Leaderboard

No Dean Kent no Saints

They don’t deserve Yze as a coach

Disclaimer: This is not my own work. It was sent to me and was written by Pevster, a Bomberblitz poster. Adelaide’s List Manager: “We are so excited to welcome Rankine. We went all out to woo him, even going to the trouble of inviting every single listed player besides Taylor Walker when formally presenting to him. Despite our best efforts, there was no movement on Matt Crouch, whilst there remains no movement from Fisher McAsey, especially on the football field. Unfortunately, a mega trade we were deeply involved in broke down, that would have seen James Rowe end up at the Bulldogs and Taylor Walker end up at One Nation.” Brisbane’s List Manager: “It’s great getting two players of the calibre of Dunkley and Gunston who will seamlessly fit into our best 22, especially, since it comes at the expense of losing stalwart, Mitch Robinson, who can’t count to 22. Some are wondering how a top team like us can afford these quality players within the constraints of a salary cap. I can report that this was possible due to several senior players taking a haircut. Rhys Mathieson apologises for administering said impromptu haircut.” Carlton’s List Manager: “A bit like the last few minutes in each of our last 5 games, we went missing this trade period. We formally said farewell to Liam Jones, who is vaccine-hesitant, but were able to keep Paddy Dow who is Sherrin-hesitant. Some were surprised that we let go of Liam Stocker, who suffers from performance anxiety, and Will Setterfield who suffers from non-performance. The two clubs who are without a coach at present have sought our advice as until recently, we haven’t had a coach for the better part of the last 2 decades. ” Collingwood’s List Manager: “We see ourselves as the family club as evidenced by helping Ollie Henry reunite with his brother and the Brown brothers reunite with Centrelink. Brodie Grundy, who is an elite ruckman, had to go as his skills affected the confidence of our other rucks and his lack of prominent tattoos was out of step with what we are trying to develop. We are grateful that Jordan De Goey agreed not only to stay with the club but to accept our terms, as consent is not exactly his strong suit. I am happy to announce that Bobby Hill is recovering well from his recent cancer diagnosis and the coach is recovering slowly from the shocking reality that McStay is now a Pie. Mitchell will come to the club with his back-ended contract, where he will be greeted by Carmichael and McCreery who have a front-ended automobile. We have been able to secure NDIS funding for both Mason Cox, who is legally blind, and our cheer squad who is legally incoherent. I can announce that Peter Alexander dressing gowns have signed on as a major sponsor for our Supreme Court apparel. Please stay tuned later tonight as Isaac Quaynor and Jack Ginnivan host a live TikTok where they will rate the draftees and their partners out of ten.” Essendon’s List Manager: “What most people don’t realise is that initially Bowes was set on coming to us, but our board decided to pull the plug on the deal when they found out that pick 7 once attended church. Setterfield and Weideman fit perfectly into our underperforming and vanilla demographic. Weideman will have to fight for a spot in our best 22 with our other key position forwards, Alwyn and Jayden Davey. Brad Scott was adamant that he did not want a quick fix so we extended Heppell’s contract. Sydney asked about reliable ruckman Phillips, so we saw it as an opportunity to give them Francis instead. We consulted with the AFL in the forlorn hope that we could get free agency compo for losing Conor McKenna due to him playing for the club for 6 years and parking his car at the club for another 2. In response to our lacklustre trade period, the club can announce that they are marking up the price of club jackets at the Bomber Shop by 15%.” Fremantle’s List Manager: “Yes, we did lose a raft of players such as Logue, Tucker and Acres but we gained Jackson, who we think will play all of those roles simultaneously. As part of our pitch to Jackson, we told him that we see him as more than just a ruckman but also an inside midfielder, CEO, club director and taxidermist. O’Meara was persuaded by the “go home factor”, whilst Liam Henry is staying because of the “no one will have me factor.” Josh Corbett appeals as an undersized forward as we realised to our horror that all of our current forwards were ideally sized. ” Geelong’s List Manager: “Wow! What a busy trade period! Eyebrows were raised with our interest in Bowes, with many accusing us of using Bowes to get to pick 7. That accusation is hurtful and defamatory. The truth is, we have long had an interest in Bowes. Our VFL coach has been a strong admirer of Bowes and joined a delegation of VFL players such as Sam Simpson in order to sell him on the merits of our VFL program. It was reported that Gazza and Danger were big advocates of Bowes. That is not exactly accurate. I asked them about Bowes but they misheard and thought I said Bont. It now turns out that they think Bowes is rubbish. Some were surprised that we went for a youngster like Ollie Henry. We saw it more of a case as a package deal of Henry brothers with both of their ages combined fitting perfectly into our age demographic. We realise that Ollie Henry suffers from severe homesickness. We found him an apartment 5 minutes walk from his parents' place but we are worried that this isn’t close enough to his folks to fix the problem. Tanner Bruhn gets his desired outcome after ringing us every day for the past 2 years. I’m proud to announce that our club is committed to taking on every recommendation stemming from the Royal Commission into Aged Care. " Gold Coast’s List Manager: “As the AFL-endorsed feeder club for Geelong, we were thrilled to win the Premiership this year. It took years of collusion to achieve this and we look forward to continuing the association in the years to come. Bowes has been called the fabric of the club. This simply isn’t true, as all the fabric was used on Stuart Dew’s club polo shirt. We were excited to get Berry from Brisbane until it turned out we asked for the wrong one. Whilst we were happy to welcome Ben Long, we were very disappointed to lose Rankine to the Crows after we had long earmarked him for a spot on the Cats’ list. Now that the trade period is over we are all systems go for next year. We have already held preliminary talks with Geelong to trade next year’s first pick and Noah Anderson for Jeremy Cameron’s cow.” GWS’s List Manager: “We decided we were too stocked for inside mids so we traded them all out. Tanner Bruhn should make a seamless transition to life back home as he never actually unpacked his suitcase. We see Toby Bedford and Bobby Hill as like for like, as they both haven’t achieved anything, and probably never will. We traded up to get Aaron Cadman who we see as a Jeremy Cameron clone, in that we see him developing here before being cheaply traded to another club so he can win a flag." Hawthorn’s List Manager: “With WorkSafe launching a fresh probe after the horrific racism allegations we were worried we would lose Amon, but as it turns out, Amon is from Port Adelaide, so he is used to a toxic workplace environment. It’s no secret that O’Meara and especially Tom Mitchell wanted out. The latter’s relationship breakdown came about due to Sam Mitchell’s jealousy due to Tom actually earning his Brownlow. Cooper Stephens, a midfielder, now gets to join a club with absolutely no midfield and Lloyd Meek gets to join a Hawthorn list that is very meek." Melbourne’s List Manager: “Once we realised that Jackson was not going to recommit we sounded out Grundy. We did our due diligence over whether Grundy would fit into our team’s dynamic by getting Steven May really drunk and waiting to see if Grundy knocks him out. With Bedford leaving, we may look at Brayden Ham to fill the all-important vest-wearing position. We only agreed to trade out Weideman on the condition we got to replace him with another rubbish key position player with a Germanic surname. We were keen to bring in Lachie Hunter who spent time out of the team due to personal reasons and Josh Schache who spent time out of the team due to mediocrity reasons. An ambitious trade with Brisbane didn’t eventuate that would have seen Brisbane offering one of their early picks in exchange for a guarantee that Dayne Zorko won’t make any of our players cry.” North Melbourne’s List Manager: “Losing Jason Horne-Francis was a massive shock. We thought the current lack of a coach would appeal to him as it meant he could continue to be unaccountable and unprofessional. By trading him, we made the statement that we only want players who want to play for us. That’s why we looked into cutting our roster to four players. Trading the number 1 pick is a no-brainer as our recruiters are hopeless when it comes to that pick … or any other pick for that matter. A thorough medical examination determined that Darcy Tucker’s body may hold up and a separate medical examination determined that Jared Polec is still alive. We have a specific role in mind for Griffin Logue. Basically, it’s the overpaid, underachiever role that Tarryn Thomas played so well this year. On Tarryn, reports that he is unhappy is of course incorrect. In fact, Tarryn was only too happy to change his SIM card. Hearing that Clarko is a fan of good distributors, Wayne Carey has volunteered to distribute crushed-up anti-inflammatory tablets to whoever needs them.” Port Adelaide’s List Manager: “We were so relieved to get Jason Horne-Francis over the line. We were worried he’d never leave North. There was deep concern that his step-father’s experiences in prison would help Jason to cope at Arden Street. Whilst we are sad to lose Karl Amon who is an elite gut runner, we are happy to bring in Junior Rioli, who has an elite gut. We are reasonably confident our recent sponsor signing of Flex Seal will enable us to put Fantasia back together again.” Richmond’s List Manager: “We managed to get our hands on both Hopper and Taranto which we see as a triumph. Now we just have to get Dusty to keep his hands to himself. Hugo Ralphsmith was reluctant to go to GWS, preferring instead to share the ball with them next time the sides meet.” St. Kilda’s List Manager: “We were desperate for De Goey. Not only did we offer him a contract without any behaviour clauses, but we also encouraged him to continue to misbehave. We carefully selected a bunch of disgraced, scandal-ridden Saints identities to persuade him to move over. The group invited to pitch to Jordan consisted of Simon Lethlean, Brad Crouch, Barry Hall, Stephen Milne, Andrew Lovett, Jake Carlisle, the St Kilda schoolgirl and the dwarf on fire. Like Max King from 5 metres out straight in front, we just missed! Zaine Cordy, we hope will be able to stand up in defence better than he stands up after Mad Monday.” Sydney’s List Manager: “To prove to our deflated players that things could be worse than an embarrassing Grand Final thrashing, we brought in Aaron Francis. We are grateful that Sam Reid has agreed to stay on to play the first half of every game. We have recently agreed to an in-principle deal with Chad Warner’s management, which would see him stay on for 5 years, with the club getting back a percentage of the gross of his next home video.” West Coast’s List Manager: “We think a slide from pick 2 to pick 8 will complement the side’s likely slide from 17th to 18th. Whilst it is sad to lose Junior Rioli who basically hasn’t played any football for two years, we managed to retain Witherden and SPS who haven’t played any football for their entire career.” Western Bulldogs’ List Manager: “It took a while but we finally got the Lions to pony up, allowing us to get Lobb who looks like a stallion but plays like a pony. We were over the moon that Lobb requested to come to us and we look forward to helping him facilitate a trade in 12 months when he inevitably requests to be traded somewhere else. Bringing in Liam Jones should not be seen as the club not being serious about vaccinations. We are very clear on our support of the jab with many of our players getting booster injections and Caleb Daniel getting a booster seat. Attempts to get Bailey Smith to extend his current deal have been put on hold as his management has opted to keep the powder dry, especially as it is optimal to snort powder that is dry. We now have an exciting list with Sam Darcy having grown in height by 10% and Libba having grown in blood alcohol level by the same amount.”

I would think Lethlean would have a bit to answer for. Has now been there for 5 years and as GM Football presided over the recruiting and re-contracting of Ratten. He presided over the list management strategy and decisions which included getting his mate Hannebery on a very lucrative contract. Hannebery played 16 games in those 4 years! And the recruitment of HIll on another lucrative long term contract. Tough for a coach to operate with those decisions which are like shackles. Another rebuild awaits. Another decade in the doldrums. Now, Lethlean is being promoted to CEO. Ratten gets the boot!

That covers it binman. I was discussing with a couple of friends yesterday the expectation of AFL teams ( and other professional sports) that there can only be one successful team. The rest the fans are unhappy about. We won our first flag in half a century lose in the prelim this year and my feeling was despair. We finished second on the ladder and lost our two finals in part because we had a banged up team. A month down the track I can now see we had a good year. Yes it is competition that seldom shows empathy for its coaches and players

This from an article on the sacking 'Lethlean on Friday insisted Walsh was not involved in the review that has ultimately cost Ratten his job. He said the decision was made by a review committee which was made up by Bassat, Lethlean, Jason Blake and former North Melbourne coach David Noble.' It's pretty hard core that David Noble, who was unceremoniously sacked following a 'review' was involved in a review that led to the unceremonious sacking of another senior AFL coach. What an industry.

Honestly...this is pathetic. Their list isn't up to scratch & that's not Ratten's fault. Scattergun recruiting, a lot of it under their new CEO...I think the blame lies elsewhere. I feel for Ratten

Ginbey can play the Hibberd role and that is the role East Perth played him in when he was in their seniors. 2021 he played for East Perth Colts and Wesley College as a rebounding CHB, where he was outstanding. He’s not big enough to be a KPD It was Woey who moved him into the middle this season for 2 reasons, out of necessity and to show the versatility Rueban has in his game. Woey felt Rueban could eventually be a midfielder and he flourished. WA ended up putting him in the middle and he has shot up the rankings, but I see an Elliott Yeo type where he will be a half back who can be thrown into the middle if needed. The kid has many strings to his bow and oozes leadership

Probably not counter-intuitive at all. There is a very strong French influence in Vietnam, particularly the North. The best thing the French did for Vietnam was to leave, but the food influence is fantastic. Now what are we supposed to be discussing?

Jordan DeGoey double checking that he actually signed with the Magpies & not the Saints.

That club... Let's not kid around, in 2012 they were right in a hole dug by Ross Lyon, and there was no real reason to expect they would do any better than Scott Watters got out of them. Then they somehow clawed some non-rubbish season under Richardson which had people saying the Saints were climbing back faster than even the Demons under Roos, but the reality of their list hit back hard and they bottomed out again. Enter Brett Ratten, who has taken them to double-figure wins in every full season he has coached, even winning a final in 2020 and only being knocked out of finals by the eventual premier. All despite what is really an absolute snot-blast of a list, complete with a number of their highest-paid players barely taking the field. There's a real prospect that Ratten, Richardson and even Watters actually were all quite capable coaches but the entire St Kilda environment meant there was no chance of delivering a rebuild. Final thought; like many of us, I have a little glimmering memory of maaaany years ago when Ratten was briefly our midfield coach and really started to turn it into an effective unit before being poached. Brief notion crossed my mind that with a couple of our coaches leaving he might be a good addition, but then considered that he might just be a little to shell-shocked to jump straight back into a new club and role within weeks. Which invites the question; have St Kilda actually breached certain terms created by the AFL coach's association with regard to timely and appropriate terminations? In other words, is it possible that Ratten could have a legal case against St Kilda for impairing his ability to seek other work, such that St Kilda ought to be required to pay out more than the mandatory 6 months of salary? I'm only asking because that becoming an ugly court case would be the most St Kilda thing ever.

Still the most effortless and naturally talented player I have ever witnessed at Melbourne. Absolute freak the stuff he did. I wonder what his career would be like if he joined 2022 Melbourne.

Yze just replacing Essendon with St Kilda in his power point?

There’s been some talk that there’s another Liam Jurrah in this year’s draft pool but in reality, there’s only one Warlpiri Wizard

They also listed Noble as being too hard on players as reason for his sacking. Then Noble is part of the review that says Ratten wasn’t hard enough on his players. Ratten would say - well of course I wasn’t, I didn’t want to be you!

Cringe TikTok account is a tautology.

Got the following insight from a mate who is a lifelong Bulldogs supporter. “Schache under the right coach could be better than both McDonald and Brown as a tall marking forward option. Matthew Lloyd reckons he has the best set shot kicking action of anyone he coached at the AIS. Schache was kicking bags of goals in VFL ( 6 & 8 goal games) at the end of 2022 season. But Bevo only played him sporadically in 2022 and mostly as an intercept marking back (he was quite good) and backup ruck (also quite good) but rarely gave him a chance as a key forward. Like most tall players, Schache is a late developer but a valuable pick up for the Dees.”

Got the following insight from a mate who is a lifelong Bulldogs supporter. “Hunter is a gun winger (left footer) and premiership player (he has heaps of finals experience and 2 grannies under his belt). Bevo stuffed him around putting him on a half forward flank with only partial success so Hunter fell out of favour with Bevo. A couple of minor off field indiscretions and Hunter was banished to the VFL until we had so many injuries Bevo was forced to bring him back. If played on the wing he will give you heaps of gut running, marks, tackling and elite delivery to leading forwards… and Bulldogs are paying part of Hunter’s salary!!!”

It is the things not on the public record that made Hunter a problem child at WBD. Think 'rat pack' behaviours. Think culture. Think the persistent reasons Dunkley kept asking for a trade. Anyway, he is ours now. We have done our due diligence and the club thinks they can reahab him. So hopefully he lives to mfc standards and doesn't distract anyone.

Hannebery arrived a few years before Ratten. Jones and Hlll arrived when he was caretaker coach or just taken over as senior coach so he probably didn't have much say in their recruitment. He has only been in the job for a few years, hardly enough time to make his mark let alone have an impact.

Good coach and a decent bloke. Getting the sack 2 months after extending is just amateur hour Did the best he could with the list available. Reckon their head recruiter should be getting the chop before him This is Yze's opportunity but you never know with this Saints executive. Tough gig but someone has to do it. And if Yze does leave we could do worse that Ratten as senior assistant

The corporate governance of most AFL clubs is an absolute joke. They bang on about culture and respect and then blindside the most important part of their culture, and get rid of players without warning (ask OMeara or Grundy how they feel). It’s rubbish.

time to dodge a second bullet, ooze

Merge ‘em with North and send them to Hobart.

Weird! Weird decision. Weird timing. Weird club.

Adem Yze be like..

I Was speaking to a very experienced Collingwood supporter – who has access to their inner sanctum – who said that Brodie Grundy is an absolutely top bloke and plays as a ruck rover – in other words, exactly like Luke Jackson only better. I am very excited about him coming. I see them sharing the tap work in the middle, but Grundy playing forward while Max drops back to intercept defend. The discussion about our players should never overlook this - not only do we have “good” players, we have extraordinary players in our top three, Clarry Tracc and Max. I also see Petty going forward after his unbelievable cameo against Brisbane, with TMac going back if necessary. The weak link I think is BBB, who helped us get a premiership but has too much downside. If JVR is ready and good, then we are fine, with key position players of May, Lever, Petty, TMac and JVR as well as the marking ability of Max and BG, not to mention Fritta. I can’t wait.

Good job the Suns don't have any fans otherwise you'd be inundated with text messages

Ain't it great to be our club now. We need to enjoy this time more.

We all know how the saints' fans feel. We were that hopeless club not so long ago. Thank God we have a proper board now. Real competence and fortitude to stick the course is actually quite rare.

My gut feeling it is one of three things (in order of probability). Applying the Occam's razor principle, complete incompetence is probably the most likely reason Somewhat related to number one, back room shenanigans and shadowy conversations at board level led to identifying someone they decided they want to bring in as senior coach pronto - sack Ratten, create some space ahead of the draft and magically said person gets the gig (which might explain why the saints were so inactive in the trade period - ie they wanted to give the new guy as much input into the list as possible, and not saddle him with player types ratten was keen on) They uncovered something NQR about Ratten they knew would likely come out at some point and wanted to get ahead of that by biting the bullet and sacking Ratten now

I'd take him purely if he deletes his cringe Tik Tok account.

If we're to win the flag next year, our MCG form against the best in the business needs to improve dramatically. This year we were 1-6 against the top 6 sides at the MCG.

@DeeSpencer posts interesting football related content. I don't always agree but it's always well thought out and researched. Your major contribution seems to be to stomp on any slight perceived criticism of any aspect of the club. I'm a well known optimist and generally a supporter of club decisions so if I feel this way it definitely says something. Maybe take up the challenge and try to contribute some original football content like DeeSpencer does.

That was a wild ride in the middle of some of the worst teams we've ever put out. All these years later, the highlights video with Alan Partridge commentary is still gold.

Equal parts of sadness and happiness watching Liam weave his magic

extraordinary that they did this the day after trade period closed make sure that their players were locked in before they dropped this one on them...

Ratten back to finish what he started in 2004

Yeah, a lot of petty personal insults. Disgraceful. Many of the insults are from absolute nuffies, who just don't rate anyone outside the stars of the competition. He will play senior footy for us next year and will do some good/great things for us. Similar to those whacking Hunter because he had some issues when breaking up with a partner and went off the rails. He will be regular 22 and probably in our top 5 for B&F. Looking forward to seeing what both can offer us! Stop relentlessly bashing strangers. It honestly reflects more on you than anything or anyone else....i am talking about a LOT of you :P

Equally intrigued by Gruzewski & Allan @Pennant St Dee.. Shame that both spent a decent time out injured, so we really have only seen slices, but what we’ve seen has been pretty good. Gruzewski looks like a great mark and kicks it well (field kicking when playing back was impressive). Would love to have seen him play more forward than back so we could get a greater sample of him as a forward. His marking is very clean. Those of us outside WA didn’t see much of Allen outside of the final game against SA, but his athletic testing was exceptional. If he’s inherited any of his dad’s footy nous, he could be some player. Seems well suited to the wing, but at his height, could he play a role in the fwd line?

One buyer beware recruit per season.

We finished second on the ladder with the hardest draw, have a ‘seconds’ team who dominated the competition, have just recruited the 2nd best ruckman in the league, and a B&F winner at a recent Premiership club. Up to our necks in it. Outside of injuries, the burden of expectation is our biggest hurdle to winning 1 or 2 more in the next 3-4 years.

Something doesn't add up. Sack a coach straight after the trade period, when the attention is all on the trades that happened. Maybe they didn't want to scupper any trades, though of course the go with that would have been to have a new coach in place. They won't have a coach in place for the draft, or if they do that person would only have just arrived. And their draft board would be shaped by what type of players ratten wanted to bring in. There's no way this was the plan All smacks of damage control.

Wouldn’t mind Ratten to come back as our midfield coach. Yze if he stays to look after our forwards and Stafford to focus on the rucks.

The big question is whether they release the review’s findings (probably not) but there are many aspects to the way in which a club operates and the coach is always the easiest target. Their recruiting and player development leaves a lot to be desired and their fitness people would surely be under the microscope. At least they must have plenty of dollars because the payout to Ratten is likely to be substantial and they will also no doubt let some of his coaching team go as well. They were 8-3 at the midpoint of the season. Did it have to come to this?

Hopefully Yze sits this one out

That would be robbing Peta to pay Paul.