Analysis The Road To 2018...where do we stand??

[aussierulesrules]

I think it's the cross roads thing that brings the negativity. I feel like this year we make hay or we get the crops wither on the vine, I fluctuate between blind optimism and crushing negativity. If we get a bunch of kids come on we should be good and attract FAs in the momentum that we generate but we could just as easily have a bad run with injury or stagnation and be looking a long way off again. I think once we get a few wins under our belt the positivity will return pretty quickly.

I was having a think about how plenty think Richo is to blame and I've been blaming Trout. Probably realistically it's a bit of both but actually neither fault. I was hearing Richmond can't afford to give any bonuses to Hardwick despite his premiership win because they have maxed out their off field spend cap and will have to pay big money if they go over.

I would say we have consistently one of the lower spending clubs off field. I remember going to Moorabbin in 2009 and Ross lyon stumbling out of the primitive old buildings and being one of three guys managing the whole team. I used to drive past the Pies training and they'd have about a dozen off field staff watching training and taking notes. We were running a very limited off field staff then and we still aren't stacked with people off field.

I think they had a stats a few years ago saying off filed spend had a direct correlation to premiership wins, as a reason for bringing in a cap. The Dogs probably altered that stats a bit now though.

Spot on post I reckon. Do think we're at the crossroads a fair bit and that we could really push up, tread water again, or really fall backwards (if we have a year if bad injuries in particular), so it's interesting times.

Really like a lot of the young talent that we have though and we've gotten Gresh, Clark and Coffield with our last 3 first rounders, and Billings, Dunstan and Acres with the firsts on the other side of the 2014 draft (that is questionable), so even if we do have a bad injury year and end up with a high pick, it would be far from the end of the world, as we could get another gem like them or better in the draft, and soon enough the wheel will turn for us, and I reckon we'll have a really strong and large young group that will be coming through together and capable of contending over a long period- which generally gives you the best chance of nabbing a flag or two.

Then if we do push up this year- with one of the youngest and most inexperienced lists- it will suggest that we already have a strong core of young talent and are probably ready to add a cherry-on-top type like a Sloane/Kelly/Shiel, over the next couple of years, and start competing for flags again.

I'm very confident that if we have a good injury run we're ready to push up, in spite of our hard looking draw. Reckon we have the pieces to play finals now, just a matter of putting them together sufficiently.

 

[Mowman]

Spot on post I reckon. Do think we're at the crossroads a fair bit and that we could really push up, tread water again, or really fall backwards, if we have a year if bad injuries, so it's interesting times.

Really like a lot of the young talent that we have though and we've gotten Gresh, Clark and Coffield with our last 3 first rounders, and Billings, Dunstan and Acres with the firsts on the other side of the 2014 draft that is questionable, so even if we do have a bad injury year and end up with a high pick it would be far from the end of the world, as we could get another gem like them or better in the draft and soon enough the wheel will turn for us, and I reckon we'll have a really strong young group that will be coming through together and capable of contending over a long period- which generally gives you the best chance of nabbing a flag or two.

Then if we do push up this year- with one of the youngest and most inexperienced lists- it will suggest that we already have a strong core of young talent and are probably ready to add a cherry-on-top type like a Sloane/Kelly/Shiel over the next couple of years and start competing for flags again.

I'm very confident that if we have a good injury run we're ready to push up, in spite of our hard looking draw.

Ok AR where do you think we should finish with a good injury run and things going our way

 

[Wintle]

I think we would be a lot better side if we could be more competitive in the ruck and you have to go back to Gardner and King in tandem when we were really strong in this facet of the game. Ben McEvoy was OK when he played for us in the ruck, but has since improved with Hawthorn, being a dual premiership player.
It was for this very reason that I was disappointed we didn't select Sam Hayes with our pick 46 in the recent draft. I hope the player we did select, Ben Paton, wins a Brownlow Medal, but in essence, we already have a number of similar players of his size and playing style on our current list. At something like 203 cms and probably still growing, Sam Hayes would have provided us a chance at least, of developing a player capable of making a significant contribution to our ruck strength.
What we need is a Max Gawn, an Aaron Sandilands or dare I say it, a Ben McEvoy before I would feel really confident of seeing us challenging for a premiership. A player not only strong in the ruck, but one who consistently takes marks around the ground.
Let's hope Longer, Hickey and/or Marshall can provide us a strong ruck combination for the upcoming season.

 

[plugger66]

I think we would be a lot better side if we could be more competitive in the ruck and you have to go back to Gardner and King in tandem when we were really strong in this facet of the game. Ben McEvoy was OK when he played for us in the ruck, but has since improved with Hawthorn, being a dual premiership player.
It was for this very reason that I was disappointed we didn't select Sam Hayes with our pick 46 in the recent draft. I hope the player we did select, Ben Paton, wins a Brownlow Medal, but in essence, we already have a number of similar players of his size and playing style on our current list. At something like 203 cms and probably still growing, Sam Hayes would have provided us a chance at least, of developing a player capable of making a significant contribution to our ruck strength.
What we need is a Max Gawn, an Aaron Sandilands or dare I say it, a Ben McEvoy before I would feel really confident of seeing us challenging for a premiership. A player not only strong in the ruck, but one who consistently takes marks around the ground.
Let's hope Longer, Hickey and/or Marshall can provide us a strong ruck combination for the upcoming season.

There is no combinations anymore. Its just one. I liked Ben but he copped so much crap on footy boards, most which wasn't deserved.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

I think we would be a lot better side if we could be more competitive in the ruck and you have to go back to Gardner and King in tandem when we were really strong in this facet of the game. Ben McEvoy was OK when he played for us in the ruck, but has since improved with Hawthorn, being a dual premiership player.
It was for this very reason that I was disappointed we didn't select Sam Hayes with our pick 46 in the recent draft. I hope the player we did select, Ben Paton, wins a Brownlow Medal, but in essence, we already have a number of similar players of his size and playing style on our current list. At something like 203 cms and probably still growing, Sam Hayes would have provided us a chance at least, of developing a player capable of making a significant contribution to our ruck strength.
What we need is a Max Gawn, an Aaron Sandilands or dare I say it, a Ben McEvoy before I would feel really confident of seeing us challenging for a premiership. A player not only strong in the ruck, but one who consistently takes marks around the ground.
Let's hope Longer, Hickey and/or Marshall can provide us a strong ruck combination for the upcoming season.

Longer is only just now coming into the "right age" for a ruckman. He already gets more hitouts than a McEvoy, at 4 years younger and 100 games less experienced. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments on his around the ground work, but give him time. With natural maturing and no more injuries, hopefully we see him fulfill his potential

 

[g_TRAIN]

I still think our most important player is Hickey. He’s better than Longer. 2016 when he was up and running we were a better side.

Longer is a good ruckman but around the ground he’s pretty much useless. Where Hickey can mark in defence and link up well out of it.

If Hickey can’t recapture that form. Our only option is for Marshall to play as a forward/ruckman. Even if he can deliver some quality bursts thru out the game. Along with Longers ruckwork. Maybe.

Outside of that we need an injury free and firing Jake Carlisle to be a challenger. Ditto for Billings/Steven

Agreed on Longer he's by far the worst player in the AFL as far as getting and using the ball.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Do we really need to be the side this year that was outlined all those years ago to be in 2018? It was a very bold and strategic plan, and for the most part has been relatively on track. More than anything though the club needed to sell hope to it's supporters. We were on our knees. Only a few years after being a top side for the previous decade and falling just short of the ultimate prize a number of times, the club finds itself entrenched in the bottom 4. We were parting with stars like Goddard, McEvoy and Dal Santo to come whilst there was a massive offer to lure one of our greatest ever players to our arch rivals Collingwood. Other players who had been long time servants and legends of our club in Hayes, Fisher, Milne etc were coming into their final years. We had no real youth and were lacking top end talent going forward.

The club outlined a plan and business model to which it would follow strictly, believing that it would see a steady rise and eventually lead us back into September, whilst also setting us up long term. Initial plans to relocate back to Moorabbin were later announced, as were plans to have a women's team after the AFLW was brought forward. I don't know about you but I for one didn't have a whole lot of motivation to go and see us play at 4:40 every Sunday to watch us lose to sides like Gold Coast and Fremantle in front of 17,000. We were losing tens of thousands of dollars every game and absolutely nothing to look forward to, so something needed to change.

Alan Richardson was hired, who was regarded as one of the best development coaches in the game, and we had the third selection in the national draft along with two other picks inside the top 20, eventually being Billings, Dunstan and Acres, who are cementing their spots now in our best 22.

The next year we add Paddy McCartin and Hugh Goddard, followed by Jade Gresham and star defender Jake Carlisle the year after. Granted, we never thought that McCartin and Goddard would have had such restricted game time due to injury, but all of a sudden at the time you can see something to work with. There's the core of our list for the next 10 years. A Riewoldt replacement in Paddy, Dunstan who comes in for Hayes and (in his first year) shows potential to be a ready made star replacement and some shrewd recruiting brings in Josh Bruce, Tim Membrey, Dylan Roberton, Shane Savage, Billy Longer and Mav Weller, who are all comfortably best 22 when up and about.

A few years on and the AFL have bought Etihad Stadium meaning we get a much greater deal and can start to wipe off our debt, and the work of Richardson, Matt Finnis, Ameet Bains and co to completely turn around the culture of the club has us looking up, with more big sponsors joining every year as well.

Sure, it'd be great to see us back in finals in 2018 but it's not the be all and end all. We're a club on the rise, and it's a slow build. We had to start from scratch. To me it doesn't seem so bad if it takes us another year or so to crack into the top 8, because we're looking for sustained growth and success to make the club viable again. The road to 2018 was a vision, a plan to restore some hope in many broken St Kilda hearts. We're impatient, but it's coming.

Added to all that, a record number of memberships in 2017 and looking pretty good now in the hope of a new record this season.

 

[g_TRAIN]

Longer is only just now coming into the "right age" for a ruckman. He already gets more hitouts than a McEvoy, at 4 years younger and 100 games less experienced. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments on his around the ground work, but give him time. With natural maturing and no more injuries, hopefully we see him fulfill his potential

I hope you are right. Genuine question do you think he has the agility and skills to become useful around the ground? Honestly every time i see him he seems so slow poor skills, poor decisions, gets out bodied in 1:1 marking contests vs much smaller players.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

I hope you are right. Genuine question do you think he has the agility and skills to become useful around the ground? Honestly every time i see him he seems so slow poor skills, poor decisions, gets out bodied in 1:1 marking contests vs much smaller players.

If he can build his fitness to a level where he can be a poor man’s Sandilands I’ll be happy.
I’d like him to take more marks, I don’t care if he doesn’t have one kick, but I’d like him to be more careful with his hand passing for sure

 

[g_TRAIN]

If he can build his fitness to a level where he can be a poor man’s Sandilands I’ll be happy.
I’d like him to take more marks, I don’t care if he doesn’t have one kick, but I’d like him to be more careful with his hand passing for sure

I think the other area he would need to improve on is keeping his opponent quiet around the ground.

Last year or though he won the hit outs frequently, his opponent would often track up lost of possesions and marks

 

[gringo2011]

If he can build his fitness to a level where he can be a poor man’s Sandilands I’ll be happy.
I’d like him to take more marks, I don’t care if he doesn’t have one kick, but I’d like him to be more careful with his hand passing for sure

I think Billy is a bit of a mixed bag, he can have great games and stinkers. He's handball happy because he doesn't trust his kicking which I don't mind. At the end of the day he's a ruck man and while he's not got heaps of finesse in what he does, he does win hit outs. As a ruckman that's his job to at least nullify the opposition ruck or win the first use for our team. He's young enough to improve still. His star read better than the actual games he plays still but if you are getting over 120 super coach points you are doing okay and he did that a couple of times this year. And ranked 3rd for hit outs per game across the AFL.

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/pp-st-kilda-saints--billy-longer
https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy...2=16&type=A&pid1=3646&pid2=3620&fid1=O&fid2=O

 

[gringo2011]

I think the other area he would need to improve on is keeping his opponent quiet around the ground.

Last year or though he won the hit outs frequently, his opponent would often track up lost of possesions and marks

Most rucks don't make great one on one players. He only has an average of 3 possessions a game less than Gawn on last years form. I'm not overly worried about possessions, I think he'll get more comfortable marking and kicking as he settles in to the role. He's pretty comparable to Goldstein too with like 1.2 marks per game less and about 4 possessions a match less.

I think he's fine as a big crash and bash unit who may improve to the same level as Goldy and Gawn if things go right.

 

[Saint Watto]

TBH I feel nothing
Footy is not the be all and end all for me like it once was

Great to see you back PC.....

 

[Saint Watto]

Didn't realise that the plan was to play finals as quickly as possible.

Also didn't realise that plans and timelines are set in concrete.

Here's me thinking it was all about restructuring the club and list for sustained long term success.

Silly me.

It's funny how things sometimes pan out......I was thinking of the following last week after reading the first several posts on this thread.

After the additions we received to the clubs playing list thru trades/drafting at the end of 2000/2001/2002........I remember saying to a very knowledgeable football mate about a third of the way thru the 2003 season....."when on earth are we going to see something happen".....as no progress seemed to be happening.

He calmly looked at me and said...."don't worry.....be patient.....it will happen"

There's no guarantees of course.....but let's see how it all pans out.

 

[Saint Watto]

in 2001 there was no way on gods green earth we were going to be top 4 in three years either ... but we did
in 2007 there was no way we were looking like a team that would go withing a whisker of and unbeaten season but in 2009 we did ...things change quick in AFL footy in 2016 to say richmond would win the flag in 2017 was crazy

Spot on there st trav......things can change extremely quickly.......after we were belted by 10 goals plus in 2 of the 3 finals games in 2008....I thought...how on earth are we ever going to catch the likes of Geelong and Hawthorn........well....the very next year as it turned out.

 

[Saint Watto]

Probably why I totally agreed with the board and RL idea in that successful period and do what ever it takes and if the future is rooted who cares. Just one small problem, we didn't get over the friggin line first.

You nailed it there plugger..........you can go down the path RL's path....but if you don't win it in that period....your absolutely stuffed....I present the Saints as evidence your honour.

That's what killed me after 2010....we were oh so so close......didn't win it and the outlook was we were going to be completely stuffed.....which I found incredibly depressing going into 2011.

 

[Saint Watto]

I felt exact opposite in 00/01/02.

All those stars and we were crap.

Throw in the first third of 2003 too VDS66.

As I have said in an earlier post........thru 2001/2002 and the first 1/3 of 2003.....I was thinking with all the players in via the draft and trading....how come we're still crap....

Only thru about the 1/2 way mark of the 2003 season....could you see the signs that it was slowly starting to gel.

 

[Saint Watto]

I'm as nervous as everyone else.

Great post there "The Punter"...some very interesting stats in yr post.

 

[PoppedCorn]

Great to see you back PC.....

Thanks
It's good to have a break, just to get away from the computer

 

[mr bagcroft]

Im not sure any comparisons with 2000-2004 and the rise thereafter are valid. There is simply no comparison to the talent building then, to now. Its not even close and is actually pretty funny, unfortunately.

 

[#gosaintas]

Im not sure any comparisons with 2000-2004 and the rise thereafter are valid. There is simply no comparison to the talent building then, to now. Its not even close and is actually pretty funny, unfortunately.

Life must be a breeze with your ability to see into the future

 

[mr bagcroft]

Life must be a breeze with your ability to see into the future

Just look at the names.
I dont see a single player we have now that will reach the levels of the midfielders we had in that era.
Thats why it was a no brainer to Get Petracca, but were St.Kilda so we didnt.

 

[Marlo]

Our top 8 players back then were better than how many of the top 8 of the last how many premiers?

That team was going nowhere without Ross Lyon.

Looked stella on paper, but an amateur team without Lyon.

 

[mr bagcroft]

Our top 8 players back then were better than how many of the top 8 of the last how many premiers?

That team was going nowhere without Ross Lyon.

Looked stella on paper, but an amateur team without Lyon.

You think Richardson is at the Lyon level?

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

Im not sure any comparisons with 2000-2004 and the rise thereafter are valid. There is simply no comparison to the talent building then, to now. Its not even close and is actually pretty funny, unfortunately.

lets just put this claim under the microscope ..
players we brought into the team from 2000 to 2003 the bolded players played in the 2004 premlim (13 players) from that list the ones in Red played in our grand final in 09 (9 players):
Craig Callaghan
Fraser Gehrig
Aaron Hamill
Steven Lawrence
Mathew Capuano
Nick Riewoldt
Justin Koschitzki
Mark Gale
Robert Powell
Daniel Wulf
Brett Voss
Heath Black
Trent Knoble
Luke Ball
Xav Clarke
Nick Dal Santo
Matt Maguire
Leigh Montagna
Josh Houlihan
Barry Brooks
Luke Penny
Brendan Goddard
Matt Ferguson
Leigh Fisher
Steven Powell
Jason Gram
Brent Guerra
Raph Clarke
Sam Fisher

so basically the ground work put into the list from 2000 to 2003 laid the foundation of 9 players to be in our 09 grand final team .. in 9 years from spoon to g/f at the moment we are 4 years from our last spoon. so as you point out our best talent pool took 9 years to get to the grand final and you are getting impatient in year four ??? some of our best players in 09 couldnt get a game in 04 and didnt look like anything but over time developed, same could be said of this current group .. Paddy could be our Kosi, Dunstan our Luke Ball, Gresh our Dal Santo , Billings our Montagna, Acres our Godard , Godard our Sam Fisher, Sinclair our Gram and Webster our Raph (poor bastard).... a lot can change in a short period of time out of nowhere a player can become a star just like out of nowhere a star can become a dud...
who knows what the future brings we are just hanging on for the ride