Ross Lyon is Ready to Change

Ross Lyon is Ready to Change

GuyWhoLikesSport GuyWhoLikesSport

Before this year, you understood life’s three certainties: death, taxes, and boring Ross Lyon football.

What if one of those doesn’t apply anymore?

Would that destabilise you, like you’re NATO after a Trump press conference? Would it render your whole life a lie?

Don’t rule it out.

While you’re thinking about it how you might react to one of the most certain pillars in existence perishing, have a look at the St Kilda list.

It’s not a dour stars and scrubs team like Ross had in his first stint at the Saints or at Fremantle.

It’s actually a list full of young and enterprising athletes who could do the impossible and make me want to watch the Saints. This would be a shift from my usual Saints footy watching habits, where I consider which kitchen utensil would be most effective for removing my eyes (long teaspoon).

Nas Wanganeen-Milera, Cooper Sharman, Max King, Mitch Owens, Darcy Wilson, Liam Henry, Mattaes Phillipou, Hugo Garcia, and Anthony Caminiti are all under 25 and are all, to varying degrees, good athletes and somewhat exciting footballers. Crucially, they’re all avenues to goal whether by scoring themselves or setting up teammates.

They’re not just Clint Jones types.

These players are a red wine jus to the meat and potatoes established players like Cal Wilkie, Jack Sinclair, Rowan Marshall and Jack Steele.

Ross knows that to win in modern footy, you need to score. He also must know that across his 15 completed seasons as an AFL head coach, his teams have finished better than seventh for total points once.

He’s making an effort to fix that on a team-building level.

While the Saints were still an elite defensive unit last year, giving up the third fewest points in footy on the season, they had a few games where they showed a willingness to attack games.

The one that sticks out most and seems to have brought about the most change is the Saints round 14 loss to Brisbane.

In that game, the Saints scored the second most points they scored on the season from the back half because they showed an appetite to attack the corridor.

While necessity was probably the mother of invention in that game because of Brisbane’s hot start, something shifted after that.

Over their last 10 matches for the season, Ross’ Saints scored over 90 points four times and over 100 three times. In their previous 13 games, the Saints scored over 90 twice and over 100 just once against North Melbourne.

In the whole of the 2023 season, the Saints scored over 90 as many times as they did in the final 10 games of 2024.

Over that period, the Saints were second in footy in marks inside 50 and led the league in mark inside 50 rate.

They were second in the league, behind only Hawthorn, at scoring off turnover. They scored about eight more points per game from turnover over the last 10 games of the season compared to their season average.

Over those games, they stuck to their bread and butter which is getting a turnover deep in their back line and working the ball out methodically from there, sitting third in footy in back half scoring at about the same rate as they did the whole season. They also led the league in marks.

The shift was in style. They had about five fewer handball receives over the 10 game period, trusting their kicking game to be more aggressive and push the pace rather than relying on overlap run. It was Brisbane-lite.

The other interesting point is that they dialled up their forward half game significantly.

Across the season, the Saints were the worst team in the AFL for forward half scoring with 31 points per game.

They were a points worse than West Coast.

Over the final 10 games, they cranked it up. They kicked an extra goal a game from the forward half over that period, good for thirteenth. Bob Dylan isn’t likely to write a song about that revolution, but there is value in going from terrible to average.

Overall, they kicked an 1.5 more goals on 1.5 more shots per game over the final 10 games compared to the full year.

The Saints also didn’t lose what makes Ross, Ross. They were still a top-5 scoring defence.

It was different but the same.

That final 10 games showed that Ross is preparing, just a bit, to play against type. Last year was Ross’ version Matthew McConaughey edging toward being a serious actor in The Lincoln Lawyer.

This year should be Ross’ Dallas Buyers Club, where he announces himself as a man who has pivoted but has kept the same DNA.

 

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