The Reason We'll Be Bottom For A Few Years

[bergholt]

Everyone knows that there's exactly one reason we're going to lose consistently for a few years, and that's because we just don't have enough young players coming through. You can see that really well when you look at the experience brackets at the lower end of our list.


Less than 100 games:

Maister (27yo), Gwilt (26yo), Geary (24yo), Armitage (24yo), McEvoy (23yo), Steven (23yo), Roberton (21yo)

These guys by and large perform predictably and fairly well. None of them are superstars but certainly they've played enough games so that we know basically what we're going to get out of them. They've survived those first few seasons and they're now AFL players.


Less than 30 games:

Milera (25yo), Dennis-Lane (24yo), Saad (23yo), Simpkin (22yo), Stanley (22yo), Hickey (22yo), Siposs (20yo)

This group is really up and down. Some weeks will be good, some weeks will be just AFL standard, some weeks will be horrible. Once these guys have each played another season or so, we'll be in a much better position to get predictable performance out of them. (Or to have seen enough so that we can show them the door.)


Less than 10 games:

Dunell (22yo), Lee (22yo), Ledger (21yo), Newnes (20yo), Ross (19yo), Wright (19yo)

These guys might pop up for an OK performance once in a while but they've still got a heap of learning to do. It's probably two seasons until any of them will really start to hit their straps - if they make it that far.


Zero games:

Shenton (rookie, 23yo), Markworth (21yo), Curren (rookie, 20yo), Ferguson (rookie, 20yo), Lever (19yo), Webster (19yo), Staley (rookie, 19yo), Minchington (rookie, 19yo), Murdoch (19yo), Saunders (18yo), White (18yo), Pierce (18yo)

Much as we all like to hope, none of us have any real idea of what's going to come from this group. Most likely half of them won't play more than a couple of games, a few will get more of a chance and only one or two will be good enough to make it to 100 games.


We basically can't win if we've got too many inexperienced players in the side, because they're just not good enough yet. But also - we won't rebuild at all unless we get games into these young guys in the next couple of years. So we're going to lose plenty of games. Some of us seem to be only just realising this. Accept it, because otherwise stress will kill you and you won't see the next flag.

[plugger66]

Everyone knows that there's exactly one reason we're going to lose consistently for a few years, and that's because we just don't have enough young players coming through. You can see that really well when you look at the experience brackets at the lower end of our list.


Less than 100 games:

Maister (27yo), Gwilt (26yo), Geary (24yo), Armitage (24yo), McEvoy (23yo), Steven (23yo), Roberton (21yo)

These guys by and large perform predictably and fairly well. None of them are superstars but certainly they've played enough games so that we know basically what we're going to get out of them. They've survived those first few seasons and they're now AFL players.


Less than 30 games:

Milera (25yo), Dennis-Lane (24yo), Saad (23yo), Simpkin (22yo), Stanley (22yo), Hickey (22yo), Siposs (20yo)

This group is really up and down. Some weeks will be good, some weeks will be just AFL standard, some weeks will be horrible. Once these guys have each played another season or so, we'll be in a much better position to get predictable performance out of them. (Or to have seen enough so that we can show them the door.)


Less than 10 games:

Dunell (22yo), Lee (22yo), Ledger (21yo), Newnes (20yo), Ross (19yo), Wright (19yo)

These guys might pop up for an OK performance once in a while but they've still got a heap of learning to do. It's probably two seasons until any of them will really start to hit their straps - if they make it that far.


Zero games:

Shenton (rookie, 23yo), Markworth (21yo), Curren (rookie, 20yo), Ferguson (rookie, 20yo), Lever (19yo), Webster (19yo), Staley (rookie, 19yo), Minchington (rookie, 19yo), Murdoch (19yo), Saunders (18yo), White (18yo), Pierce (18yo)

Much as we all like to hope, none of us have any real idea of what's going to come from this group. Most likely half of them won't play more than a couple of games, a few will get more of a chance and only one or two will be good enough to make it to 100 games.


We basically can't win if we've got too many inexperienced players in the side, because they're just not good enough yet. But also - we won't rebuild at all unless we get games into these young guys in the next couple of years. So we're going to lose plenty of games. Some of us seem to be only just realising this. Accept it, because otherwise stress will kill you and you won't see the next flag.

My great GF said that to my GF in 1899. He died in 1965.

[SAAD]

100% correct Bergholt, we need to make the right choices in the upcoming drafts, get the next Hodges, Juddies, Cotchies, Swannies. Find the next bunch of elite hard running mid-fielders.

Any father-sons on the way? I remember hearing about Stewie Loewe's boy a while back? What's the deal there?

[joffaboy]

Good post.

Deliberately stayed away from here last night because I knew the ignoramouses and hothead would be calling for this sacking, that sacking, delist this player, calling into question our committment etc etc etc.

I was at the game last night and saw a team trying hard but on the downhill slide.

I knew after the draw in GF1 2010 our chance had gone, hoped it might still be there in 2011, but from early last year knew we were reloading.

Have a look at the teams like us who have done the same. Brisbane, Collingwood, Sydney, WCE, to name four who were up there in ealy to mid 2000's fell back and reloaded after being bottom from a couple of years.

We are now doing the same. Watters acknowledged this halfway though last year. We need to bring on the youngsters, Wright looked OK in his second game, Seb Ross did OK (although the sting was out of the game when he came on). Jack and Armo worked their guts out. Stanley is getting better at fullback.

We have Sipposs, Newnes, Dunnell, and other mentioned above to churn through.

We will have plenty in the cap at year end, when Blake, Lenny and Milne retire.

We will look to recruit a backman stopper (like a Brown), bring in a grunt in and under (like a Jones from Melbourne for example) and go for a chance like a jack Watts and look at FA. The way things are going we will get high dp's in an uncomprised draft so we need to look at our next gen of A graders

Transition means that we will lose many games like last night. And probably be out of the finals until possibly 2015.

2017 may be the time we once again challenge.

We have been up since 2003, we got within a hares breath of a flag.

But it didn't happen, it is in the past. We are Saints fans, We remain Saints fans through thick or thin.

And for the next few years its going to be thin. If you want instant gratification, you need to support one of the clubs in the top four every year.

[bergholt]

Here's what I reckon we're roughly likely to end the year on, barring future injuries of course:

90 to 100 games: Armitage, Geary
80 to 90 games: McEvoy
70 to 80 games: Steven
50 to 60 games: Roberton
30 to 40 games: Dennis-Lane, Milera, Saad, Simpkin, Siposs, Stanley
20 to 30 games: Hickey, Newnes
10 to 20 games: Dunell, Ledger, Lee, Ross, Wright
less than 10 games: Curren, Ferguson, Murdoch, Saunders, Shenton, Webster, White
0 games: Lever, Markworth (injured), Minchington, Pierce, Staley

The main benefit of this in the short term is that we find out enough about players like Milera, Dennis-Lane, Dunell, Ledger, Curren, Ferguson and Shenton to decide if there's any point keeping them.

It also means we're rapidly building a future core - from 100 down to 10 games in that list is 18 players, so if a good fraction of them make it then at least we've got a solid side. We'll obviously need to find some stars to actually be competitive, though.

[joffaboy]

100% correct Bergholt, we need to make the right choices in the upcoming drafts, get the next Hodges, Juddies, Cotchies, Swannies. Find the next bunch of elite hard running mid-fielders.

Any father-sons on the way? I remember hearing about Stewie Loewe's boy a while back? What's the deal there?

Connor Harvey is 15. Can he play?

[bergholt]

2017 may be the time we once again challenge.

Maybe. It actually doesn't depend so much on list management as on finding stars. List management keeps a base level of quality across your entire list, but finals and grand finals are won by players who are A-grade or better, and no list management strategy can magically produce them.

It's just about luck. You could be Geelong and get lucky topping up with Selwood, Harry Taylor, Hawkins, Duncan and Christensen - or you could be like Richmond in the early 00s and crap out on Coughlan, Fiora, Zantuck, Pettifer and Chris Hyde. Whether or not Spud was a good coach or list manager, unfortunately none of these guys ever achieved their potential, despite all showing something early. You could say they drafted poorly, or just that they were unlucky. Impossible to tell.

Same with us. We could do everything right but if something intangible doesn't go right so that Sippos or Steven or Stanley or Ross or Webster or Pierce or whoever become proper stars then we won't be competing for a long time. It's a crap shoot.

[Old Mate]

Good constructive thread berg.

I believe we are on the right track but we need to take a few steps back in order to go forward. There will be some pain we need to be patient.

Theres a happy medium in terms of getting games into younger players and quite a number of considerations.

We want to see Spencer White but hes no Darling. Hes less physically developed and less of a natural footballer and needs time.

We cannot do a Melbourne and drop all our experience. The bigger bodied players like Gilbert and Jones need to be played with a mixture of kids coming into the team.

It will be a long and exhausting process but I believe we are on the right track. Time to start enjoying things like development and the old guns in their twilight instead of finals and grand finals.

[BigMart]

Why is Geelong 'lucky' by topping up with draft picks they chose and developed. I would call that astute

They lost Egan. All Australian CHB at 25
Ablett the best player in the comp
Ablett 21 yo premiership CHF quit
Harley and Ling their leaders
Scarlett... Best FB I've ever seen
Mooney, Rooke.... Fwd line enforcers and key players.
Had serious injuries to players

Kept winningmdue to good management and fwd planning

[saintspremiers]

I'm thinking 2016 for top 8 unless Pelchen does some brilliant recruiting/trading.

As FA is so new, we are in uncharted territory, so maybe 2015 if the stars align ala 2001 with Hammil and Gehrig trades

[ShanghaiSaint]

Cats have done bloody well... still playing a great brand of footy.... was really impressed with them on friday night.

[BigMart]

In 2016 there are at least 10 other clubs with an arsenal of 20-23 yo players that make ours look a bit light on..

That's with ought looking at our current 25-27yo who will be the leaders then... And we have no a graders

We need a 2000-2001 style overhaul to be strong in the next decade

[bergholt]

Why is Geelong 'lucky' by topping up with draft picks they chose and developed. I would call that astute

"Astute" is easy to say in hindsight. But when Selwood's name was called out at pick 7 in 2006, you know that at least six players were rated ahead of him. Geelong hoped that he'd turn out to be a star but they had no guarantee of it. Same as Richmond hoped Mark Coughlan would be a star. Selwood was good and lucky, Coughlan was good and unlucky - he got 16 Brownlow votes in 03 before getting injured in 04.

You put a lot of faith in drafting. As with anything in life, you have to put in a shitload of work to minimise the influence of luck, but you still only get maybe 40 draft picks in 10 years. There's a good chance one or two of them will turn out to be a star, but much lower chance that four or six or eight will be. Geelong have put in the hard work but they've also had good luck. You can't deny that.

They lost Egan. All Australian CHB at 25
Ablett the best player in the comp
Ablett 21 yo premiership CHF quit
Harley and Ling their leaders
Scarlett... Best FB I've ever seen
Mooney, Rooke.... Fwd line enforcers and key players.
Had serious injuries to players

Name a club that couldn't reel off a list of misfortune like this. It happens to everyone.

Kept winningmdue to good management and fwd planning

No doubt. And also a healthy dose of luck. Very few teams win a flag without it.

[mad saint guy]

If we follow a similar cycle to our previous rebuild it will be s long, long time away. We assembled our core from 1999-2002 and that side became competitive in 2004 before peaking in 2009. If we end up doing ok out of last year's draft then we could call that '99 and we finish the core drafting phase at the end of 2015, to become competitive in 2017 and peaking in 2022. That's IF we do manage to assemble a team of stars in our time at the bottom and avoid a Melbourne/Richmond/Carlton like catastrophe.

[BigMart]

Bottoming out does not guarantee anything

We didn't achieve
WB didn't
RFC haven't
Melbourne haven't
Carlton haven't

All clearly bottomed out

[bergholt]

Bottoming out does not guarantee anything

Nope. But pretty guaranteed at this point for us is that we'll be near the bottom for a few years. So let's make the most of it.

[borderbarry]

I hope we dont bottom out.
With 18 teams in the League, look at 3 lots of six. I hope we dont go lower than the middle six.

[desertsaint]

I hope we dont bottom out.
With 18 teams in the League, look at 3 lots of six. I hope we dont go lower than the middle six.

Yes, the bottom nowadays is a lot further away than it used to be.

[Dis Believer]

I hope we dont bottom out.
With 18 teams in the League, look at 3 lots of six. I hope we dont go lower than the middle six.

Why - if we are not going to be in finals I would rather get higher draft picks! They are no guarantee of success, but they do improve your odds.
What is the advantage in finishing twelfth instead of say, sixteenth?
Don't forget with finishing lower, it's not just your first pick that improves, but every pick. With the later picks it probably doesn't make much of a difference draft wise, but it certainly makes a difference to your trading position.

[perfectionist]

A few years? The last time we were this bad was in the mid 80s. While we were hopeless in 2000 and 2001, we still had players such as Robert Harvey, Lenny Hayes, Steven Baker, Aussie Jones, Andrew Thompson and Barry Hall who provided the basis of a team (Hall left in 2002 and we got Nick Dal Santo). Back then, we got good first round picks and priority picks as well. Then again in 2002, we got pick 1 (courtesy of Carlton). Now, there are 18 teams and no priority picks. In fact, GWS will continue to get concessions until 2018, and the GCS until 2014, both by way of additional salary caps. So the best we can do is get pick 1 by finishing last and then our next pick will be number 19. Buying players, as we did in 2000 with Fraser and Aaron and in 2002 with Luke Penny, is also limited given the concessions referred to above.

In 2000 and 2001, with less teams, priority picks and the ability to pay, it took us nine years to make a Grand Final. Anyone who thinks we will be anywhere near that by 2020, let alone in five years time, has rocks in their heads. In all likelihood, the Saints next premiership captain has not yet been born.The successful teams will be those which have budgets two or three times the size of ours, who can persuade (apparently) their players to stay for a lot less money and who have access to that magic formula, that puts muscles on blokes who would otherwise be skinny, without sanction.

[Dis Believer]

Ooohhh, woe is me, woe is me.........

[Junction Oval]

Financially, Clubs can no longer afford to bottom out. Where is our membership today - around 27,000? .... and already declining.

Everyone knows that you have to be lucky at times with recruiting, but some always seem to be "luckier" than others - read Geelong, Hawthorn, Collingwood, Swans. It seems to me that they are "better" at it than us.

However, there is absolutely no excuse for continually recruiting poor kickers - the skill is there for all to see

[SAAD]

Haha love the comment the next Saints premiership captain has not been born...you're probably right, I'm kind of hoping he's at least towards the end of primary school right now. Looking at the list now I don't see any future A-graders, I hope some of them prove me wrong. Which means the next few draft campaigns we need to find some killer players. I do hope that none of our future 1st draft picks leave us.

[bergholt]

A few years? The last time we were this bad was in the mid 80s. While we were hopeless in 2000 and 2001, we still had players such as Robert Harvey, Lenny Hayes, Steven Baker, Aussie Jones, Andrew Thompson and Barry Hall who provided the basis of a team.

You realise that makes no sense, right?

[Con Gorozidis]

Great post by the OP.

Basically we need to get the group of players in the 24-28/100-150 games category up to 10 to be any good.

When we were good (2009) we had about 12 players in that group.

Believe it or not we only have 3 of those players at the moment.

Gwilt, Gilbert and Ray.....

Thats a VERY sad state of affairs - and tells me we wont win many in the next 2 years.

Blaming the coach is a total waste of time. No coach could do anything with a list profile so weak in that core age group.

People just need to accept this and look fwd to spending a few years in a development stage.