Life Long Saint wrote:
His tenure could easily be broken down by year...
2007 - 4/10: should never have redrafted Gehrig and had a great team but failed to make the finals.
2008 - 6/10: we were lucky to finish top 4...It's only because Essendon failed to show up in the last round that we found ourselves in the top 4. We did have a great win against the Hawks in the H&A though.
2009 - 9.5/10: 19 wins in a row...All but won the flag. Lost three games by a combined total of less than 20 points.
2010 - 9/10: Harder year. Had one more shot at the flag and drew the Grand Final and we finished 3rd despite not having Roo available for most of the season with his hamstring injury. The Lovett trade had not worked and it was obvious that there was a lack of talented youth coming through.
2011 - 5/10: Terrible start to the year...1 win and a draw from the first 7 games. Recovered to finish 6th but lost to Sydney. Hadn't played enough kids and the evidence of neglectful drafting was evident for all to see. His final act to ditch the club for Freo was a surprise but his expectation to lock away a long term deal when we were 1 from 7 games was the height of arrogance.
If we judge him solely on his tenure of how he left the club from when he arrived then he is a poor 4/10...But if we look at how close we got to two flags then he is an 8/10. I tend to look at the latter.
Leigh Matthews coached Collingwood to a flag in 1990 and coached the Lions to 3 in a row. When lethal departed no-one said he wasn't a great coach due to the state of the squads and the health of their lists. Therefore I agree with your analysis that Lyon shouldn't be judged solely on where the list was when he departed.
With coaches like Lyon and other coaches similar in recent history who got close like Rocket Eade with the Dogs or the Dees with Northey and Neil Daniher we remember how close they got but I think it's important to analyse their entire tenure and rate each year as above.
Mathematically I think you've nailed it. Coaches use statistics because they remove subjective opinion.
I'd be giving Ross 9.5 in season 2010 because of Rooy going down and the fact that we backed up after '09, but I'd only give him 9/10 in 2009 because we failed after being so dominant in h&a - so that still adds up to 18.5 for both years. I’d be a bit more generous and say he gets a pass for 2007 and we increase the score to a 5/10 due to him being a first year coach...let's also increase both 2008 and 2011 to say 7/10 and 6/10.
If you add these few extra points and divide the total by 5 that gives Lyon a 7.5 out of 10.
5+7+9+9.5+6= 37.5
37.5 divided by 5=
7.5
That's pretty good compared to our history and compared to a lot of coaches going round, but Lyon imo is not a better coach than Stan or Grant or even Kenny Sheldon. He certainly doesn’t qualify as great.
Lyon is over rated as a coach for St Kilda from some of the regulars here on SS due to the sycophants in media like Roos and Wallsy. Imo history shows that coaches are judged for what they deliver - not what they
nearly deliver.
