“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Who would have thought that Mr Dickens would have been so attuned to AFL football in the 21st century? The opening line of A Tale of Two Cities could easily refer to Essendon and St Kilda. What’s more, there’s a common thread.

Over the off-season there was an exodus of sorts from the Saints. The entire roster of assistant coaches moved on. Although not linked to the Saints’ situation, the sacking of Matthew Knights at Windy Hill also presaged an exodus of assistant coaches.

Ross Lyon gathered a new group of assistants, as did new coach James Hird at Essendon.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that the Bombers have 3½ wins from six games, while the Saints have managed just 1½ wins.

Now, of course AussieRulesBlog isn’t going to put this discrepancy down to just a coaching staff changeover — there was the little matter of a certain 17-year-old and the repercussions thereof which may have distracted the Saints.

But, thinking about assistant coaches and what they can bring to a club, let’s look at the ins and outs for both the Saints and the Bombers.

St Kilda

Essendon

It’s pretty clear, even from the outside, that the assistants at Essendon in 2011 have make a substantial contribution to the apparent turnaround in the Bombers’ on-field fortunes.

Simply by extrapolation, it would seem the change in the Saints’ on-field fortunes might have more than a little connection to the change in coaching staff. We commented on the scale of the Saints’ cleanout last November.

We got to thinking after putting together our previous post. Those now–ex-AFL players would have had a tough day following the draft yesterday, but perhaps none tougher than Robert Eddy.

Eddy has come within two of the proverbial bees’ dicks of virtual football immortality. Instead, he’s probably destined to be a footnote.

Readers will recall that Eddy was considered unlucky not to have made the Saints’ 2009 Grand Final team. He followed that up by playing in both the 2010 Grand Finals.

But for an unlucky bounce of the ball at the end of the drawn 2010 Grand Final, Eddy would be the proud owner of a Premiership player’s medal. With a little luck in selection the year before, he could have been a Matthew Scarlett toe-poke away from another Premiership medal.

And now, aged only 22, it appears his AFL career is over.

If anyone tries to tell you that AFL is not a tough game, remind them how a young bloke who’s done everything right to get himself into the team for the biggest game of the year has been ground up and spat out.

What may stick in Eddy’s craw will be the Saints’ final two draft selections after he has been cast adrift: ex-Cat Ryan Gamble and ex-Tiger Dean Polo. It’s fanciful, in our view, to consider that Polo could be picked in a team for a Grand Final and Gamble had certainly not secured a regular spot in the Cats’ lineup. We wonder whether the Polo recruitment will rival that previous ex-Tiger Saint, Aaron Fiora’s ‘success’.

These are curious decisions and, along with the recent exodus of coaching staff, must place some sort of question mark over coach Ross Lyon’s future.

And in a late announcement, West Coast have delisted Ashley Hansen. Interesting timing, coming the day after the draft. We’re not that confident that Hansen would have been selected by anyone, but the bloke is surely entitled to have a chance to throw his hat into the ring. We understand there’s little place for sentiment in the modern game, but we think West Coast have treated Hansen particularly poorly in this.