The final 22 doesn’t matter

[The_Dud]

Round 19, 2009, the Saints went down to Tassie to play the reigning premiers with no Riewoldt, X Clarke, Hayes, Baker, Montagna, Goddard, Gilbert, S Fisher, L Fisher, Dal Santo or Maguire…

...and won.

Not because of the names playing (or not), but because of the effort and desire the 22 that were on the field showed.

I know some fans (hopefully not anyone at the club) want to use the inbuilt excuse of who is missing as a reason to accept a loss before the ball is even bounced. BUT if the 22 who do play put in the same kind of effort as those 22 did down in Tassie, the game is easily winnable.

Just rolling over and accepting a loss is the worse thing the club could do, and absolutely unacceptable.

[shanegrambeau]

I am triggered!!!!

I hated that.

That was the beginning of the end as far as i was concerned.

Complete arrogance by Mr. Lyon that one. Or some other foolish detour from sanity.

We were never the same.

Came back and got done by Essendon. A week or two later, by North. Our unblemished year was soiled. Our gravy was contaminated. Our grapes went a tad sour.

[The_Dud]

Yeah, ignore what happened the following 2 weeks, focus on the win!

[samuraisaint]

In 1984, the club put a scheme of arrangement to it's many debtors to stay in business. To pay 7 cents in the dollar for their outstanding debts. Stone motherless last, the players had to play the Swans in Sydney the day before the club found out whether it would be accepted or not, and the club potentially being wound up and the players without a team to play in. On a hiding to nothing.
Nek minnit ...

[shanegrambeau]

In 1984, the club put a scheme of arrangement to it's many debtors to stay in business. To pay 7 cents in the dollar for their outstanding debts. Stone motherless last, the players had to play the Swans in Sydney the day before the club found out whether it would be accepted or not, and the club potentially being wound up and the players without a team to play in. On a hiding to nothing.
Nek minnit ...

Nice on Samurai!

良い選択！！ナイスキャッチ！
We won!! In Sydney! In front of 12 people!

And next week it was business as usual!
We lost by 104 points!

i can't believe how young the list we had then was...and it was remarkable in that it was full of 22 year olds with grand father Barker at 28 years old very, very old campaigner by comparison.

[Munga]

Love Plugger. Just stay out of his way...

[Scollop]

I am triggered!!!!

I hated that.

That was the beginning of the end as far as i was concerned.

Complete arrogance by Mr. Lyon that one. Or some other foolish detour from sanity.

We were never the same.

Came back and got done by Essendon. A week or two later, by North. Our unblemished year was soiled. Our gravy was contaminated. Our grapes went a tad sour.

The players aren't machines. Even those robots that run 24/7 have down time for maintenance. You don't thrash your Ferrari if you're clearly in front and you've only got a few laps to go.

So ..YES he had to rest them, but the issue was the timing. Why leave it so late? What are you afraid of? Losing the McLellan Cup?

Who cares about home and away wins anyway!!? I know I certainly didn't after 15 wins from 15 games in 2009. I wanted Lyon to rest our stars from Rnd 15 or 16 onwards. We would have still secured top spot or second spot. I'm sure we would have won a couple more games out of 6. Resting them at round 19 was a tad too late in my opinion because they needed to rebuild momentum. It was also messing with the line up too much and too many changes to the line up in consecutive weeks

We lost momentum when it was ALL within the coaches control and we went into finals without our best players in top form. We were easily the best performed team of 2009 and the fact that we just got over the line in the prelim (when we smashed the Dogs in the H&A rounds) is proof of that. Our best players did not perform on GF day as well as they did in home and away.

The problem with most simple supporters is they don't delve under the surface. They don't think beyond what they've seen before and what they are told to think.

People were telling me; "You don't mess with form"and all sorts of similar cliched crap. Righto...ok!! So was Rooy or Kossie or Gardiner or Lennie or BJ or Gramm or Nicky Dal all of a sudden going to be shite players after a 2 week rest are they? Well...let's assume that they're form is crap for 2 or 3 weeks!! That's exactly why they should have been rested earlier than round 19 and we should have managed a rotation of our stars over a 3-4 week period from round 16 through to round 20.

This was the era just before the AFL introduced the mid season bye. This was the era before there were byes before the finals.

Why do you think they introduced so many byes? The game has changed and it's more taxing on players with high speed collisions and more running than ever before. The players association demanded the mid season byes.

Everyone praises Ross Lyon for his coaching but I think he has always been a follower rather than an innovator. He went with what he knew and what he learned from the likes of Walls, Pagan, Leigh Matthews and Paul Roos. That's why he quotes these guys so much whenever he talks footy. He didn't plan to win a Grand Final in round 15 or 16 of 2009 when we had our best chance to land a second premiership

[B.M]

Yes,

Armitage was BOG with 3 Brownlow votes

Three weeks later, he was dropped because he was young and hadn’t done his 4 year apprenticeship?!

Baffling?!?!

[Vortex]

A team that has won enough games to ensure a top 4 position generally goes into a 4 week loading phase with their training. Hence pulling stars and sacrificing some losses due to sore and tired players during the loading phase. Melbourne will enter that phase shortly if they continue winning for another 4 to 6 weeks.

Why are we comparing a 2009 team with the 2021 team...apples and lychees.

[SaintPav]

Yes,

Armitage was BOG with 3 Brownlow votes

Three weeks later, he was dropped because he was young and hadn’t done his 4 year apprenticeship?!

Baffling?!?!

I thought he suffered an injury?

[saynta]

Yes,

Armitage was BOG with 3 Brownlow votes

Three weeks later, he was dropped because he was young and hadn’t done his 4 year apprenticeship?!

Baffling?!?!

I thought he suffered an injury?

No I think that was bulls*** spread by that turd Lyin.

I remember Armo and Jack Steven out on the ground earlier on the day having a kick. Both looked fine to me. It was just that the flog we had for a coach at the time didn't like playing kids.

[B.M]

He was absolutely fine

He was an emergency

He was dropped after R21

Played VFL the next week

[StPeter]

I will never forgive Lyon for playing McQualter in the finals in 2009 and in 2010 along with Eddy (2010) ahead of players like Armitage, Stephen and Geary.

It cost us 2 premierships along with his treatment of Ball. He as much admitted his mistake by dropping McQualter and Eddy from the list a year later.

[CURLY]

I will never forgive Lyon for playing McQualter in the finals in 2009 and in 2010 along with Eddy (2010) ahead of players like Armitage, Stephen and Geary.

It cost us 2 premierships along with his treatment of Ball. He as much admitted his mistake by dropping McQualter and Eddy from the list a year later.

McQualter was very good in 2009. Eddy should never have played in 2010.

[saynta]

I will never forgive Lyon for playing McQualter in the finals in 2009 and in 2010 along with Eddy (2010) ahead of players like Armitage, Stephen and Geary.

It cost us 2 premierships along with his treatment of Ball. He as much admitted his mistake by dropping McQualter and Eddy from the list a year later.

Yep

[saynta]

I will never forgive Lyon for playing McQualter in the finals in 2009 and in 2010 along with Eddy (2010) ahead of players like Armitage, Stephen and Geary.

It cost us 2 premierships along with his treatment of Ball. He as much admitted his mistake by dropping McQualter and Eddy from the list a year later.

McQualter was very good in 2009. Eddy should never have played in 2010.

Eddy had broken bones in the second grannie and that prick Lyin still played him

[B.M]

Mini was definitely good in 2009

Part of the ‘frontal pressure’ game plan devised by Ross an early version of the pressure forward. He was a neat player with neat skills

Plus I think he snared 20 odd goals in 2009

He did however miss a crucial goal in the GF from 15m out

In 2010 his form waned, he really didn’t deserve a spot ahead of Steven IMO

I am not sure Eddy even played in 2009?

[saynta]

Mini was definitely good in 2009

Part of the ‘frontal pressure’ game plan devised by Ross an early version of the pressure forward. He was a neat player with neat skills

Plus I think he snared 20 odd goals in 2009

He did however miss a crucial goal in the GF from 15m out

In 2010 his form waned, he really didn’t deserve a spot ahead of Steven IMO

I am not sure Eddy even played in 2009?

He certainly played Eddy in 2010 when he should not have IMHFO.