Big Boy McEVOY.

[Scollop]

C'mon skeptic. Please keep it simple and easy to undestand. We are talking about a ruckman and there are ruckman who want to join in the conversation. I'd suggest you post just loose opinions based on no evidence at all. Don't overcomplicate things and bring reasoning and logic into it

[Gershwin]

I think McEvoy would have developed into a better player at St Kilda than he did at Hawthorn. And in saying that he has done well at Hawthorn. His leadership qualities were obvious and he was an important part of the team. Hickey was the back-up. I think morale would have suffered when he was traded.
We got Savage who has proven to be useful but no more than that and we used pick 18 on Dunstan who seems to have reached his ceiling as a good ordinary player. Then we had to use our pick 25 on a ruckman to replace McEvoy which ended up being Longer who again seems to be no more than an ordinary player. Now we are off looking for a ruckman again while Hawthorn don't need to.

Fair enough that that’s your opinion but I can’t see anything to suggest that that would be the case. Less support and leadership = better player. By that logic we should have a team of superstars.

As for the compensation, I simply don’t accept the answer that because we didn’t use the picks well it was not a great deal.
It’s like arguing that if in the 2001 Superdraft we traded Everite for pick #5 and got Xavier Clarke that’s a worse deal than trading him for pick #13 and getting Nick Dal Santo

McEvoy was a pick 9 draft selection still only 24 when we traded him for pick 18 and a fringe player. Your point would be stronger if he didn't make it at Hawthorn and got delisted. In fact he has held his place in a strong team, played in 2 premierships and is showing no signs of slowing down. I think 9/10 Saints fans would be happy to have him back even at 29.

[aaron82]

I think the big issue we had at the time with McEvoy was that we were about to head into a rebuild and he’d be a free agent a year later and in demand by a team such as Hawthorn. They would have then dangled the big carrot of becoming a premiership ruckman on good coin. The alternative is to remain in a bottom 4 side in the prime of his career.

I believe we may have cashed in early to get draft picks as opposed to an average compensation pick in 2015-16. If that was the case I’m not saying it was the right decision but it was a strong draft and at this point got it wrong

[skeptic]

I think McEvoy would have developed into a better player at St Kilda than he did at Hawthorn. And in saying that he has done well at Hawthorn. His leadership qualities were obvious and he was an important part of the team. Hickey was the back-up. I think morale would have suffered when he was traded.
We got Savage who has proven to be useful but no more than that and we used pick 18 on Dunstan who seems to have reached his ceiling as a good ordinary player. Then we had to use our pick 25 on a ruckman to replace McEvoy which ended up being Longer who again seems to be no more than an ordinary player. Now we are off looking for a ruckman again while Hawthorn don't need to.

Fair enough that that’s your opinion but I can’t see anything to suggest that that would be the case. Less support and leadership = better player. By that logic we should have a team of superstars.

As for the compensation, I simply don’t accept the answer that because we didn’t use the picks well it was not a great deal.
It’s like arguing that if in the 2001 Superdraft we traded Everite for pick #5 and got Xavier Clarke that’s a worse deal than trading him for pick #13 and getting Nick Dal Santo

McEvoy was a pick 9 draft selection still only 24 when we traded him for pick 18 and a fringe player. Your point would be stronger if he didn't make it at Hawthorn and got delisted. In fact he has held his place in a strong team, played in 2 premierships and is showing no signs of slowing down. I think 9/10 Saints fans would be happy to have him back even at 29.

Yes but they compensated for McEvoy’s weakness in the ruck with guys like Hale that were better at tapping and a super strong Hawthorn midfield that could compensate for a poorer performance in the centre.

McEvoy stays with us where his relief ruckman are Bruce, Gilbert, Tom Lee, Steele, Acres (pbly not Hickey as Richo has loathed playing two rucks in the same team until all of Hickey, Longer and Paddy went down) IMO the perception of him changes.
Make no mistake... he was a maligned player when he left our club. Yes he was one that many predicted would get better and he has to a degree but he has remained at best competent, at worst mediocre in the middle.

If he stayed at St.Kilda where he likely would have gotten little support in the middle and played in more losing teams without finals... I seriously doubt people would look as fondly on him as they do now.

His hitout averages rank WELL BELOW the premium rucks of the AFL over his career and his numbers overall are very comparable to a guy like Hickey.

And obviously Hickey is not a revered figure here.

The fact that McEvoy is better than anything we have currently is irrelevant to this conversation because it’s reliant on the picks we got and the other rucks we invested in failing.
That’s on US. Not the trade. The trade is the same no matter what comes next.

You can’t argue that McEvoy deal looks better if Hickey maintained his 2016 form or Longer became the player that Stonecold says he is because the trade is still the same regardless.

The final point I’m going to reiterate here is go back to the 2016 final - Hawks vs Doggies. McEvoy was the primary Hawks big man and the Dogs climbed all over him and he was almost unsighted in the second half. BBMC has NEVER consistently been able to compete with the very best of the big men... not with us and not with the Hawks.
The difference is that Hawthorn woke up to this very early and protected Ben from those types of hidings the way we’ve failed to do with a guy like Hickey. They often rotated their ruckman around quickly and they’ve been clever enough to throw McEvoy a kick behind play where he can use his contested marking skills (which are out of this world for a ruck) to the teams advantage.

Absolutely played to his strengths and minimised his weaknesses.

It’s a lesson that our coaches have repeatedly failed to grasp.

We prefer the... well Mav Weller hasn’t played well for 13 games but i have a good feeling about Sunday approach

[Scollop]

Great post again skeptic

It saddens me that our football club has not learnt from some of the mistakes of our recent past and in particular when you say; "he was a maligned player when he left our club". I agree with you and I think that it happened all over again with Hickey didn't it. He had a breakout 2016 and was considered one of the best young ruckman in the AFL and after a few games into season 2017, he was being scapegoated for our losses and publicly criticised by Richo rather than being supported and the bloody coaches improving on his strengths rather than simply focussing on his weaknesses...that's all Hawthorn did with Ben

I can understand where fans blame a certain player for a loss or blame a group of players that they don't like, but you're suggesting this was happening within the playing group, aren't you? Our current coach like some of his prior colleagues just want to point the finger at players rather than having a look in the mirror for answers. The good coaches will privately put the heat on players and will do everything in their powers to help improve a player, but they are not into publicly belittling a players effort

What is it about St Kilda's culture that has allowed that sort of scapegoating, fingerpointing and pisspoor development of our players to keep occuring? Was it a culture led by the senior leaders around the club at the time that we were contenders and did the bubble mentally unhealthily also somewhat segregate younger players who weren't part of the best 22? Perhaps it's something that crept in without people realising that they were following Ross's lead where he liked to blame individuals and younger players, whenever something went wrong.

Is it a legacy from Ross Lyon which has been hanging around like a cancer at the club? The prick was doing it early in April 2011 by declaring that the playing list had come to "an end of an era". He did it on his last day on the job at the Saints by single handedly retiring some of our players. And he did the same thing to a certain Luke Ball during the lead up to our finals campaign in 2009. I mean we talk about systems and culture at football clubs and some people are dismissive of the word, but I reckon just as you can have strong successful systems creating sustained success, so too can you have poor and unhealthy culture breeding more periods of the same culture.

If someone has some ideas that would be great, because maybe it's about time that we stop making the same farcken mistakes and keep maligning individuals within the playing group. On the other hand if they are malligned ( hopefully privately from now on ) and we trade them out to someone like the Hawks and they pay overs, then all is good

[takeaway]

Great post again skeptic

It saddens me that our football club has not learnt from some of the mistakes of our recent past and in particular when you say; "he was a maligned player when he left our club". I agree with you and I think that it happened all over again with Hickey didn't it. He had a breakout 2016 and was considered one of the best young ruckman in the AFL and after a few games into season 2017, he was being scapegoated for our losses and publicly criticised by Richo rather than being supported and the bloody coaches improving on his strengths rather than simply focussing on his weaknesses...that's all Hawthorn did with Ben

I can understand where fans blame a certain player for a loss or blame a group of players that they don't like, but you're suggesting this was happening within the playing group, aren't you? Our current coach like some of his prior colleagues just want to point the finger at players rather than having a look in the mirror for answers. The good coaches will privately put the heat on players and will do everything in their powers to help improve a player, but they are not into publicly belittling a players effort

What is it about St Kilda's culture that has allowed that sort of scapegoating, fingerpointing and pisspoor development of our players to keep occuring? Was it a culture led by the senior leaders around the club at the time that we were contenders and did the bubble mentally unhealthily also somewhat segregate younger players who weren't part of the best 22? Perhaps it's something that crept in without people realising that they were following Ross's lead where he liked to blame individuals and younger players, whenever something went wrong.

Is it a legacy from Ross Lyon which has been hanging around like a cancer at the club? The prick was doing it early in April 2011 by declaring that the playing list had come to "an end of an era". He did it on his last day on the job at the Saints by single handedly retiring some of our players. And he did the same thing to a certain Luke Ball during the lead up to our finals campaign in 2009. I mean we talk about systems and culture at football clubs and some people are dismissive of the word, but I reckon just as you can have strong successful systems creating sustained success, so too can you have poor and unhealthy culture breeding more periods of the same culture.

If someone has some ideas that would be great, because maybe it's about time that we stop making the same farcken mistakes and keep maligning individuals within the playing group. On the other hand if they are malligned ( hopefully privately from now on ) and we trade them out to someone like the Hawks and they pay overs, then all is good

You certainly have a vivid imagination Mr Scollop. Bit of DRC kicking in there I think.

[Scollop]

What I'm saying is that I think it is not an accident that St Kilda tend to make the same mistakes over and over again?
What the hell is DRC?
Disability rights commission? Democratic Rebublic of the Congo?
Dynamic range compression? Disaster Recovery Centre?

[skeptic]

Good posting Scallop,

I don’t know that I’d have been as bold with the cultural implications dating back so far but it’s certainly an interesting thought... reminds me of the infamous Riewoldt/Milera incident with the latter’s form falling away so quickly shortly thereafter.

Will have to give that some thought later.


Like you’ve pointed out, I’m just troubled by the mentality and hope to heck that our board / coaches don’t think like some forumites here do...

*St. Kilda gives away more free kicks then they get... should we be learning why and addressing it?
NOPE. AFL conspiracy to get us

*St. Kilda drafts from the same pool of players as everyone else, takes players more or less where they would have gone, players look promising and then stagnate. Development issue?
NOPE. It’s the recruiters... they have mastered the impossible art of picking the wrong player 100% of the time

And now this latest one
* Saints trade underperforming ruck. Essentially get three (not quite correct) players for him and recruit another ruck. The recruited players don’t come on as we’d like, the 2 rucks chose to persevere don’t come on although one at least looked good for a season... and the original underperforming ruck is still an average ruck that’s got a bit better around the ground in a successful team.
CONCLUSION: McEvoy was the answer all along.

Oh we’re always the victims, we always choose the bad players, we’re so unlucky, we’re always taken for rides... we’re poor we can’t develop like other clubs can

It’s complete loser mentality. Personally I don’t accept that so much is out of our control

[skeptic]

I can understand where fans blame a certain player for a loss or blame a group of players that they don't like, but you're suggesting this was happening within the playing group, aren't you? Our current coach like some of his prior colleagues just want to point the finger at players rather than having a look in the mirror for answers. The good coaches will privately put the heat on players and will do everything in their powers to help improve a player, but they are not into publicly belittling a players effort

THIS.

Look at a player like Tom Lee. He actually had a few good games as a forward early. He looked really promising. Got injured with a long lay off... his return game was vs a white hot Geelong at the Cattery in the wet, where he had to play relief ruck too!!!! It failed. He then spent a year playing HBF for Sandy before we trialled him for 2-4 games in his last season where he ok. BAM delisted.

Every bit of feedback we heard about Tom Lee was that he had all the talent in the world but didn’t work hard enough... and most pointed out they were shocked to find that he didn’t put on any size over his second off-season.

Now ultimately the buck stops with Tom but the measure of a coaching is turning that around. What the hell are the coaching team doing over three years if this guy isn’t doing the work!?
Why isn’t he doing the work?

Ross Lyon wouldn’t have stood for that... he’d have publicly canned him and delisted him right away.
Grant Thomas would have run him into the ground until he toughened up or quit... ala Beetham and Brooks

What was Richo doing?

People look at the names Lee, Templeton, Saad, Milera pbly add Minchington and Lonie to it too (both players I rate) and see a list of terrible recruits.
I see players that clearly demonstrated they had the talent and then faded away

[takeaway]

What I'm saying is that I think it is not an accident that St Kilda tend to make the same mistakes over and over again?
What the hell is DRC?
Disability rights commission? Democratic Rebublic of the Congo?
Dynamic range compression? Disaster Recovery Centre?

Disaster Recovery Centre? That would work. More Dream Reality Confusion or Directional Response Condition.

The bumbling together of disputable facts to leap to a desired conclusion, which is most likely false.