Lyon on how St Kilda will play in 2023

INCOMING St Kilda coach Ross Lyon has provided some insight into how the club will play stylistically in 2023 and beyond.

Lyon was known as a defensive coach during his previous time at the Saints and the Dockers, but admits the league has evolved beyond that methodology.

“You need more than one gear, certainly,” he said on SEN’s Sportsday.

“I don’t think we’re the quickest, but we’ve got really good endurance athletes.

“We were a control and shape team. Second for uncontested marks in the back half and in the top two for uncontested marks around the ground.

“I think the trend now has been to go forward more quickly. The uncontested and control game is disappearing.

“There’s times you need it, either through injury or time of the game or you’re under pressure, but fundamentally that shape and control and uncontested mark game is [disappearing].

“And Geelong were the trend setter and found that balance of going forward to the contest.”

Lyon said he has been impressed with his assistant coaching panel, including the likes of Corey Enright, Robert Harvey, Lenny Hayes, and Brendon Goddard, adding that he has allowed them to shape the club’s game-plan.

“We’re training it. I stuck to my word, I threw the whiteboard to the coaches and said ‘you guys come up with what you think and then we’ll just fine tune it together’,” he said.

“To be honest I thought there might have been an 80-20, they do 80 per cent, but Corey Enright has been really impressive on the team defence side, Lenny Hayes on stoppages, Robert Harvey on the ball-use.

“I’ve hardly tweaked anything. I really liked what they’ve come up with. We were a stoppage dependent team. We want to improve our turnover use because you can’t live on stoppage.

“I’ve coached teams [reliant on stoppage] and it’s too easy to negate in the big games.

“We like to be a go-forward team, use our run, be a pressure team.

“I’ve never coached perfection; we like a bit of chaos and I think it will suit us, so I’m pretty excited about it.

“We’ve been 12th and 12th for a reason. We’re realistic. In the short-term we want to improve as quick as we can. I think there’s room for development on the list.

“In the longer term we know we need to build our spine and capability and we went to the draft heavily this year and we went the year before and we love Marcus Windhager and Michito Owens, but prior to that for a variety of reasons, which is well documented and I can see the criticism, but two picks inside 30 in three drafts is concerning, but there was a reason for that and the club wanted to be competitive, but I think we’ve got to move away from that.”

St Kilda will part ways with list manager James Gallagher at the end of the year.

– BY NIC NEGREPONTIS/ SEN