Few AFL coaches have maintained as strong a faith in their own coaching philosophies over the years as has Ross Lyon. Understandably, perhaps, given he's been arguably a toe-poke, an errant bounce of the ball and some inaccurate kicking away from three premierships.
But is there a point at which that unshakeable belief starts to become less of an asset and more of a handicap? Watch St Kilda's weekly struggle to score, let alone win these days, and you have to wonder.
No, I'm not an AFL coach. I can, however, read numbers and observe the same statistical trends the coaches do. And some of the most fundamentally important, those concerning scoring, continually suggest Lyon's teams simply don't fit the premiership parameters, year after year after year.
I decided to do some number-crunching on that issue after another impotent scoreboard effort from St Kilda on Saturday night against Fremantle, and posted a short rundown on those numbers on my Facebook page.
It went gangbusters, which suggested to me not only that there's an awful lot of frustrated Saints fans out there, but that while people will tolerate having to watch their teams play a dour, boring and low-scoring brand of football if it's successful, they won't cop losing that way as well. That's like dying twice.
Lyon keeps insisting that he wants the Saints to play with "more sizzle", to score more. So why don't they? What's stopping them?
Is it just about talent? I'm not sure it is. Okay, theirs isn't one of the great lists. But St Kilda was still good enough to play finals last year. More significantly, I think, it was and still is good enough to return to some decent defensive numbers. But the other side of the coin, namely attack, is wretched.
The massive discrepancy between the rankings for attack and defence of Lyon-coached teams, is far more about priorities than talent per se. And Lyon's priorities, perhaps more than any of his coaching peers, are always geared far more towards stopping opposition scores than having his own teams score, because to do the latter would involve taking more risk.
Last year, Lyon's Saints ranked No. 1 in the AFL for fewest points conceded. And points scored? A miserable 15th. This season, even with just three wins from 10 games, St Kilda still ranks a respectable sixth for defence. But attack? Yep, 15th again.
And here's why that imbalance matters. AFL has had 24 premierships decided from 2000 onwards. Every single one of them has been won by a team which ranked top six for defence. But 21 of those 24 have also been won by teams which ranked top six for attack, Richmond in 2017 (eighth) Western Bulldogs in 2016 (12th) and Sydney in 2005 (14th) the only exceptions.
Collingwood last year was fourth for attack and third for defence. Geelong in 2022 was third for both. Melbourne in 2021 was fifth for attack, first for defence. Richmond in 2020 fifth and second, and 2019 sixth and fourth. West Coast 2018 was fifth for both. And so on.
Nearly all Lyon's teams, however, across 14 completed seasons as an AFL coach with the Saints (2007-11 and last year) and Fremantle (2012-19), have fallen way short of that marker offensively.
Just once, in 2009, when St Kilda lost a nail-biting Grand Final to Geelong, did a Lyon-coached team finish better than seventh for points scored, the Saints fourth for attack and first for defence.
The 2010 Saints, who drew a Grand Final with Collingwood then lost a replay, were No. 1 for defence but only eighth for attack. Fremantle in 2013 lost a Grand Final to Hawthorn by just 15 points, ranking first again for defence, but only 12th for points scored. The Hawks that year? They were the AFL's highest-scoring team.
Lyon's teams have nine times in his 14 seasons as an AFL senior coach reached that premiership standard of a top six ranking for defence. For attack, though, it's just once. It clearly is an issue. But Lyon can't think so. If he did, wouldn't he have done more to fix it at some stage this past decade-and-a-half?
Surely, if those sorts of rankings occur repeatedly over that long a period, it can't just be about the personnel in a particular season. Because if a coach did see that as a big problem, wouldn't he make sure it was one fixed by recruiting forwards who could kick those goals?
Maybe Lyon really does think attack is important, but doesn't feel comfortable enough loosening the defensive reins even a little in order to create more opportunities? Or quickly reverts to his more conservative instincts when things don't go according to plan?
Certainly, at the start of last season, St Kilda was playing a more adventurous and faster-paced brand than it is now, the Saints having notched five wins and a six-point loss to eventual premier Collingwood in its first six games.
The Saints then lost by just seven points to Port Adelaide at home in Round 7, conceding more than 80 points for the first time. From that moment on, their scores dropped sharply, at the same time their run and overlap from half-back provided by the likes of Brad Hill and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera also decreasing, and their ball movement slowing.
Yes, it made St Kilda harder to score against, because they were better set up defensively when the ball was turned over. But yes, it also made scoring a more laborious proposition. And that's how things have been since. Lyon's history suggests that's also the way it's likely to remain.
That's why discussions about Max King's lack of form, Tim Membrey's failure to be picked, or Jack Higgins' suspension are in a sense missing the point. It's not just about the here and now, but about what's possible under his stewardship.
Would St Kilda be plying a much different game style had the Saints a more potent forward set-up? Well, the Saints had a red-hot midfield 15 years ago and Nick Riewoldt, Justin Koschitzke and Stephen Milne in attack, and were hardly kicking cricket scores, were they?
Now, however, they have a list in transition. That should be about nurturing younger, emerging talents for the future as much as limiting any damage in the here and now. But AFL football appears to be a pretty joyless business these days for the likes of Wanganeen-Milera, Mitch Owens, and Mattaes Phillipou.
Lyon almost got it done with St Kilda first time around. Twice. But when the absolute belief of his players of what was possible waned after the second near-miss in 2010, the physically and mentally taxing methodology his coaching imposes upon his players saw them quickly fall in a significant hole.
It was a tale repeated at Fremantle in 2016, the Dockers finishing the regular season in 2015 top of the ladder, then sliding in unprecedented fashion to 16th with just four wins the very next year. Is the bottom falling out again now with the Saints? But this time after just one year of a supposedly long-term project?
You'd hope not. But what once seemed impressive certainty that Lyon's way was the only way is now looking, in a changed football environment, more like unhelpful obstinance.
St Kilda clearly needs to change how it's going about its football to save this season. But for the sake of its future, too, maybe it's time its coach at least thought about doing so as well.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.