Another Saint pulls the pin aka The Penny has dropped

[Rik E Boy]

Luke Penny has officially announced his retirement from football and will not play for the Aints next season. Penny has played 80 games for Western Bulldogs and St Kilda and was contracted to Cornflake's overrated mob of never will bees for three more seasons.

Flamers at Saintsational are going batshit at the thought of paying out Penny's contract..the Saints won't be bringing in anyone to take Penny's place on the list as Cornflakes reckons his list 'is about right'.

LMAO..Aussie Jones and Luke Penny gone. Justin Kostishacke, Aron Hamil, Max Hudgton, Nick Rievolwdtz all injury prone marshmellows..The mysterious G train who could kick one goal or a dozen, depending on how he feels on the day (except against Matty Scarlett ha ha).

These blokes are one Robert Harvey hamstring twinge away from oblivion. Bring it on, Robert KnoWalls' favourite team.

regards,

REB

[ORDoubleBlues]

As much as this may be a shock to some, 24 year old footballers don't retire lightly.
If he had bad knees his doctor may well have advised him on what awaits him in the future if he continues to play football.
Cornflakes shouldn't be too upset about it though because they still somehow made the preliminary final last year and that was without Penny being there so they have already had a good taste of what life will be like without the important (no, I am not being sarcastic) key position player.
Somehow I gather that the tenure of Thomas as coach will be in direct relation to the tenure of Butterss as President, i.e. if Butterss is president for another 7 years, Thomas will be the coach for another seven years. Proof that backstabbing and underhanded tactics can work to your advantage.

[ORDoubleBlues]

Also, as far as I am aware, if the player retires of his own accord, the club does not have to pay out the remainder of his contract. In this case Penny may still get his money but it would be from an insurance fund if medical opinion suggests that he can no longer go on, a la Luc Longley in the NBA. Which makes me wonder in the Matthew Primus situation, did he retire to save himself the indignity of being delisted or spending the year in the SANFL. Apparently he is still getting his money, so that suggests to me it wasn't ultimately his decision and that would be one of the reasons why the club will employ him for next year at least so that they can get some value out of the deal.

[Rik E Boy]

Frustration may have also played a part in Primus' case OR.

regards,

REB

[stan]

Must be some real knee trouble there for him to pull the pin.
as REB said:

Justin Kostishacke, Aron Hamil, Max Hudgton, Nick Rievolwdtz all injury prone marshmellows..The mysterious G train who could kick one goal or a dozen, depending on how he feels on the day

These blokes are one Robert Harvey hamstring twinge away from oblivion

I would the saints will be hanging on by a thread most of the season. What i mean by that is they still are the victorian great hope next year of winning the cup back, and are sitll a good team and will play some good football early in the year. Then a few injury's will hit and then they'll probably need to throw Fergi Watts up forward as Kosi and Super man will probably be out of the side.

[JK]

I genuinely believe the Cats can and probably should be the current Victorian great white hope, whether or not they can progress past that Geelong-type curse that has seen them fall short on so many occasions, often in heartbreaking fashion, remains to be seen!

The Saints on their day will remain capable of beating anyone provided they have fit bodies on the Park, but as REB mentioned with Hamill, Reiwoldt, Kozi, Harvey and Gehrig quite injury prone (and the latter two most likely one decent injury away from calling it a day) and short in the ruck department, they may very well have missed their opportunity, with the likes of the Bulldogs, Richmond and Hawks rebuilding for promising futures that will be here sooner rather than later!

[stan]

Perhaps you are right about the cats, but the probalem remains that they are a bit slow around the middle and that has seen there downfall on a number of occasions.

[Rik E Boy]

The Cats do have some quicker players that can rotate throught the midfield if we are being run off our feet as we were by the Bulldogs in Round 17 last season. However, players such as Kane Tenance and Shannon Byrnes (and a lesser extent James Kelly) tend to be a bit wastefull with their delivery by foot. Bartell and Ling are slower players, but they run to space to buy them time and generally use the ball well.

Next season Geelong will welcome back David Wojinski, generally not rated by those outside of GFC, but a speed merchant who was really missed by the Catters last season. Wojinski was rated the most improved in 2004 and is cherry ripe for this season.

When Geelong is at it's best the defence provides the springboard and the run, not the midfield. You will often see Ling win that first possesion out of the centre and feed it out to Milburn, Enright, Hunt or even Scarlo should he run off his man.

A lot of teams are 'slow in the middle'. You can point to nearly every side but perhaps only West Coast and Bulldogs spring to mind as quite quick out of the middle. You can't really say that Adelaide or Sydney are quick out of the middle and both had strong seasons last year. The key factors are list strength and injuries or lack of. Injuries killed four teams last year - St Kilda, Freo, Geelong and Collingwood.

regards,

REB

[JK]

When Geelong are playing well, much like Sydney and to a lesser extent Adelaide as mentioned above, it's because they are exceptional at closing down space for the opposition and can be very miserly...

Have had some injury concerns over recent seasons to quality players - Harley, King, Wojinski (agree with your assessment on him REB), Ottens, Kelly, Enright to name a few!

One thing they must be commended on is their talent identification and recruiting etc, to be up there as they have been in recent seasons without ever receiving the "gift" of priority picks, is a fine achievement!

[stan]

Sydney choke the game through hard tags and floods through out the ground. Adelaide perhaps arnt really speedy, but there defense is so strong that they can hold there own from there.

But i guess to say which team is the great vic hope depends on injuries.