- Sylvia and Fremantle part ways
- A marriage made in hell
NO kids allowed.
There are many mantras in Ross Lyon’s coaching world, but this is the one which has resonated loudest in his 198 matches with two clubs.
It may yet, in his fourth season in charge of Fremantle, be the one which ultimately secures an inaugural premiership for individual and club.
Lyon’s team which defeated the Sydney Swans last weekend contained two men who will be 34 by the end of the year, one who will be 33 in the same timeframe, and a further three who will be 30 by July.
Had another older player, Ryan Crowley, not been detected using a prohibited substance, and another, Colin Sylvia, not given up trying to be an AFL footballer, you could’ve added two more to the 30-plus list.
Just one of the 22 who took the team to its 4-0 scoreline to open the 2015 season had played less than 50 matches, Matt Taberner.
Fremantle, under Lyon, is doing a St Kilda under Lyon.
Yet in this version of focusing on fielding an outfit which relies on playing the oldies till they drop, there also has been great and detailed planning for the future.
Lyon, and his senior players at St Kilda, gave everything possible only to come agonisingly close to premierships in 2009 and 2010, and he and the Dockers have already come near the same prize, losing to Hawthorn in the 2013 Grand Final.
In contrast to the situation at St Kilda, much of which was beyond Lyon’s control anyway, the Dockers, regardless of what happens post Matthew Pavlich, Luke McPharlin, Aaron Sandilands and co., have not only recruited well but have developed their recruits along the way.
The Dockers’ little known and little utilised players outside the main 22 have been well sourced.
We don’t know much about them now, but we will in years to come. Lachie Weller, Connor Blakely, Hayden Crozier, who was keeping Matt de Boer out of the senior team last year, Max Duffy, Tommy Sheridan and rookie Jacob Ballard would be getting games for a lot of other AFL clubs right now.
Sixteen Fremantle-listed players represented WAFL team Peel Thunder on the weekend. In the previous six seasons, the Thunder has averaged four wins a year. In 2015, the second season of an alignment with the Dockers, the club has won four of five games.
Fremantle fielded the competition’s oldest team on the weekend, an average age of 27 years, 29 days.
Yet, rather than view that as a panicky, time-is-ticking situation, Lyon takes a different perspective.
“Now, 33 is the old 30,” he told The West Australian’s Mark Duffield in a pre-season interview.
The composition of Fremantle’s list makes for interesting reading. Again using last weekend’s team, three players were top 10 in the national draft and a further four were taken between picks No.19 and 25.
Fremantle also had an equal weekend-high eight rookies in its 22. Its opponent in that game, the Swans, also had eight, as did Carlton in its winning combination against St Kilda in Wellington. Geelong, Gold Coast and West Coast had two, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide three, GWS none.
After the toil and toll of falling just short in 2009 and 2010, the Saints under Lyon started poorly in 2011, before surging two thirds of the way through the season to loom as a finals danger.
The team tapered late, then lost an elimination final. The Saints administration dawdled when it should’ve sprinted to fix Lyon’s issues with his contract. The coach walked out. The club went into a free-fall from which it is yet to be guaranteed of recovering.
No matter what the Dockers achieve with their oldies under Lyon in 2015 and 2016, the list management staff and recruiters have set it up to sustain high ladder finishes.
And Lyon won’t be deterred by the failed Sylvia experiment. He wasn’t with the failed Andrew Lovett venture at St Kilda. His world is a throwback to the past. You play for the now, and you don’t dwell when things don’t work out.
And you don’t play kids. Unless another Nat Fyfe comes along.
