This post on St K's drafting/list is so goddamn on the money ...

[degruch]

Love the comment from the Cats fan.

Wanker

Yes, some enlightening commentary from a supporter of a club that has practically mirrored the Saints boom and bust for most of my lifetime...maybe he should shut up and thank Geelong's superior breeding for not making them completely irrelevant also?

[mad saint guy]

I actually that as yet another indictment on Richardson and his philosophies.


Pierce has by a mile, outperformed both Longer and Hickey in the couple of games he played.

The club would be off their nut to not keep playing him. Watching him, you immediately think to yourself "s***, that dude is a genuine 250 game ruckman in the making".

Yet not only was he not getting picked ahead of Hickey and Longer - he wasn't even playing at Sandy!!


I don't blame the club one bit for sussing out Lycett at the half way mark of the season. Being in our team with Longer or Hickey as your no. 1 ruck makes your job nigh on impossible! However we had a genuinely decent young ruckman on the list already!

Now, I look at Pierce and think the club would be off their nut to pay big bucks to Lycett!


You just have to wonder how many other decent players there are in the two's either being taught how to play like an unskilled plodder, or being played out of the position entirely and not getting a look in behind Richardson's favourites.

While I agree with your overall sentiment, Pierce played well in his first game and then was comprehensively beaten in his next two. In his first game he was up against Bellchambers (who is a mid-tier ruckman in the league) and had a very impressive 18 disposals, 5 marks and 27 hitouts. Then his next two weeks yielded a total of 16 disposals, 2 marks and 31 hitouts while his opponents over that time (McEvoy and Goldstein) had 31 disposals, 12 marks, 4 goals, 5 tackles and 59 hitouts. He was absolutely smashed in those two games.

I absolutely agree that Richardson has been moronically conservative with selection and I'm appalled that it took and injury crisis for us to get a glimpse at a few young players (which coincided with our best period of the season) only for him to revert back to his usual ways later in the year, but Pierce is a kid who has shown glimpses, while Hickey is a player who was one of the top handful of starting rucks two years ago and has then had issues with injuries and a coach who clearly doesn't like him.

I also think that Pierce playing at Frankston was a great move - his development was horribly stalled when he was at Sandy and competing for ruck time with one of HIckey or Longer plus Holmes. He showed a lot of promise back in 2016 but 2017 was a write off because he was either hardly getting any TOG for Sandy or playing against an ammo/TAC cup level ruck in the development squad.

[Sainternist]

Great article. But then I went and read the comments below