Watters
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SuperDuper
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bigcarl
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Re: Watters
Says he tried to change the club’s culture after dwarf gate, but the club backed the players rather than him.
Talks about his sacking, the decisions to trade out McEvoy, Goddard, Dal Santo. His non-relationship with Pelchen.
Says the club was broken and grieving after the 2010 grand final loss.
Talks about his sacking, the decisions to trade out McEvoy, Goddard, Dal Santo. His non-relationship with Pelchen.
Says the club was broken and grieving after the 2010 grand final loss.
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SaintPav
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Re: Watters
It's everyone else's fault. Funny about that.
Holder of unacceptable views and other thought crimes.
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BarryGrogan
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spert
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Re: Watters
He walked into a wreck and I wouldn't have taken on the job if I was him. I have spoken to dads of a couple of young players in the past who played under him, and the young guys liked him, but apparently some of the older players egos were so huge and were not prepared to be told how to do anything after failing in the finals campaigns under Lyon, and continually sooked to the directors and whoever would listen, so that was pretty much the end of Watters. It was a typical tail St Kilda wagging the dog scenario that has hounded the club in its history and has resulted in years of no premierships.
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BarryGrogan
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St Chris
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Re: Watters
I've liked what they've done on the Podcast....until this episode.
A lot of Saints bashing.....questioning from Jon Ralph and whoever the other muppet is just tee'd him up to have a crack.
As SaintPav said - everything was someone else's fault.
The word "culture" get said about 10000 times without any detail of what is meant by that.
No questioning re: appointing assistants himself.
He and Pelchen barely spoke, and club had to pick a side.
A lot of Saints bashing.....questioning from Jon Ralph and whoever the other muppet is just tee'd him up to have a crack.
As SaintPav said - everything was someone else's fault.
The word "culture" get said about 10000 times without any detail of what is meant by that.
No questioning re: appointing assistants himself.
He and Pelchen barely spoke, and club had to pick a side.
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bigred
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Re: Watters
Gotta take the good with the bad.
This isn't what Watters is saying, its the mug journo's asking the questions trying to be his mate.
This isn't what Watters is saying, its the mug journo's asking the questions trying to be his mate.
"Now the ball is loose, it gives St. Kilda a rough chance. Black. Good handpass. Voss. Schwarze now, the defender, can run and from a long way".....
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saynta
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Re: Watters
Watters and pelican s***. Couple of deadshits that the club should never have hired in the first place.
"Scott Watters tried to confront St Kilda’s culture problems after a bizarre episode involving a dwarf being set on fire on Mad Monday. But he sparked a chain of events that ended with his sacking.
In hindsight, Scott Watters predicted his own demise as St Kilda coach with an eerie degree of precision.
It took a dwarf set on fire — the catalyst for a brutal appraisal of his players’ cultural values — to fast-track that process.
In his two seasons as St Kilda coach in 2012-13 Watters attempted football’s Mission Impossible.
No wonder he crashed, rather than crashed through, given the impediments in his bid to overhaul what he saw as broken culture within this football club.
In that space of time Watters tried to overhaul an ageing list he believed was headed for a “cliff” despite being told alerting fans of that task would spook them.
He tried to overhaul a culture he believed had serious issues, but had drawn public acclaim given the Grand Final appearance only three years before.
He did so with a board he didn’t trust, a football boss in Chris Pelchen with whom he barely had a relationship, and at a club that had just made a jarring move to Seaford.
At the end of the Saints’ five-win 2013 season he didn’t just rock the boat, he deliberately capsized it.
Watters believed too many senior St Kilda players had begun coasting through their careers, stuck in the past mourning the 2010 Grand Final loss after the Sherrin’s freakish bounce away from Stephen Milne.
As a catalyst he used the bizarre Mad Monday controversy gone wrong to ram home his point that something had to change.
A short-statured entertainer hired to entertain the players had somehow been set on fire, yet only weeks after the fallout from his meeting it was Watters’ own career that had been torched.
“It is difficult when you feel your list is no longer potent enough to challenge, when you feel that window has closed,” he tells the Herald Sun’s Sacked Podcast.
Watters is now the CEO and founder of the LifeChanger Foundation, along with ironman Trevor Hendy developing mentors and programs for teenagers across the community.
He has never publicly disclosed the events of his sacking until now, but after six years of reflection has no regrets about his challenge to the players.
“I remember having a really strong meeting with the playing group towards the end of the second year. It was probably the most direct I had ever been,” he tells the Herald Sun.
“Prior to going into the meeting I remember saying to an assistant coach, ‘We either break this culture once and for all or I am done’. And I gave it to them pretty honestly as a group. I think the word used were: ‘You are still walking around in a fog’.
“I said, ‘Make up your mind. Those that want to be here and create a new future, step up. Those who don’t, the door is open to leave. Without that all you are is mercenaries accepting a pay cheque.
“It was pretty blunt but that needed to be broken in order for them to look forward and accept a new horizon. Or they would be forever looking back at the bounce of one ball.
WATTERS: WE COULDN’T AFFORD TO SIGN ZAC DAWSON
REGRETS: THE MOVE MAGPIES SHOULD HAVE MADE IN 2011
“With the cultural changes that had surrounded the club over three to five years with the St Kilda schoolgirl incidents, the playing group just needed to grow up and take responsibility. Repeat offenders just cripple the clubs. When that is episodic, then it is a cultural issue. Good clubs don’t go near that stuff.
“Potentially that meeting enabled some players to go to the board and say, ‘We have done this and that and we have got close (to a flag)’. That is the board’s call. They felt it was best to support some of those senior players. Which alludes to one of the cultural challenges (at) St Kilda. Strong boards set direction.”
The board backed the playing group, blindsiding Watters two months later when they sacked him in a hastily-arranged phone hook-up.
Watters accepts his decision to confront players was risky, but doesn’t have a single regret.
Even if now he realises how tough it must have been for St Kilda’s stars to move on from the heartbreaking consequence of that lost Grand Final.
“It is tough to go through as a playing group. You were one bounce away from creating history, and that always lives with you. As athletes you have to reconcile that. Do you ever really bury that? It’s part of your journey and it always sits there with you.
“But in all honesty it was never really a huge decision for me to make that call if it was right. The club needed to break the glass or you are continually living in the past.
“It was an opportunity to reset and within six months after my departure we had a new CEO, a new head of football, a new coach. So inadvertently I probably caused the changes that needed to happen.
“You can keep tiptoeing around it or you can challenge people. And it was a time of challenge because people can make assessments on where St Kilda is at and where they have got to since. I think there is still some work to be done at St Kilda.”
THE LIST ‘FIRE SALE’
Watters and football boss Chris Pelchen attempted one of footy’s boldest list overhauls.
Aware of the dramatic lack of young talent on a list after all stops had been pulled out for a premiership, they went bold.
The Saints would eventually trade young ruck star Ben McEvoy and allow popular veterans Brendon Goddard and Nick Dal Santo to leave, turning those players into an array of multiple draft picks to rejuvenate the list.
But Watters concedes the emotional toll of trading McEvoy (for Shane Savage and the pick that secured Luke Dunstan) was massive.
“Chris and I were both aligned on what needed to happen with the list and it’s why you are going into a position where it is a bit of a fire sale.
“Anything that has some value when you know the club can’t win a premiership in the next two to five years …
“We would have loved to have kept Ben McEvoy at the club. It was the hardest decision out of all the quality players we had. It was a really emotional decision for Ben and myself and it was a whole list management decision.
Collingwood v St Kilda. MCG. Ben McEvoy beats Cameron Wood.
“But in the end the decision around Ben, a terrific character and great leader, was he wasn’t necessary for a premiership because St Kilda wasn’t going to get a premiership in five years.
“So what is the anatomy of that? It’s a conversation where he is in tears and I am in tears. I know how hard it would have been for Ben and maybe in 10 or 15 years he might understand. You feel betrayed. But you do it honestly. If I walk past a player in the street 15 years later I want to say hello and shake his hand. They might not like you. But for Ben I get solace knowing he has a premiership medal at home on his mantelpiece.”
Watters admits the decision to allow fan favourite and former No. 1 pick Goddard to leave for Essendon rocked the club to its foundations.
The Saints secured pick 13 as compensation, turning it into Tom Hickey and two later selections that became Spencer White and Tim Membrey
“It was very tough and in some ways it was really destabilising for the club. Brendon’s situation was very difficult. Brendon was a great guy. There is so much to love about the way he goes about it. He can be like sandpaper at times and half the team want to kill him, but you love the edge and competitiveness.
Live stream the 2019 Toyota AFL Premiership Season on KAYO SPORTS. Every match of every round. Live & anytime on your TV or favourite device. Get your 14 day free trial >>
“At the time the club was prepared to go to three years (on its offer) and he wanted more money and a longer-term contract, and rightly so. The club wasn’t prepared to go to five years, which comes with inherent risk.
“It’s too simplistic to say Brendon’s decision was about money. He was within his rights to support a long-term career, but the club was also within its rights to think beyond Brendon.
“But when you have a club in the mix for a period of time and the club uses the rebuild term … it’s human nature to think, ‘Where do I sit in this picture?’.
“Nick Dal Santo was now approachable. You bring that into your yard when you make those decisions.”
THE SEAFORD MOVE
St Kilda moved 20km from its heartland in Linton St, Moorabbin to Seaford in a move that had disastrous consequences and took a decade to overturn.
The Saints left decrepit conditions for supposedly state-of-the-art facilities yet lost its soul.
“It was a decision made prior to me getting there and a board decision but it was a horrendous decision, to be blunt. It completely ripped the heart out of the culture,” Watters said.
“If St Kilda has a really powerful strength that has never been capitalised on, it is a groundswell of bayside heart that would love to attach itself to the club.
“Taking it out of St Kilda and relocating it with no connection to the community, it didn’t help the culture, it didn’t help performance, it didn’t help recruitment and the facility was B-Grade. Clearly they are back where they need to be now.
St.Kilda community camp at the Bairnsdale football club for a media conference. Captain Nick Riewoldt listens closely to coach Scott Watters after it took place. They were in deep converstaion for a few minutes.
“I remember we were in conversations with Josh Caddy and it was Geelong or St Kilda at the time and if I am looking at a brand-new facility in Geelong compared to Seaford, it’s a factor.”
THE SACKING
Watters spent the months after the 2013 season believing he would secure a contract extension past the 2014 season after talks with the St Kilda board in early October.
But rumblings about his connection with players and deteriorating relationship with Pelchen continued with little public support from president Peter Summers to comfort restless supporters.
The whispering campaign began about the club’s direction.
On October 31, 2013 his decision to grant an interview with SEN Radio, during which he said he wouldn’t deviate from his plans, set in train an extraordinary series of events that would see him sacked within hours.
“I had already sat with the board and basically there was a conversation with my manager (Colin Young) and the board about renewing my contract in February. And then I got on to SEN that morning and the club was just not articulating where it was at. It was a pretty innocuous conversation, really.
Sacked_Promo_650_90_V2.png
“Our president was reluctant to speak, Peter had been there a while, He replaced Greg Westaway, who was a lovely man but very rarely had anything to say.
“Sitting and waiting and listening was causing a huge vacuum of worry for supporters. I have no regrets on that conversation at all.
“I would say that meeting (of the board) took place post that radio interview. From there you get invited to a meeting in the city. I remember actually saying to the head of football (Pelchen), ‘What aren’t you telling me?’.
“He rings me and give me some bulls--- excuse to go in and have a meeting about Dean Laidley as assistant coach.
“I said, ‘Mate, you are not making any sense, what aren’t you telling me?’, and he s--- himself on the phone.
St Kilda president Peter Summers and CEO Michael Nettlefold announce Scott Watters’ sacking.
St Kilda president Peter Summers and CEO Michael Nettlefold announce Scott Watters’ sacking.
“So you go into a meeting and, in all honesty, I was the calmest in the room. Peter Summers was shaking, visibly shaking, and the one-page document they gave me was riddled with errors. The funniest thing — and I should not laugh — is they asked me to return the car, and I said, ‘You have never given me one, so I am not giving you mine’.
“It was their call. It was up to them. But I rest very comfortable knowing my principles were never compromised and every decision was made was to actually give St Kilda a chance to achieve something that it has only achieved once in its history.”
MORE SACKED:
"Scott Watters tried to confront St Kilda’s culture problems after a bizarre episode involving a dwarf being set on fire on Mad Monday. But he sparked a chain of events that ended with his sacking.
In hindsight, Scott Watters predicted his own demise as St Kilda coach with an eerie degree of precision.
It took a dwarf set on fire — the catalyst for a brutal appraisal of his players’ cultural values — to fast-track that process.
In his two seasons as St Kilda coach in 2012-13 Watters attempted football’s Mission Impossible.
No wonder he crashed, rather than crashed through, given the impediments in his bid to overhaul what he saw as broken culture within this football club.
In that space of time Watters tried to overhaul an ageing list he believed was headed for a “cliff” despite being told alerting fans of that task would spook them.
He tried to overhaul a culture he believed had serious issues, but had drawn public acclaim given the Grand Final appearance only three years before.
He did so with a board he didn’t trust, a football boss in Chris Pelchen with whom he barely had a relationship, and at a club that had just made a jarring move to Seaford.
At the end of the Saints’ five-win 2013 season he didn’t just rock the boat, he deliberately capsized it.
Watters believed too many senior St Kilda players had begun coasting through their careers, stuck in the past mourning the 2010 Grand Final loss after the Sherrin’s freakish bounce away from Stephen Milne.
As a catalyst he used the bizarre Mad Monday controversy gone wrong to ram home his point that something had to change.
A short-statured entertainer hired to entertain the players had somehow been set on fire, yet only weeks after the fallout from his meeting it was Watters’ own career that had been torched.
“It is difficult when you feel your list is no longer potent enough to challenge, when you feel that window has closed,” he tells the Herald Sun’s Sacked Podcast.
Watters is now the CEO and founder of the LifeChanger Foundation, along with ironman Trevor Hendy developing mentors and programs for teenagers across the community.
He has never publicly disclosed the events of his sacking until now, but after six years of reflection has no regrets about his challenge to the players.
“I remember having a really strong meeting with the playing group towards the end of the second year. It was probably the most direct I had ever been,” he tells the Herald Sun.
“Prior to going into the meeting I remember saying to an assistant coach, ‘We either break this culture once and for all or I am done’. And I gave it to them pretty honestly as a group. I think the word used were: ‘You are still walking around in a fog’.
“I said, ‘Make up your mind. Those that want to be here and create a new future, step up. Those who don’t, the door is open to leave. Without that all you are is mercenaries accepting a pay cheque.
“It was pretty blunt but that needed to be broken in order for them to look forward and accept a new horizon. Or they would be forever looking back at the bounce of one ball.
WATTERS: WE COULDN’T AFFORD TO SIGN ZAC DAWSON
REGRETS: THE MOVE MAGPIES SHOULD HAVE MADE IN 2011
“With the cultural changes that had surrounded the club over three to five years with the St Kilda schoolgirl incidents, the playing group just needed to grow up and take responsibility. Repeat offenders just cripple the clubs. When that is episodic, then it is a cultural issue. Good clubs don’t go near that stuff.
“Potentially that meeting enabled some players to go to the board and say, ‘We have done this and that and we have got close (to a flag)’. That is the board’s call. They felt it was best to support some of those senior players. Which alludes to one of the cultural challenges (at) St Kilda. Strong boards set direction.”
The board backed the playing group, blindsiding Watters two months later when they sacked him in a hastily-arranged phone hook-up.
Watters accepts his decision to confront players was risky, but doesn’t have a single regret.
Even if now he realises how tough it must have been for St Kilda’s stars to move on from the heartbreaking consequence of that lost Grand Final.
“It is tough to go through as a playing group. You were one bounce away from creating history, and that always lives with you. As athletes you have to reconcile that. Do you ever really bury that? It’s part of your journey and it always sits there with you.
“But in all honesty it was never really a huge decision for me to make that call if it was right. The club needed to break the glass or you are continually living in the past.
“It was an opportunity to reset and within six months after my departure we had a new CEO, a new head of football, a new coach. So inadvertently I probably caused the changes that needed to happen.
“You can keep tiptoeing around it or you can challenge people. And it was a time of challenge because people can make assessments on where St Kilda is at and where they have got to since. I think there is still some work to be done at St Kilda.”
THE LIST ‘FIRE SALE’
Watters and football boss Chris Pelchen attempted one of footy’s boldest list overhauls.
Aware of the dramatic lack of young talent on a list after all stops had been pulled out for a premiership, they went bold.
The Saints would eventually trade young ruck star Ben McEvoy and allow popular veterans Brendon Goddard and Nick Dal Santo to leave, turning those players into an array of multiple draft picks to rejuvenate the list.
But Watters concedes the emotional toll of trading McEvoy (for Shane Savage and the pick that secured Luke Dunstan) was massive.
“Chris and I were both aligned on what needed to happen with the list and it’s why you are going into a position where it is a bit of a fire sale.
“Anything that has some value when you know the club can’t win a premiership in the next two to five years …
“We would have loved to have kept Ben McEvoy at the club. It was the hardest decision out of all the quality players we had. It was a really emotional decision for Ben and myself and it was a whole list management decision.
Collingwood v St Kilda. MCG. Ben McEvoy beats Cameron Wood.
“But in the end the decision around Ben, a terrific character and great leader, was he wasn’t necessary for a premiership because St Kilda wasn’t going to get a premiership in five years.
“So what is the anatomy of that? It’s a conversation where he is in tears and I am in tears. I know how hard it would have been for Ben and maybe in 10 or 15 years he might understand. You feel betrayed. But you do it honestly. If I walk past a player in the street 15 years later I want to say hello and shake his hand. They might not like you. But for Ben I get solace knowing he has a premiership medal at home on his mantelpiece.”
Watters admits the decision to allow fan favourite and former No. 1 pick Goddard to leave for Essendon rocked the club to its foundations.
The Saints secured pick 13 as compensation, turning it into Tom Hickey and two later selections that became Spencer White and Tim Membrey
“It was very tough and in some ways it was really destabilising for the club. Brendon’s situation was very difficult. Brendon was a great guy. There is so much to love about the way he goes about it. He can be like sandpaper at times and half the team want to kill him, but you love the edge and competitiveness.
Live stream the 2019 Toyota AFL Premiership Season on KAYO SPORTS. Every match of every round. Live & anytime on your TV or favourite device. Get your 14 day free trial >>
“At the time the club was prepared to go to three years (on its offer) and he wanted more money and a longer-term contract, and rightly so. The club wasn’t prepared to go to five years, which comes with inherent risk.
“It’s too simplistic to say Brendon’s decision was about money. He was within his rights to support a long-term career, but the club was also within its rights to think beyond Brendon.
“But when you have a club in the mix for a period of time and the club uses the rebuild term … it’s human nature to think, ‘Where do I sit in this picture?’.
“Nick Dal Santo was now approachable. You bring that into your yard when you make those decisions.”
THE SEAFORD MOVE
St Kilda moved 20km from its heartland in Linton St, Moorabbin to Seaford in a move that had disastrous consequences and took a decade to overturn.
The Saints left decrepit conditions for supposedly state-of-the-art facilities yet lost its soul.
“It was a decision made prior to me getting there and a board decision but it was a horrendous decision, to be blunt. It completely ripped the heart out of the culture,” Watters said.
“If St Kilda has a really powerful strength that has never been capitalised on, it is a groundswell of bayside heart that would love to attach itself to the club.
“Taking it out of St Kilda and relocating it with no connection to the community, it didn’t help the culture, it didn’t help performance, it didn’t help recruitment and the facility was B-Grade. Clearly they are back where they need to be now.
St.Kilda community camp at the Bairnsdale football club for a media conference. Captain Nick Riewoldt listens closely to coach Scott Watters after it took place. They were in deep converstaion for a few minutes.
“I remember we were in conversations with Josh Caddy and it was Geelong or St Kilda at the time and if I am looking at a brand-new facility in Geelong compared to Seaford, it’s a factor.”
THE SACKING
Watters spent the months after the 2013 season believing he would secure a contract extension past the 2014 season after talks with the St Kilda board in early October.
But rumblings about his connection with players and deteriorating relationship with Pelchen continued with little public support from president Peter Summers to comfort restless supporters.
The whispering campaign began about the club’s direction.
On October 31, 2013 his decision to grant an interview with SEN Radio, during which he said he wouldn’t deviate from his plans, set in train an extraordinary series of events that would see him sacked within hours.
“I had already sat with the board and basically there was a conversation with my manager (Colin Young) and the board about renewing my contract in February. And then I got on to SEN that morning and the club was just not articulating where it was at. It was a pretty innocuous conversation, really.
Sacked_Promo_650_90_V2.png
“Our president was reluctant to speak, Peter had been there a while, He replaced Greg Westaway, who was a lovely man but very rarely had anything to say.
“Sitting and waiting and listening was causing a huge vacuum of worry for supporters. I have no regrets on that conversation at all.
“I would say that meeting (of the board) took place post that radio interview. From there you get invited to a meeting in the city. I remember actually saying to the head of football (Pelchen), ‘What aren’t you telling me?’.
“He rings me and give me some bulls--- excuse to go in and have a meeting about Dean Laidley as assistant coach.
“I said, ‘Mate, you are not making any sense, what aren’t you telling me?’, and he s--- himself on the phone.
St Kilda president Peter Summers and CEO Michael Nettlefold announce Scott Watters’ sacking.
St Kilda president Peter Summers and CEO Michael Nettlefold announce Scott Watters’ sacking.
“So you go into a meeting and, in all honesty, I was the calmest in the room. Peter Summers was shaking, visibly shaking, and the one-page document they gave me was riddled with errors. The funniest thing — and I should not laugh — is they asked me to return the car, and I said, ‘You have never given me one, so I am not giving you mine’.
“It was their call. It was up to them. But I rest very comfortable knowing my principles were never compromised and every decision was made was to actually give St Kilda a chance to achieve something that it has only achieved once in its history.”
MORE SACKED:
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saynta
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Re: Watters
Never mentioned the WA guy he hired as an assistant without club approval or the full forward draft reject he also recruited from WA. Flog.
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tedtheodorelogan2018
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Re: Watters
Seaford....what a disaster and setback. Plus the expansion teams draft concessions.
Thank god it's all over. I now like where the Saints are heading.
Thank god it's all over. I now like where the Saints are heading.
Posters that have admitted they were wrong about Hanna's gastro and the club didn't create a cover story.
Total = 1.
Total = 1.
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DownAtTheJunction
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Re: Watters
I believe Scott Watters was very poorly treated. I never heard him undermining his players, but to have him denigrated and humiliated is a stain on our history. There are opportunities for players to voice an opinion, but it needs to be given with respect. The Board failed Watters by not upholding the basic standards a coach should expect. This is not a comment on his abilities as a coach, although he clearly has support outside our club.spert wrote: ↑Wed 31 Jul 2019 11:02am He walked into a wreck and I wouldn't have taken on the job if I was him. I have spoken to dads of a couple of young players in the past who played under him, and the young guys liked him, but apparently some of the older players egos were so huge and were not prepared to be told how to do anything after failing in the finals campaigns under Lyon, and continually sooked to the directors and whoever would listen, so that was pretty much the end of Watters. It was a typical tail St Kilda wagging the dog scenario that has hounded the club in its history and has resulted in years of no premierships.
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prwilkinson
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Re: Watters
The whole 00’s era was a missed opportunity for the club and Pelican and Watters in are what you tend end up with when you don’t make any sort of positive long term administrative planning for the club and the list.
We put everything on red to win a flag and spun up black.... now it’s 2019 and the light might only just be appearing at the end of the tunnel.
We put everything on red to win a flag and spun up black.... now it’s 2019 and the light might only just be appearing at the end of the tunnel.
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saynta
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bigred
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Re: Watters
oh ok.
Sorry Scott.
Sorry Scott.
"Now the ball is loose, it gives St. Kilda a rough chance. Black. Good handpass. Voss. Schwarze now, the defender, can run and from a long way".....
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saynta
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Re: Watters
Watters puts more s*** on the club who gave him a coaching chance.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/ ... 5bb86abc13
"Scott Watters says Saints were in ‘receivership’ and $220,000 over salary cap after 2011 flag tilt
Scott Watters says he walked into a financial basket case after he took over from Ross Lyon, with the club unable to spend a dollar and losing four key players as it tried to rejuvenate the list.
Jon Ralph and Glenn McFarlane, Herald Sun
July 31, 2019 7:41am
Scott Watters says he inherited a basket-case at the Saints.
Scott Watters inherited a list management disaster with St Kilda $220,000 over the salary cap and effectively in “receivership” only days after he took over from Ross Lyon in late 2011.
In the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast series, Watters reveals the list management fiasco he and football boss Chris Pelchen attempted to fix after Lyon moved to Fremantle.
Then-Pies assistant Watters took on the role despite being warned by Collingwood list manager Derek Hine it had secured the least top-10 picks in a decade and retained the fewest of them.
S
They were told by the AFL they were legally unable to spend an extra cent on retaining players, after a set of bizarre contracts that saw one-off $50,000 All Australian bonuses then added to the ongoing base of contracts in subsequent years.
St Kilda eventually moved on Brendon Goddard, Nick Dal Santo and Ben McEvoy in a list fire-sale..
Watters admitted the decision to offer Goddard only a three-year deal, which saw him leave for Essendon, was the right policy but was “really destabilising for the club”.
But despite being warned by Hine as he left the Pies, he was still shocked by the mess left by previous administrations.
“I spoke to Derek Hine, saying ‘I am thinking of putting my hand up’ and said ‘What are you thinking about the list?’ and the term he used I couldn’t use here on the podcast.
“Something I didn’t know walking into that role is that three days after walking in, we were $220,000 over the salary cap.
“I was driving to a meeting with Chris Pelchen and we were trying to re-sign (full back) Zac Dawson.
“At the time he was the only thing that resembled a key defender on our list. Zac wanted $35,000 more a season and we were basically in receivership. Under jurisdiction from the AFL, not one more player on the list could be offered one dollar more.
“Looking at the balance of a list, you would like to keep a key defender. The last thing I want to do is sit here and bash St Kilda, but good clubs make good decisions at all levels and ultimately it flows through to a winning performance. It gives the players a chance and the coach a chance. There is no mystery to how that happens.
The Saints couldn’t afford Zac Dawson.
“One of the phenomenal things you learn when you are three days into the job and you are thinking about that salary cap issue is that players were actually getting … if you finished top five in the fairest and best, you would get a $50,000 bonus, but then that bonus would actually become part of your base package the following year, so over a five-year to 10-year period that is what caused (the issues) … that is mismanagement, that is blatant mismanagement and it takes a long time to backtrack from that.”
Watters was sacked at the end of 2013 by St Kilda, but his prophecy came true.
Despite a series of inventive trades the Saints have not played finals since 2011 and have enjoyed only one winning season in the past six years.
Lyon left the club at the end of 2012 for Fremantle, saying the club was failing to commit to recontracting him and citing his own financial issues for the need to secure a long-term deal.
Watters believed the club failed to communicate its list management issues adequately, which only shocked the fan base more when the club moved on McEvoy and Goddard to revamp the list.
“We won 12 games in the first year but we were winning those games with a list that was declining,” he said.
“It had been declining since 2009 in reality, even though St Kilda nearly pinched the Grand Final. It’s easy to analyse the demographics of a list and see where it’s trending.
“So we won 12 games, but you could see the cliff was coming. I remember having a conversation with Chris Pelchen and (chief executive) Michael Nettlefold saying, ‘Here is what is coming. It might be in six or 16 games but it’s impossible to avoid and we need to articulate that clearly’.
“Michael’s statement was that we can’t tell the members that, we will lose members. My response was ‘That’s fine, but it’s coming anyway’.”
Scott Watters: “We won 12 games in the first year but we were winning those games with a list that was declining.”
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/ ... 5bb86abc13
"Scott Watters says Saints were in ‘receivership’ and $220,000 over salary cap after 2011 flag tilt
Scott Watters says he walked into a financial basket case after he took over from Ross Lyon, with the club unable to spend a dollar and losing four key players as it tried to rejuvenate the list.
Jon Ralph and Glenn McFarlane, Herald Sun
July 31, 2019 7:41am
Scott Watters says he inherited a basket-case at the Saints.
Scott Watters inherited a list management disaster with St Kilda $220,000 over the salary cap and effectively in “receivership” only days after he took over from Ross Lyon in late 2011.
In the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast series, Watters reveals the list management fiasco he and football boss Chris Pelchen attempted to fix after Lyon moved to Fremantle.
Then-Pies assistant Watters took on the role despite being warned by Collingwood list manager Derek Hine it had secured the least top-10 picks in a decade and retained the fewest of them.
S
They were told by the AFL they were legally unable to spend an extra cent on retaining players, after a set of bizarre contracts that saw one-off $50,000 All Australian bonuses then added to the ongoing base of contracts in subsequent years.
St Kilda eventually moved on Brendon Goddard, Nick Dal Santo and Ben McEvoy in a list fire-sale..
Watters admitted the decision to offer Goddard only a three-year deal, which saw him leave for Essendon, was the right policy but was “really destabilising for the club”.
But despite being warned by Hine as he left the Pies, he was still shocked by the mess left by previous administrations.
“I spoke to Derek Hine, saying ‘I am thinking of putting my hand up’ and said ‘What are you thinking about the list?’ and the term he used I couldn’t use here on the podcast.
“Something I didn’t know walking into that role is that three days after walking in, we were $220,000 over the salary cap.
“I was driving to a meeting with Chris Pelchen and we were trying to re-sign (full back) Zac Dawson.
“At the time he was the only thing that resembled a key defender on our list. Zac wanted $35,000 more a season and we were basically in receivership. Under jurisdiction from the AFL, not one more player on the list could be offered one dollar more.
“Looking at the balance of a list, you would like to keep a key defender. The last thing I want to do is sit here and bash St Kilda, but good clubs make good decisions at all levels and ultimately it flows through to a winning performance. It gives the players a chance and the coach a chance. There is no mystery to how that happens.
The Saints couldn’t afford Zac Dawson.
“One of the phenomenal things you learn when you are three days into the job and you are thinking about that salary cap issue is that players were actually getting … if you finished top five in the fairest and best, you would get a $50,000 bonus, but then that bonus would actually become part of your base package the following year, so over a five-year to 10-year period that is what caused (the issues) … that is mismanagement, that is blatant mismanagement and it takes a long time to backtrack from that.”
Watters was sacked at the end of 2013 by St Kilda, but his prophecy came true.
Despite a series of inventive trades the Saints have not played finals since 2011 and have enjoyed only one winning season in the past six years.
Lyon left the club at the end of 2012 for Fremantle, saying the club was failing to commit to recontracting him and citing his own financial issues for the need to secure a long-term deal.
Watters believed the club failed to communicate its list management issues adequately, which only shocked the fan base more when the club moved on McEvoy and Goddard to revamp the list.
“We won 12 games in the first year but we were winning those games with a list that was declining,” he said.
“It had been declining since 2009 in reality, even though St Kilda nearly pinched the Grand Final. It’s easy to analyse the demographics of a list and see where it’s trending.
“So we won 12 games, but you could see the cliff was coming. I remember having a conversation with Chris Pelchen and (chief executive) Michael Nettlefold saying, ‘Here is what is coming. It might be in six or 16 games but it’s impossible to avoid and we need to articulate that clearly’.
“Michael’s statement was that we can’t tell the members that, we will lose members. My response was ‘That’s fine, but it’s coming anyway’.”
Scott Watters: “We won 12 games in the first year but we were winning those games with a list that was declining.”
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suss
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Re: Watters
None of the things he said would surprise me. I'm not sure whether he was the right or wrong person for the job but we were a shambles at that point, a complete and utter mess. He was stupid to do that interview and stupid to play Saad without telling anybody but I'm not sure they're worth sacking him over.
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saynta
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Re: Watters
He also hired a mate from the west without telling the saints, when he never had the power to hire or fire.suss wrote: ↑Wed 31 Jul 2019 12:41pm None of the things he said would surprise me. I'm not sure whether he was the right or wrong person for the job but we were a shambles at that point, a complete and utter mess. He was stupid to do that interview and stupid to play Saad without telling anybody but I'm not sure they're worth sacking him over.
A sacking offense imho.
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Saintmatt
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Re: Watters
Ummmm - I'll give you two. Lockett and Winmar being able to do pretty much anything and everything on their terms in the late 80's / early 90's ...BarryGrogan wrote: ↑Wed 31 Jul 2019 11:05amI hear that a bit, but am not sure of the other examples that make it 'typical'?
Go you red, black & white warriors
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Saintmatt
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BarryGrogan
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Re: Watters
Didn't all star players do whatever they wanted at all clubs during the 80s and 90s though?Saintmatt wrote: ↑Wed 31 Jul 2019 1:23pmUmmmm - I'll give you two. Lockett and Winmar being able to do pretty much anything and everything on their terms in the late 80's / early 90's ...BarryGrogan wrote: ↑Wed 31 Jul 2019 11:05amI hear that a bit, but am not sure of the other examples that make it 'typical'?
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Scollop
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Re: Watters
Pissweak board. Pissweak administritation.saynta wrote: ↑Wed 31 Jul 2019 12:24pm Watters puts more s*** on the club who gave him a coaching chance.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/ ... 5bb86abc13
"Scott Watters says Saints were in ‘receivership’ and $220,000 over salary cap after 2011 flag tilt
Scott Watters says he walked into a financial basket case after he took over from Ross Lyon, with the club unable to spend a dollar and losing four key players as it tried to rejuvenate the list.
Jon Ralph and Glenn McFarlane, Herald Sun
July 31, 2019 7:41am
Scott Watters says he inherited a basket-case at the Saints.
Scott Watters inherited a list management disaster with St Kilda $220,000 over the salary cap and effectively in “receivership” only days after he took over from Ross Lyon in late 2011.
In the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast series, Watters reveals the list management fiasco he and football boss Chris Pelchen attempted to fix after Lyon moved to Fremantle.
Then-Pies assistant Watters took on the role despite being warned by Collingwood list manager Derek Hine it had secured the least top-10 picks in a decade and retained the fewest of them.
S
They were told by the AFL they were legally unable to spend an extra cent on retaining players, after a set of bizarre contracts that saw one-off $50,000 All Australian bonuses then added to the ongoing base of contracts in subsequent years.
St Kilda eventually moved on Brendon Goddard, Nick Dal Santo and Ben McEvoy in a list fire-sale..
Watters admitted the decision to offer Goddard only a three-year deal, which saw him leave for Essendon, was the right policy but was “really destabilising for the club”.
But despite being warned by Hine as he left the Pies, he was still shocked by the mess left by previous administrations.
“I spoke to Derek Hine, saying ‘I am thinking of putting my hand up’ and said ‘What are you thinking about the list?’ and the term he used I couldn’t use here on the podcast.
“Something I didn’t know walking into that role is that three days after walking in, we were $220,000 over the salary cap.
“I was driving to a meeting with Chris Pelchen and we were trying to re-sign (full back) Zac Dawson.
“At the time he was the only thing that resembled a key defender on our list. Zac wanted $35,000 more a season and we were basically in receivership. Under jurisdiction from the AFL, not one more player on the list could be offered one dollar more.
“Looking at the balance of a list, you would like to keep a key defender. The last thing I want to do is sit here and bash St Kilda, but good clubs make good decisions at all levels and ultimately it flows through to a winning performance. It gives the players a chance and the coach a chance. There is no mystery to how that happens.
The Saints couldn’t afford Zac Dawson.
“One of the phenomenal things you learn when you are three days into the job and you are thinking about that salary cap issue is that players were actually getting … if you finished top five in the fairest and best, you would get a $50,000 bonus, but then that bonus would actually become part of your base package the following year, so over a five-year to 10-year period that is what caused (the issues) … that is mismanagement, that is blatant mismanagement and it takes a long time to backtrack from that.”
Watters was sacked at the end of 2013 by St Kilda, but his prophecy came true.
Despite a series of inventive trades the Saints have not played finals since 2011 and have enjoyed only one winning season in the past six years.
Lyon left the club at the end of 2012 for Fremantle, saying the club was failing to commit to recontracting him and citing his own financial issues for the need to secure a long-term deal.
Watters believed the club failed to communicate its list management issues adequately, which only shocked the fan base more when the club moved on McEvoy and Goddard to revamp the list.
“We won 12 games in the first year but we were winning those games with a list that was declining,” he said.
“It had been declining since 2009 in reality, even though St Kilda nearly pinched the Grand Final. It’s easy to analyse the demographics of a list and see where it’s trending.
“So we won 12 games, but you could see the cliff was coming. I remember having a conversation with Chris Pelchen and (chief executive) Michael Nettlefold saying, ‘Here is what is coming. It might be in six or 16 games but it’s impossible to avoid and we need to articulate that clearly’.
“Michael’s statement was that we can’t tell the members that, we will lose members. My response was ‘That’s fine, but it’s coming anyway’.”
Scott Watters: “We won 12 games in the first year but we were winning those games with a list that was declining.”
Greed personified by players and their managers
This is why Geelong, Sydney and Hawthorn had sustained succes and St Kilda fell offf a cliff and got yet another wooden spoon four years after being in a Grand Final
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Legendary
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Re: Watters
Funny how Watters spent two years after he was sacked trying to get a job at another AFL club... none of them would take him.
Who do you think is a better judge of character, Lenny Hayes or Scott Watters? Lenny thought Watters was an imbecile.
Let's face it, the guy was in the same category as Mark Neeld. They inhabited the Malthouse aura for a period of time and used it to leverage senior AFL coaching jobs. Both were a disaster.
Having said that, I agree completely that the Board and administration were also hopeless in this period and should accept the blame for what transpired. Westaway was really a complete disaster and this was only masked by our on-field success thanks to Lyon and the players.
Who do you think is a better judge of character, Lenny Hayes or Scott Watters? Lenny thought Watters was an imbecile.
Let's face it, the guy was in the same category as Mark Neeld. They inhabited the Malthouse aura for a period of time and used it to leverage senior AFL coaching jobs. Both were a disaster.
Having said that, I agree completely that the Board and administration were also hopeless in this period and should accept the blame for what transpired. Westaway was really a complete disaster and this was only masked by our on-field success thanks to Lyon and the players.
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Scollop
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Re: Watters
We saw how the Richmond hierarchy renogitaiated the player contracts to make space in their cap to accommodate Tom Lynch from the Gold Coast and we saw it at Geelong and Hawthorn and at Essendon last year with Shiel.
I heard Roo talk about the circumstances leading up to the decision to trade BJ and Roo reckons the club should have asked ALL the guys on big coin to take pay cuts. Roo said last year or earlier this year on Foxfooty that the club didn't approach the players with a proposal to renogotiate contracts and hence BJ departed and the club decided to do a full rebuild.
That is a cop out from him (as the captain of the club) because if he was genuinely interested in keeping BJ then why didn't Roo find a solution, take the initiative by personally taking a pay cut and encourage the core group to stay together by following his lead?!!
The player's' greed and the incompetence by members of Saints admins and Saints boards is the lesson to be learnt here. The players didn't want Watters sacked because they had a better plan to rebuild the team and make St Kilda a finals contender...they wanted him sacked to save their arses and hold on to their paycheques as long as possible
I heard Roo talk about the circumstances leading up to the decision to trade BJ and Roo reckons the club should have asked ALL the guys on big coin to take pay cuts. Roo said last year or earlier this year on Foxfooty that the club didn't approach the players with a proposal to renogotiate contracts and hence BJ departed and the club decided to do a full rebuild.
That is a cop out from him (as the captain of the club) because if he was genuinely interested in keeping BJ then why didn't Roo find a solution, take the initiative by personally taking a pay cut and encourage the core group to stay together by following his lead?!!
The player's' greed and the incompetence by members of Saints admins and Saints boards is the lesson to be learnt here. The players didn't want Watters sacked because they had a better plan to rebuild the team and make St Kilda a finals contender...they wanted him sacked to save their arses and hold on to their paycheques as long as possible