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Sport Nation
The two myths Ross Lyon has debunked at St Kilda
Luke Mathews • April 13th, 2025 12:30 pm
Tim Watson has praised Ross Lyon for St Kilda's beginning to 2025.
The Saints have so far defied all pre-season expectations to sit on the fringes of the eight with three wins from their first four games.
Across Lyon’s 356-game coaching career at St Kilda and Fremantle, the 58-year-old has come under fire for his inability to both score and develop burgeoning young talent into superstars.
Essendon great Watson, who coached the Saints between 1999 and 2000, declared that while many might dislike the 2009 coach of the year’s tactics or game plan, you can’t deny his ability to coach.
“What a coaching performance it has been so far this year from Ross Lyon,” Watson said on SEN Breakfast.
“The criticism of Ross has been that they can’t score, they won’t play a brand of football where they try and score, which is bunkum now.
“And that he can’t coach kid, and that team is full of kids.
“The bloke can coach, you may not like him, you may not like his style, you may not like the way that he presents himself but on all the evidence of his career, this bloke can coach.
“What’s that statistic, are they nine and three from their last 12 games?”
It hasn’t just been the wider AFL public singing the praises of St Kilda’s new wave of kids with the veteran coach also surprised by the instant impact they’ve made, particularly Hugo Garcia and Lance Collard.
Their development couldn’t have been fast tracked without their experienced campaigners with Lyon saying they’ve been well lead from the minute they stepped in the door.
“Garcia is as tough as they come and works incredibly hard, we’re really pleased with Lance Collard he can really run and work,” Lyon told SEN's Fireball on Friday morning.
“His GPS matches Brad Hill’s, I don’t think a lot of people get that so for speed and metres per minute albeit 20 minutes less on the ground.
“He’s an elite runner highly skilled so he’s brought a lot to the table, to take that mark and those chase downs was really pleasing.
“They’ve been well-led by obviously (Jack) Sinclair, (Cal) Wilkie, (Jack) Steele, (Rowan) Marshall and obviously Jack Macrae coming in has really helped those kids as well.”
Lyon and the Saints will return to Norwood Oval for the second year in a row to take on GWS in Gather Round from 3:20pm AEST on Sunday.
