GF could be telling.

If you can stay thereabouts and have a good injury free season, anything can happen.

I just can't see a run like the Hawks had in the 80's ever repeating itself.