How did this team finish 6th?

[shanegrambeau]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

[BarryGrogan]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

My view at the time was, that we were cooked.

Not finished as such - but we clearly needed a reset. We had a core that was entering its prime, but changes were required around them.

I think Thomas knew that too. He talked of exiting Harvey out, spoke of getting rid of Milne etc.

But whether Thomas could have reset the side as well as Lyon did - who knows?

Maybe he would have done it better. Maybe he wasn't capable of it?


The thing that I do feel strongly about, is that he built that side really well, and had them on the trajectory to be genuine flag competitors in 05-07.

And contrary to other opinions, I believe it was injuries alone that prevented that from happening.


Lyon however, reset the team really well and had them contending again - but I believe the failure to win a flag in 09-11 was a direct result of poor coaching and a clearly flawed strategy.

[Secret Kiel]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

My view at the time was, that we were cooked.

Not finished as such - but we clearly needed a reset. We had a core that was entering its prime, but changes were required around them.

I think Thomas knew that too. He talked of exiting Harvey out, spoke of getting rid of Milne etc.

But whether Thomas could have reset the side as well as Lyon did - who knows?

Maybe he would have done it better. Maybe he wasn't capable of it?


The thing that I do feel strongly about, is that he built that side really well, and had them on the trajectory to be genuine flag competitors in 05-07.

And contrary to other opinions, I believe it was injuries alone that prevented that from happening.


Lyon however, reset the team really well and had them contending again - but I believe the failure to win a flag in 09-11 was a direct result of poor coaching and a clearly flawed strategy.

That 06 team was a very good team and as usual we were cruelled by issues with player availability.

The 05-06 team was arguably better than the 09-10 team and as always our missed chances had very little to do with who the coaches were at the time.

I found both teams and eras were very entertaining.

[Joffa Burns]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

Interesting comments, the first thing a family member was told when he entered the AIS was there are those who do and those who make excuses, if you are the latter you'd be better off packing your things and going home now.

In my humble experience this carries through into all aspects of life, there are those who get the job done and those who make excuses.

Never explain & never complain!

WCE won the flag in 2018 without Nic Nat & Gaff (arguably their best two players) and Sheppard all out with McGovern & Shuey both under injury cloud leading into the game.

Each to their own Barry, I prefer to look at performance, others prefer to make excuses, each to their own!

[Joffa Burns]

Lyon however, reset the team really well and had them contending again - but I believe the failure to win a flag in 09-11 was a direct result of poor coaching and a clearly flawed strategy.

You make an art form of contradicting yourself Barry

[BarryGrogan]

Each to their own Barry, I prefer to look at performance, others prefer to make excuses, each to their own!

If you're looking purely at the performance, then we didn't perform well enough to finish above 6th on the ladder.

Fact.


But you posed the question as to why.

The very premise of this thread is to provide reasons as to why we only finished 6th isnt it?

[BarryGrogan]

Lyon however, reset the team really well and had them contending again - but I believe the failure to win a flag in 09-11 was a direct result of poor coaching and a clearly flawed strategy.

You make an art form of contradicting yourself Barry

It is a contradiction. But contradictions are common in sport.


Lyon's strategy, combined with the cattle at his disposal, was clearly good enough to win enough games to make the finals.
It was solid enough, and dour enough to make the Grand Final on three separate occasions. Obviously.

But you have to win Grand Finals. You can't defend, defend, defend until the opposition cracks. They rarely crack on Grand Final Day.

You need to score.

There's been plenty of good tennis players who can grind an opponent out by getting the ball back. It wins them enough matches make it deep into Grand Slams.

But you don't win Grand Slams unless you can hit winners.

The Melbourne Cup is won by horses that can sprint. Yes they need to run 3200m strongly - but the dour ones although they are competitive and always finish in the prizemoney, will always be left behind by the ones with a turn of foot.

Lyon's teams weren't coached to hit winners. They were coached to get the ball back and keep doing it until the opposition caved in.

The signs were there that we scoring problems. We kicked 100+ points in 6 of the first 7 games in 09. We then only did it another 6 times for thr remainder of the year.

That's unusual for a team that won all bar 2 games.

We then went 80, 60 and 68 in the finals. It wasn't a shock we couldn't score in the GF. it had been an issue for a while.


The irony is though, that after half-time in 2010 he actually mixed it up and rolled the dice. We started hitting winners and were steam rolling them. We clearly had it in us.

But alas, the very next week in GF2 he reverted to Plan A from the opening bounce and we got wallopped.

[samoht]

Interesting post, BarryGrogan.
Under SW in 2012, even though we were a team in decline and definitely in the rebuild phase, we at least started to score more freely and our % went up considerably - our rapid decline under RL was arrested somewhat in 2012 (in terms of games won and lost, at least).

We scored 2347 points in 2012 vs 1891 in 2011 ....and our % went up approx. 10.5% - it's a big difference.

Maybe the much-maligned SW was the coach we needed in 2009 and 2010 - we might have had a chance to kick a winning score - who's to say?


Pos Team P W D L For Agn %

6 St Kilda 22 12 1 9 1891 1677 112.8 ... 2011 season under RL

9 St Kilda 22 12 0 10 2347 1903 123.33 ... 2012 season under SW

[skeptic]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

To me it’s a fascinating question with no obvious answer.
We needed to reload. From 05, we lost Jones, Penny... Hamil was down, Gehrig wasn’t the peak Gehrig, Ackland was a huge disappointment in that second year.

We needed a mini-rebuild.
New ruck the priority... pbly needed a decent mid too.

What GT would have done I don’t know. Doubt he would have taken Clarke, Gardiner or King but he needed something
Answer to that question... not that you can know, would tell us a lot.
The prospect of moving Milne on whilst not a move I love, tells me that he was at least considering making some moves which is something.

[shanegrambeau]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

To me it’s a fascinating question with no obvious answer.
We needed to reload. From 05, we lost Jones, Penny... Hamil was down, Gehrig wasn’t the peak Gehrig, Ackland was a huge disappointment in that second year.

We needed a mini-rebuild.
New ruck the priority... pbly needed a decent mid too.

What GT would have done I don’t know. Doubt he would have taken Clarke, Gardiner or King but he needed something
Answer to that question... not that you can know, would tell us a lot.
The prospect of moving Milne on whilst not a move I love, tells me that he was at least considering making some moves which is something.

Milney!
GT made noise about moving him on! Just remembered that now. Was he being serious? Or just using a bit of his classic Thommo two bob psychology?
Geez...to think of it.
That's one thing I was pleased with about RL. He wasn't an idealist like GT. He was usually really pragmatic and a hard nosed realist. Win the game no matter if you score 1.3 in the last. Milney did really well with RL. and he wasn't that young either.

[skeptic]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

To me it’s a fascinating question with no obvious answer.
We needed to reload. From 05, we lost Jones, Penny... Hamil was down, Gehrig wasn’t the peak Gehrig, Ackland was a huge disappointment in that second year.

We needed a mini-rebuild.
New ruck the priority... pbly needed a decent mid too.

What GT would have done I don’t know. Doubt he would have taken Clarke, Gardiner or King but he needed something
Answer to that question... not that you can know, would tell us a lot.
The prospect of moving Milne on whilst not a move I love, tells me that he was at least considering making some moves which is something.

Milney!
GT made noise about moving him on! Just remembered that now. Was he being serious? Or just using a bit of his classic Thommo two bob psychology?
Geez...to think of it.
That's one thing I was pleased with about RL. He wasn't an idealist like GT. He was usually really pragmatic and a hard nosed realist. Win the game no matter if you score 1.3 in the last. Milney did really well with RL. and he wasn't that young either.

I wonder about it though. I loved Milney as a player and his ability to goal against play but...
The knock on Milne was his ability to perform in finals. Don’t remember him doing much in GT’s prelims or any GF.

Maybe he was ahead of the curve on that one?

[shanegrambeau]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

When you say that, makes me wonder.
Where do you think we could have finished in '07 and '08 if GT had stayed on, regardless of who the president and staff were?

To me it’s a fascinating question with no obvious answer.
We needed to reload. From 05, we lost Jones, Penny... Hamil was down, Gehrig wasn’t the peak Gehrig, Ackland was a huge disappointment in that second year.

We needed a mini-rebuild.
New ruck the priority... pbly needed a decent mid too.

What GT would have done I don’t know. Doubt he would have taken Clarke, Gardiner or King but he needed something
Answer to that question... not that you can know, would tell us a lot.
The prospect of moving Milne on whilst not a move I love, tells me that he was at least considering making some moves which is something.

Milney!
GT made noise about moving him on! Just remembered that now. Was he being serious? Or just using a bit of his classic Thommo two bob psychology?
Geez...to think of it.
That's one thing I was pleased with about RL. He wasn't an idealist like GT. He was usually really pragmatic and a hard nosed realist. Win the game no matter if you score 1.3 in the last. Milney did really well with RL. and he wasn't that young either.

I wonder about it though. I loved Milney as a player and his ability to goal against play but...
The knock on Milne was his ability to perform in finals. Don’t remember him doing much in GT’s prelims or any GF.

Maybe he was ahead of the curve on that one?

yeah, but meah, I know but there are quite a few great stars that don't trigger in a final, and people are quick to scapegoat 'em for it. There are so few finals and especially for a finesse player like Milne, playing in as a small forward, easy for him to have a quiet one. Unfortunately, mistakes and misses are magnified. RIP poor Shanners in '97 when Jarman turned him around. But even when MIlney wasn't doing his magic, he tied up someone. Wasn't until his second last season that he started to look heavy and slow. I think he slimmed down again at the very end.

[asiu]

i remember hearing milney speak of that
... he believed he was gawn but gt got the arse first

[saintspremiers]

Milney I reckon was forced into early retirement due to the rapist thing

[freely]

Milney I reckon was forced into early retirement due to the rapist thing

Yeah. Rapist things will do that.

[CURLY]

Milney I reckon was forced into early retirement due to the rapist thing

Driven by a Collingwood mafia led media. Ed and Tony Jones should be ashamed of what they did.

[Darth Vader]

Interesting post, BarryGrogan.
Under SW in 2012, even though we were a team in decline and definitely in the rebuild phase, we at least started to score more freely and our % went up considerably - our rapid decline under RL was arrested somewhat in 2012 (in terms of games won and lost, at least).

We scored 2347 points in 2012 vs 1891 in 2011 ....and our % went up approx. 10.5% - it's a big difference.

Maybe the much-maligned SW was the coach we needed in 2009 and 2010 - we might have had a chance to kick a winning score - who's to say?


Pos Team P W D L For Agn %

6 St Kilda 22 12 1 9 1891 1677 112.8 ... 2011 season under RL

9 St Kilda 22 12 0 10 2347 1903 123.33 ... 2012 season under SW

Questionable. Experienced team, finals-hardened was able to flat-track bully the new teams (GC & GWS) which led to inflated results, but not good enough anymore against the better teams.

[samoht]

Questionable. Experienced team, finals-hardened was able to flat-track bully the new teams (GC & GWS) which led to inflated results, but not good enough anymore against the better teams.

Up to a point, I suppose. We only played against GWS once, by the way, and Gold Coast and GWS (who finished last) were flat-track- bullied by every other team in 2012.

Here's the other teams who finished ahead of us in 2012 ... we had the 5th best % that year - significantly better than Collingwood's who finished 4th and almost on par with WCE's %, who finished 5th.
Our "For" score was 4th best in 2012.
Have a look at Freo's "For" under RL, a team which finished 2 spots higher in 2012 --- we kicked about 400 points more over 22 games ... about 3 goals more per game.

The point I wanted to make is (and the thing is - I don't care about any of the past coaches) we can look at stats and garner whatever "facts" we want to support a bias, and ignore other facts that don't suit us.

In 2012 the case can be made that SW “proved to be” a better coach than RL - if I wanted to make that case.
That's why I always put a question mark at the end.

The point I'm trying to make is - there's no point comparing one coach to another coach - because you can't. It's never an even playing field - there's too many variables to tease out one coach's performance vs another.


Pos Team P W D L For Agn Stk Chg Pts %
1 Hawthorn 22 17 0 5 2679 1733 4W - 68 154.59
2 Adelaide 22 17 0 5 2428 1833 2W U1 68 132.46
3 Sydney 22 16 0 6 2290 1629 2L D1 64 140.58
4 Collingwood 22 16 0 6 2123 1823 1W U1 64 116.46
5 West Coast 22 15 0 7 2244 1807 1L D1 60 124.18
6 Geelong 22 15 0 7 2209 1886 3W - 60 117.13
7 Fremantle 22 14 0 8 1956 1691 3W - 56 115.67
8 North Melbourne 22 14 0 8 2359 2097 1W - 56 112.49
9 St Kilda 22 12 0 10 2347 1903 2W - 48 123.33

[skeptic]

Milney I reckon was forced into early retirement due to the rapist thing

I don’t think so... to my recollection, GT was very staunch in his defence of Milney in that regard, at least publicly

I recall the story of when Milne and Montagna contacted him in the early hours to tell him what happened. He said something to the effect of he looked them in the eyes, told them to be completely honest and asked them what happened.
GT then said that their account never changed.

FWIW, I don’t think that’s it.

I reckon Milne fell under scrutiny from GT as being someone that didn’t fire in finals/under pressure at that time

[shanegrambeau]

...

I reckon Milne fell under scrutiny from GT as being someone that didn’t fire in finals/under pressure at that time

Yep, that's how I remember it. I don't know about the timeline of it all, but it was about finals pressure and output not the other thing. But MIlne was an opportunist type of player. That's why they called him tip-rat. He was a clever and skilled scanvenger. A player like that must be hard to coach in terms of teaching them that following structures goes before natural instinct. Gary Ablett snr. would have been hard like that too. I guess I am making a defence of MIlney.

Did Lyon ever drop MIlne? I think once perhaps. A few of them did that one or two weeks in the dog house didn't they.

[Darth Vader]

Questionable. Experienced team, finals-hardened was able to flat-track bully the new teams (GC & GWS) which led to inflated results, but not good enough anymore against the better teams.

Up to a point, I suppose. We only played against GWS once, by the way, and Gold Coast and GWS (who finished last) were flat-track- bullied by every other team in 2012.

Here's the other teams who finished ahead of us in 2012 ... we had the 5th best % that year - significantly better than Collingwood's who finished 4th and almost on par with WCE's %, who finished 5th.
Our "For" score was 4th best in 2012.
Have a look at Freo's "For" under RL, a team which finished 2 spots higher in 2012 --- we kicked about 400 points more over 22 games ... about 3 goals more per game.

The point I wanted to make is (and the thing is - I don't care about any of the past coaches) we can look at stats and garner whatever "facts" we want to support a bias, and ignore other facts that don't suit us.

In 2012 the case can be made that SW “proved to be” a better coach than RL - if I wanted to make that case.
That's why I always put a question mark at the end.

The point I'm trying to make is - there's no point comparing one coach to another coach - because you can't. It's never an even playing field - there's too many variables to tease out one coach's performance vs another.


Pos Team P W D L For Agn Stk Chg Pts %
1 Hawthorn 22 17 0 5 2679 1733 4W - 68 154.59
2 Adelaide 22 17 0 5 2428 1833 2W U1 68 132.46
3 Sydney 22 16 0 6 2290 1629 2L D1 64 140.58
4 Collingwood 22 16 0 6 2123 1823 1W U1 64 116.46
5 West Coast 22 15 0 7 2244 1807 1L D1 60 124.18
6 Geelong 22 15 0 7 2209 1886 3W - 60 117.13
7 Fremantle 22 14 0 8 1956 1691 3W - 56 115.67
8 North Melbourne 22 14 0 8 2359 2097 1W - 56 112.49
9 St Kilda 22 12 0 10 2347 1903 2W - 48 123.33

All good points. Looking at that ladder, it was a very weird year. Hard to imagine finishing with 12 wins and 123% and still missing the 8 by 2 games.

[perfectionist]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

Half a win in fact, given where the half might have come from.

The real issue with the list is that only one of the 6 either came back at all or came back to anything like his previous form. Take Martin and Rance (and a few others) out and the Tiges might have struggled to win in 2017. It's why their 2019 win was better.

[saynta]

Wasn't that the year that Kosi got knocked out and never recovered?

And Goose broke his leg?

And Hamill only played 9 games cause of his knee?

And Ball's OP restricted him to barely a jog?

And Penny retired before the season?

Oh, and Lenny did his knee.


After all that, still finished 1 win off 3rd spot.

Half a win in fact, given where the half might have come from.

The real issue with the list is that only one of the 6 either came back at all or came back to anything like his previous form. Take Martin and Rance (and a few others) out and the Tiges might have struggled to win in 2017. It's why their 2019 win was better.

Geez , we have rotten luck. Even this year when things were looking up, before this f****** virus hit.