“That surprises me,” says an opposition assistant coach. Hes been contacted to ask his thoughts about the tenure of St Kilda coach Alan Richardson. The rival coach wasnt expecting to learn that Richardson is set to move into outright second on the list of most games coached at St Kilda, ahead of the incorrigible Grant Thomas (123) and behind only the incomparable Allan Jeans (333).
The surprise probably says a lot more about St Kildas often-miserable history than it does of Richardson. After all, this is a club with one premiership and 27 wooden spoons. Indeed recent decades have actually been relatively stable for the Saints on the coaching front.
Directly behind Thomas on the list are Ross Lyon (121), Stan Alves (115) and Ken Sheldon (89), all of whom have coached the Saints at some stage in the past three decades. Thomas, Lyon, Alves, and Sheldon all took the Saints to at least two finals series, and all have substantially better winning records than Richardsons 35.77 per cent.
Alan Richardson.Credit:AAP
When stacked up against some of his more recent predecessors, Richardson has been given a generous amount of time to guide St Kilda into contention for that elusive second premiership. If, as seems increasingly likely following last weeks horror loss to the Brisbane Lions, Richardson is sacked at some stage in the back half of 2019, at least relative to previous Saints coaches he will not be able to claim he didnt have plenty of time to prove his case.
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But those raw numbers dont necessarily tell the full story. “In a way, it feels like he never really got a chance at it,” suggests one former insider who worked closely with Richardson at St Kilda. “Which sort of sounds ridiculous for someone who is about to be the second-longest serving coach at a foundation club.”
Richardson was on the back foot from the time of his appointment. So late in the piece did the Saints board decide to sack Scott Watters, the 2014 fixture had already been released when news of the axing emerged. Richardson therefore had no input into the Saints trade period plans of 2013 – which included sending Ben McEvoy to Hawthorn – and had been in the hot seat barely a week when the Saints snared Jack Billings, Luke Dunstan and Blake Acres in the first round of the national draft.
The new coach inherited a team that had fallen off a cliff face in 2013, but one still heavily reliant on an older core of players. Of the top eight in St Kildas 2013 best and fairest, five players (Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna, Sean Dempster, Nick Dal Santo and Clint Jones) had turned 30 by the start of the 2014 season, although Dal Santo had departed as a free agent to North Melbourne.
St Kilda were in full-scale rebuild mode. There was no other way around it. But they had a plan. Driven by football chief Chris Pelchen, the man who had helped build Hawthorns 2008 premiership side, the Saints laid out a strategy to hit the draft hard from 2013 before upping the ante via free agency in 2016, with a view to becoming a top-four side by 2018 and deliver a premiership by 2020.
These specifics were accompanied by several lofty off-field goals, few of which have been achieved. In hindsight, the most ludicrous target was the plan for 10,000 New Zealand-based members by 2018.
Pelchen departed weeks before the 2014 draft, in which the Saints took Paddy McCartin at pick one as well as Hugh Goddard at the tail of the first round. Speaking to several St Kilda football department personnel of recent years, the McCartin decision is one which consistently emerges as the type of seemingly doomed call which has ended up costing Richardson hugely.
But until Jack Billings emergence this year as a consistent force, few of St Kildas early draft picks have made the cut. Dunstan and Acres have teased, Daniel McKenzie has become a solid player, and Josh Battle has held up well in defence this year. But Ben Long has been way too inconsistent, Nathan Freeman (traded for a second-round pick in 2015) managed just two senior games while Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield, both top 10 picks in 2017, are yet to establish themselves even as senior regulars.
Chris Pelchen.
Jack Steele, Tim Membrey, Josh Bruce and Nathan Brown have been reasonably successful acquisitions from rival clubs, buRead More – Source
“That surprises me,” says an opposition assistant coach. Hes been contacted to ask his thoughts about the tenure of St Kilda coach Alan Richardson. The rival coach wasnt expecting to learn that Richardson is set to move into outright second on the list of most games coached at St Kilda, ahead of the incorrigible Grant Thomas (123) and behind only the incomparable Allan Jeans (333).
The surprise probably says a lot more about St Kildas often-miserable history than it does of Richardson. After all, this is a club with one premiership and 27 wooden spoons. Indeed recent decades have actually been relatively stable for the Saints on the coaching front.
Directly behind Thomas on the list are Ross Lyon (121), Stan Alves (115) and Ken Sheldon (89), all of whom have coached the Saints at some stage in the past three decades. Thomas, Lyon, Alves, and Sheldon all took the Saints to at least two finals series, and all have substantially better winning records than Richardsons 35.77 per cent.
Alan Richardson.Credit:AAP
When stacked up against some of his more recent predecessors, Richardson has been given a generous amount of time to guide St Kilda into contention for that elusive second premiership. If, as seems increasingly likely following last weeks horror loss to the Brisbane Lions, Richardson is sacked at some stage in the back half of 2019, at least relative to previous Saints coaches he will not be able to claim he didnt have plenty of time to prove his case.
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But those raw numbers dont necessarily tell the full story. “In a way, it feels like he never really got a chance at it,” suggests one former insider who worked closely with Richardson at St Kilda. “Which sort of sounds ridiculous for someone who is about to be the second-longest serving coach at a foundation club.”
Richardson was on the back foot from the time of his appointment. So late in the piece did the Saints board decide to sack Scott Watters, the 2014 fixture had already been released when news of the axing emerged. Richardson therefore had no input into the Saints trade period plans of 2013 – which included sending Ben McEvoy to Hawthorn – and had been in the hot seat barely a week when the Saints snared Jack Billings, Luke Dunstan and Blake Acres in the first round of the national draft.
The new coach inherited a team that had fallen off a cliff face in 2013, but one still heavily reliant on an older core of players. Of the top eight in St Kildas 2013 best and fairest, five players (Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna, Sean Dempster, Nick Dal Santo and Clint Jones) had turned 30 by the start of the 2014 season, although Dal Santo had departed as a free agent to North Melbourne.
St Kilda were in full-scale rebuild mode. There was no other way around it. But they had a plan. Driven by football chief Chris Pelchen, the man who had helped build Hawthorns 2008 premiership side, the Saints laid out a strategy to hit the draft hard from 2013 before upping the ante via free agency in 2016, with a view to becoming a top-four side by 2018 and deliver a premiership by 2020.
These specifics were accompanied by several lofty off-field goals, few of which have been achieved. In hindsight, the most ludicrous target was the plan for 10,000 New Zealand-based members by 2018.
Pelchen departed weeks before the 2014 draft, in which the Saints took Paddy McCartin at pick one as well as Hugh Goddard at the tail of the first round. Speaking to several St Kilda football department personnel of recent years, the McCartin decision is one which consistently emerges as the type of seemingly doomed call which has ended up costing Richardson hugely.
But until Jack Billings emergence this year as a consistent force, few of St Kildas early draft picks have made the cut. Dunstan and Acres have teased, Daniel McKenzie has become a solid player, and Josh Battle has held up well in defence this year. But Ben Long has been way too inconsistent, Nathan Freeman (traded for a second-round pick in 2015) managed just two senior games while Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield, both top 10 picks in 2017, are yet to establish themselves even as senior regulars.
Chris Pelchen.
Jack Steele, Tim Membrey, Josh Bruce and Nathan Brown have been reasonably successful acquisitions from rival clubs, buRead More – Source
