rexy wrote:Just as dangerous to judge Lyon against thomas IMO. All sides improve, they improve or are they go into demise. Our side may well have improved under Thomas just as it has under Lyon, why? because our very good players have got better, Reiwoldt Goddard Montagna DalSanto all have improved from an already high level in the last 3 years. Coaching will have had some influence on this but so will age, size, experience, confidence etc. To me you can debate the pros and cons of the current or past coach all day, but it is almost irrelevant to compare them as they did not coach the same list at the same time. We do not know what Thomas could have acheived with an injury free list or how he would have developed the list if it was up to him in the last 3 years. We also dont know how Lyon would have built the team if he had it from its lowest ebb like Thomas did.
What we do know is that one was in charge during a period when we rebuilt and the other has polished an already established list.
If we dont win a flag with the current list then both have not been successful in the true AFL sense of the word.
I dont think Thomas could have turned us into the side we are today, but the side he did turn us into may have been equally as impressive but
different in style?
At the moment I am very happy with the side we have become, the biggest advantage to the Thomas sacking IMO is the changes it forced off field have
made us a much more settled club whos main focus is football operations. This holds us in better stead for the future.
Ross Lyon is a very good coach, coaching a very good list, at a very good
club. For the first 30 years of my life I never thought that combination was possible at the StKilda football club!
Refreshingly unbiased post. Well done, sir!!
I strongly believe that, if GT had stayed, we would have continued to make the finals and even possibly a GF. We have half a dozen of the best current exponents of the game: Riewoldt, Hayes, Goddard, Dal, Joey, Sam Fisher. For some reason I don't entirely understand, they are somewhat underrated by the footy media relative to the stars of other clubs. But, when they are all fit and firing - and the likes of Milne, Kosi, Gilbert, Baker, Blake and co chip in - we are always going to be a powerful unit, regardless of who is coaching us.
However, in my book, Lyon gets the full credit for developing the game plan that had turned us into the relentless force that went 20-2 last year and looks set to do something similar again this year. Whether (as some on here still believe) this is the game plan he brought with him to the club, or (as I suspect), is something he worked out with the players and the Board at the crisis point in mid-2008, is irrelevant. It's his game plan and it works wonderfully well: including in last year's GF where I still can't see how our loss was in anyway attributable to the game plan.
Ross's and our problem is that we've come good at the same time ad the awesome force that is Geelong. They are the vampires of the AFL: as they showed again yesterday against the Hawks, just killing them isn't enough, they have to be buried at the crossroads with a stake through their
collective hearts!!
So, despite how happy I am feeling with the current state of our club, I remain moderately pessimistic about our chances of winning a flag in 2010.
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
- Jonathan Swift
