News today that the Saints have delisted Ryan Gamble after just one season — yielding eleven games — along with teammates Zac Dawson, Brett Peake, Farren Ray and Dean Polo remaining out of contract as the deadline for final list lodgement looms.

What’s remarkable about this story is that all five arrived at the Saints from other clubs.

Crucial in this story is the departure of coach Ross Lyon, who must have had some sort of input into recruiting these recycled players for a team he and the club believed were on the cusp of Premiership success.

What’s pretty clear at this point is that new coach Scott Watters has a different goal.

Recycled players have had a chequered history as a breed. Some, Greg Williams (Carlton and ex-Sydney and Geelong), his nemesis Sean Denham (Essendon and ex-Geelong), Sean Wellman (Essendon and ex-Adelaide) and Leigh Brown (Barcodes and ex-North Melbourne and Fremantle) to name a few, tasted Premiership success.

For a great many others, and the five Saints named above are probably going to fall into this category, their new club eventually discovered why they’d been on the trade table.

It’s worth noting that other recent Saints “recycled” toward the end of their career include Steven King, Michael Gardiner and Charlie Gardiner. No wonder that the pundits have criticised the Saints for their failure to play many kids — there wasn’t any room on the list for kids!

With a disappointing season only minutes behind them, the Saints have made a spectacularly unpromising start to the off season with Ross Lyon’s announcement of four retirements.

Within hours, Steven Baker and Robert Eddy had revealed they had done no such thing.

After the disruptions of the photo scandal and the “seventeen-year-old schoolgirl” over last off-season, AussieRulesBlog would have thought that the club would be making every effort to present a quietly determined and united front to avoid distractions. Not so it seems, or the club’s communications advisers only paused to decide which of the club’s feet they would shoot next.

It will remain to be seen whether the exit of veteran Baker in obviously controversial circumstances will further tear the internal fabric of the playing group. Once rent, it is a (football) generational change exercise to repair.

Watching the final against the Swans, we took particular note of Malcolm Blight’s observations that Lyon had played one or two extra in defence during the first half, but structured up man on man after half time. The contrast between the Saints’ ineptitude in attack in the second quarter and threatening revival on the scoreboard in the third quarter was marked. Perhaps it’s not too big a call to suggest that the game was lost in the coaches’ box on game day.

“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.

The Saints’ denial of a “culture problem” after four young players were suspended and fined for drug and alcohol abuse has more than a whiff of a little Dutch boy with his finger stuck in the dyke about it. Or perhaps King Canute is a more appropriate analogy?

Reporting comments by coach Ross Lyon, The Age writes:

He said St Kilda was already overhauling its development program, so that young players not studying or in full-time work would "earn or learn" to avoid "escapism" and depression.

Overhauling? The requirement for study or work wasn’t in place already?

Perhaps CEO Michael Nettlefold is correct. It’s not a culture problem. Perhaps it’s just ordinary management. It’s not like there hasn’t been a plethora of poor management over the past few years for the Saints.

It’s a bit much for Ross Lyon to threaten the players of sixteen other clubs with vilification complaints if they “cross over community standards” and taunt his captain over the running sore that has been the naked pictures. All very nice to take a holier than thou approach and conveniently forget the presence on his list of serial standard crosser Steven Baker.

Were it another club’s captain that was embroiled, would Lyon instruct his players, especially Baker, not to venture into dark sledges about nude photographs? Not bloody likely.

AussieRulesBlog chastised Barcodes coaches Mick Malthouse and Paul Licuria last year, not so much for what they said to the Saints’ Steven Milne, but for the inappropriateness of their interaction with an opposition player and their economy with the truth — less charitable people might suggest they lied — when later questioned.

Lyon suggests the Malthouse-Milne incident as one where “community standards” were trashed and uses it as a justification for threatening players at other clubs should they sledge Riewoldt.

We wonder whether Lyon has created yet another millstone for his captain to wear. Not only were the pictures publicised, but Riewoldt now looks like a crybaby relying on his coach to keep the bad boys from saying nasty and hurtful things to him. Riewoldt does have some form in this respect after all (even though we supported him in those instances).

But what sticks in our craw most is Lyon’s failing memory. It’s only a year ago that the Saints crossed a community standard themselves — a person is innocent until found guilty in a court of law. By declaring a contracted player guilty of a crime before he’d had a chance to face a jury of his peers, the Saints were happy to act as judge, jury and executioner when it suited them.

We suspect the mental strength of the Saints’ prima donna will receive some searching tests in the coming season. Will he thank his coach and his teammate when the dust has settled?

January
Who can forget the fallout from the Blues’ players pre-Christmes ‘booze cruise’? Club culture was our constant companion through a very quiet month.

Reports of AFLPA draftee induction camps gave us hope that, eventually, we shouldn’t have to endure the infantile antics of AFL footballers.

Later in the year, 18-year NFL veteran, Brett Favre, demonstrated this is a forelorn hope with his ‘sexting’.

February
As we prepared to get into the semi-serious stuff of the pre-season competition, the AFL gave bloggers a late Christmas present by revealing its so-called staging sanctions. Confusion reigned with almost everybody expecting players staging for a free kick in a marking contest to be free kicked or reported. Hardly anyone took the trouble to watch the video and understand what the AFL actually intended.

Temporary Saints recruit, Andrew Lovett, who already hadn’t managed to hit it off with his new teammates, found himself facing a rape charge and his new club finding him guilty without the benefit of a trial.

As the pre-season comp got underway, there was plenty of controversy with an apparent video referral of a scoring decision resulting in the goal umpire’s call being overturned. Field umpires had got straight back into stride by paying free kicks based on what they thought had happened rather than what they’d seen and, following the lead of Stephen McBurney, keeping their whistles on a hair trigger.

March
As the FFA seduced some sections of the AFL world with deals to upgrade regional stadiums, the Saints descended into amateur hour with the most inept handling of a grievance against a player in AFL history.

The AFL umpiring department announced their somewhat hilarious sponsorship by spectacle retailers, OPSM, and then proceeded to umpire sensibly — to everyone’s surprise!

Finally, the season proper got underway and we had a bit of a rant about how media select BOGs.

April
The AFL’s long-standing desire to make the game more attractive was thrown into chaos by the proliferation of ugly milling packs where everyone was frightened to take possession of the ball.

We lauded Western Bullgog, Bob Murphy, and his old-fashioned notion of respect for opponents and the Magpies–Saints clash provided a gilt-edged example of disrespect. Not only that, but three other posts focussed on this game. In the meantime, Brendan Fevola managed to tick off another couple of deadly sins on his personal bucket list.

We penned another instalment in our campaign to remove The Giesch, this time for inflexible interpretations.

Melbourne Storm managed to outmuscle every other sport in the world for press column-centimetres for a few days.

May
The month began with us berating Jeff Gieschen. That was a surprise — not.

Some genius at the AFL decided the Demons and the umpires would look spectacular in (nearly) matching uniforms for the Breast cancer game. Demons players couldn’t find their teammates on the field and kept handballing to umpires.

Speculation bubbled along concerning the next big NRL convert to AFL (and will Greg Inglis now make it another?), Jeff Kennett inserted his foot firmly in his mouth over the Ben Cousins doco, followed in close order by senior coach Alastair Clarkson shooting his gob off.

The rushed behind rule became interesting with about sixty thousand definitions being flung around, none of them being one of several employed by the AFL umpires. We finished the month by writing off St Kilda, in the wake of Riewoldt’s hamstring and lamenting the demise of respect and sportsmanship on the AFL field.

June
The holding the ball rule, 50-metre penalties, the advantage rule interpretation, and Jeff Gieschen, occupied much of our attention in June, along with Stephen Baker’s mauling of Steve Johnson and chief umpiring zealot, Steve McBurney’s hair-trigger whistle.

July
Co-operative goal umpiring that still couldn’t get the decision right was in our sights as July began. But we managed to focus on non-umpiring topics as well!

Modern players’ penchant for dribbling the ball through for a goal caught our attention and indicated to us that these players are just show ponies.

Confusing and inconsistent Match Review Panel outcomes gave us some grief, while the emergence of Michael Barlow as a star for Fremantle suggested to us that home-grown, ‘mature’-age recruits would be a better bet than international fancies like the Bombers’ Irishman, Michael Quinn.

Mark Williams’ sacking by Port Adelaide brought to an end to his death of a thousand cuts, while debut umpire Corey Bowen’s five first-half 50-metre penalties against the Bombers had us almost apoplectic with rage. We didn’t have long to wait for retribution as Bowen didn’t feature in the list of umpires for matches played the following week!

Meanwhile, Jeff Gieschen fantasised that his charges umpired “to the DVD” each and every week! Yeah, sure Jeff, and we’re a dead ringer for George Clooney.

The AFL allowed a police-check armband for the Hawks and Saints, but no such leniency for the Bombers and their Clash for Cancer.

Einsteinian concepts of curved space were employed to justify Lance Franklin’s ‘natural arc’ when kicking for goal, to allow umpires not to call play on. Truly one of the more breathtaking rationalisations from Gieschen’s mob for the year.

August
Surprise, surprise, Steve McBurney and over-zealous umpiring caught our attention at the start of the month, but not quite as much as the huge cast we found encasing our left wrist and forearm, courtesy of a fall. A nicely snapped radius bone in what the medical fraternity know as a Colles fracture.

Jeff Gieschen, ignoring previous indiscretions by his charges in making scoring decisions, suggested talk and consultation would be more effective in weeding errors out of goal umpiring than an extra goal umpire at each end. We must conclude that goal umpires are extraordinarily well-paid, since the AFL seem incredibly reluctant to employ another eight of them!

Finally, the talk began that James Hird would replace Matthew Knights as Essendon coach. As we now know, Knights was gone by the end of the month and Hird was being very coy. Smoke? Fire? We remain unconvinced by the denials of preplanning.

September
We highlighted the MRP’s failure to act against blatant staging when Jarrad Waite lodged an Oscar-worthy entry against the Swans, while the AFL world debated the merits of free kicks that are “technically there, but . . .”

An exodus of almost biblical proportions at Brisbane in the previous summer and the failure of the big name import to have a meaningful impact on-field left the club looking rather sickly.

And then there was the Grand Final entertainment — a highlight of our year. This year’s baffling progress of the Premiership Cup from a tethered hot air balloon, through the hands of Tom Harley, to Peter McKenna and ‘Cowboy’ Neale was underwhelming in the extreme.

Fortunately, as we now know, the game itself lived up to all the hype and more. The Saints were a bee’s dick away from breaking their drought, needing only a mildly eccentric bounce of the ball for Steven Milne to goal in the dying seconds and secure the game. Instead the ball bounced at 120° and we were back the following week.

In a fitting finish to the on-field year, in the drawn Grand Final, emergency umpire Steve McBurney spent more time on the field than most of the players.

Oh, and, quite unexpectedly, James Hird was appointed coach of the Bombers, in case you missed that news!

October
Of course, the Grand Final replay imposed footy on October even more strongly than usual, with the ’Woods downing the Saints in no uncertain terms — sadly. AussieRulesBlog has no great affection for the Saints, but any day that Collingwood loses is a good day.

In the biggest jaw-dropping moment of the year, Saints coaches nominated perennial ‘rabbit-in-the-headlights’ Zac Dawson as their best player in the grand final replay.

Bomber Thompson left the Cats, taking the media world completely by surprise, and the impact of expansion teams on the Gold Coast and in Sydney meant we’d have a six-ring circus for the first round of the pre-season competition.

November
Once again taking everyone by surprise, Bomber Thompson was announced as senior assistant to James Hird at Essendon.

A trickle of assistant coaches leaving St Kilda became a flood, leaving coach Ross Lyon to book a telephone booth for the footy department’s Xmas party.

December
The FFA’s soap bubble of optimism for hosting the World Cup was unceremoniously burst, leaving Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley wearing egg makeup.

The Demons released their ‘cutting-edge’ new uniform, to a general yawn, Gary Ablett Jnr let it be known that Bomber Thompson’s problem was that he was trying to coach the football team and, just for good measure, the AFL announced another slew of temporary rule changes for the pre-season competition — some OK, some laughable.

And that’s how it was at AussieRulesBlog for 2010. We look forward to having our regular readers back for 2011 when, once again, we’ll prick a few balloons and renew our campaign to Release the Giesch!

Happy New Year and have a safe, enjoyable and productive 2011. Go Bombers!

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.

A report in The Age says the Saints’ coaching staff adjudged Zac Dawson the Saints’ best player in the Grand Final replay.

All of us here at AussieRulesBlog Central are a bit reluctant to go to town on individuals — other than Jeff Gieschen, Scott McLaren, and perennial favourite, Stephen McBurney.

Zac Dawson the best-performed Saint in the GF replay. Huh?

We must confess we regard Dawson as one of the more ordinary players going around at the elite level. His decision-making and disposal are questionable at best, and along with a physique little changed since the monstering by “Pebbles” Rocca which saw him banished back to the Hawks’ reserves, leaves him disadvantaged against all but the weakest of the opposition’s forwards.

Zac Dawson the best-performed Saint in the GF replay. Nope. It still doesn’t make any sense.

Frankly, the only person looking more lost than Zac last Saturday was Kosi.

Zac Dawson the best-performed Saint in the GF replay, and the equal of Hayes and Goddard for the finals series. Please!!! If Ross and his colleagues think this, then, as we foreshadowed in the title of the post, we know nuttin’!

Regular readers will know that we at AussieRulesBlog are long-time Bombers fans, so it’s important to state at the outset that this post is not (intended to be) a case of grandstanding after a victory.

We wonder whether, after a stellar 2009, the Saints can again scale those same heights.

We look back at the experience of Essendon’s Matthew Lloyd, who was never the same dominant player after tearing his hammy from the bone.

Nick Riewoldt’s injury would appear to be less severe than that extreme (Lloyd’s), but nevertheless is likely to restrict his famously high in-game workrate to at least some extent.

What makes Riewoldt’s absence more troubling for a Saints Premiership tilt is the failure, so far, of his teammates to step up to the breach.

We are firmly of the opinion that the secondary effect of Riewoldt’s absence — after the loss of his possessions and presence — has been the Saints’ remaining big forwards suddenly finding themselves matched against a better class of defender. It’s fair to assume that the opposition’s best tall defender would normally go to Riewoldt, but is now pitted against Koschitzke (or Fisher or Goddard).

When the Saints’ game style was already under attack as opposition coaches developed strategies to combat it, the loss of Riewoldt’s lead-up presence and strong contested marking has left the Saints somewhat leaderless up forward.

The writing had been faintly visible on the wall later in the 2009 season when the Saints lost two games, but has blazed into full view as Riewoldt’s absence in 2010 suggests they will struggle to maintain the same game style and intensity.

The big question will be how well Riewoldt heals and how close to his former output he can achieve. His expected return later in the 2010 season can hardly be expected to produce much more than increased morale, as he’ll be severely underdone for match practice at least.

As each year passes, and Riewoldt’s body ages, his output and impact on matches would be naturally diminishing anyway. Factor in this serious hamstring injury and the fall away will be more pronounced.

Can the current Saints win a Premiership without Riewoldt? Three losses in four weeks would suggest they can’t. Can they win with Riewoldt-lite? It would seem to be unlikely at best. It’s unfortunate that this most effective example of the benefits of the AFL’s equalisation strategy should have run up against what may yet turn out to be as good a team as the competition has seen in its history.

As we observed in our previous post, we watched the television transfixed as the Magpies appeared to target the Saints’ tagger Clint Jones before the opening bounce. It’s now a matter of record that the Saints not only withstood those unsavoury tactics, but went on to a famous victory after losing their captain to a severe hamstring injury and a key defender to a sickening collision. But what is the take out message?

The Saints are good enough to win without Riewoldt? For one game, yes. We’ll see how long the hamstring keeps him out and see how the team performs over a number of weeks before we pronounce them not a one-man team.

Bad kicking is bad football? Clearly the Magpies had many opportunities in front of goal that they squandered, but we felt, watching the television broadcast, that the Saints held an ascendency all game in general play. We think there’s something more than just ‘bad kicking’.

Going out with the right attitude translates to how the team plays? Collingwood began the game with an essentially negative mindset — they were going to nullify Jones’ tag right from the first moment on the ground. In the ensuing scuffles, Collingwood emerged with key free kick opportunities, but never appeared to have the composure to look like winners.

Even when the hapless Zac Dawson had done his best rabbit in the headlights stare for the third time early in the second quarter, the Saints looked more composed.

We are convinced that elite-level AFL is so even in standard that it is only miniscule differences that generate even 100-point-plus losses.

Whether pre-planned or not, and it certainly looked to be a planned action, Collingwood entered the arena with a negative mindset, focussing on a player rather than winning each and every contest for the ball.

The Saints are no angels. Baker, in particular, plays on the knife edge in his own negative, run-with roles. Nevertheless, the Saints seemed to win crucial contests for the ball and to make the most of their opportunities where Collingwood squandered theirs.

There’s a football truism — ninety per cent of the game is played above the shoulders. We think it might be even more important than that.

Tonight’s St Kilda-Collingwood game was notable for the grit and determination of the Saints’ win, but also for the less than sporting way that Collingwood sought to influence Clint Jones’ performance before the game had begun.

In our previous post, we agreed with Bob Murphy that a respectful handshake before the game would be more appropriate than the rutting rites that seem to be fashionable.

It’s hard relying on TV, because we see so little of what’s happening on the ground, however it appeared that Collingwood targeted Jones for extreme physical attention at every opportunity. We at AussieRulesBlog are not fans of a win at all costs mentality. Aussie rules is not, contrary to the attitudes of many, a life and death struggle. It is a competitive game, but losing doesn’t cost your life. The threat of being beaten in a game of aussie rules does not justify thuggery.

We might also mention that the Saints have indulged in the same sort of tactics themselves on occasion.

The game was redeemed by the Saints’ courageous second half. We’re often not overly impressed with the Saints, but they won respect for tonight’s against-the-odds performance.

It’s such a shame that all those first-round Collingwood Premiership celebrations will have to be put on hold too!

Also worth noting, with the benefit of listening to their audio feed, that the umpires did a pretty good job of taking control of a high-pressure situation and calming it down. Their performance tonight was firm, but restrained. An over-officious attitude could easily have exacerbated the tensions, but, fortunately, Steve McBurney is otherwise engaged this weekend.

St Kilda’s admission, during talks with Andrew Lovett’s representatives yesterday, that they’d sacked Lovett due to the accusation, and subsequent charge, of rape against him further exposes the Saints’ management team as a bunch of hopeless amateurs. And AussieRulesBlog is beginning to acquire the aura of a seer, having predicted the rape charge was the prima facie justification back in February.

In short order, the Saints have managed to turn a situation fraught with danger into a litany of misjudgement. How they must look back to 2008 and wish they’d drafted Ben Cousins who has ticked all the boxes at Richmond.

Cousins brought so much more than his silky football skills to Punt Road, providing a role model that that club’s favourite son, Matthew Richardson, could not. Damien Hardwick’s decision to nominate for the Richmond job must have been made substantially easier knowing Cousins was on the roster.

It’s hard to imagine that Ross Lyon and his recruiting staff could have seen Cousins’ Rolls-Royce pedigree in Lovett’s precocious talent, or that they could so comprehensively have misread Cousins’ determination to return.

We cannot think of a single positive for the Saints since Preliminary Final weekend last year. It really has been five truly awful months.

Despite the presence on their board of a professional lawyer, it appears the Saints have finally returned from their trip to a parallel universe and accepted their contractual obligations to Andrew Lovett.

The Saints’ series of hairy-chested assertions about Lovett have melted away faster than Vancouver snow.

The question to now be asked, especially by Saints supporters, is who the hell has been running this bumbling, keystone cops effort?

Surely no-one with their eyes open could have believed that Lovett would be other than high-maintenance? Surely it’s a no-brainer that Luke Ball’s mates were going to be pretty unimpressed about his ‘replacement’, especially given his chequered past?

Having (predictably) blotted his copybook, the Saints came down on Lovett like a ton of bricks and then employed the most bizarre timing in announcing their intention to cut him loose. A bunch of kindergarten kids could do a better job of managing than this!

As we blogged last month, should Lovett be found not guilty, the Saint’s profits for the next five years will surely make their way to Lovett’s bank account. Amateur hour indeed!