Ross Lyon

After an upset victory in Robert Harvey's 350th match in Round 12 against West Coast, Lyon proceeded to guide the Saints to win three out of the next four matches and a drawn game against the Western Bulldogs.

This left the Saints in eighth position on the ladder, a spot the side was unable to maintain after narrow losses to reigning grand-finalists Sydney and West Coast in the remaining five rounds.

Ross Lyon (born 8 November 1966) is a former Australian rules football player and the current senior coach of the St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).

He played for Fitzroy and the Brisbane Bears from 1985 to 1995.

Lyon began his career with Fitzroy in 1985.

Lyon played for Fitzroy from 1985 until 1994 for a total of 127 games and kicked 112 goals.

After playing the last five games of the season and the first game in 1986 he missed the remainder of the season and most of 1987 due to groin and back injuries that was later diagnosed as spondylolisthesis.

He returned to play 19 games in 1988 and ended up playing 127 games over the next ten years until the end of the 1994 season.

Lyon played two games with the Brisbane Bears in 1995 before retiring due to a knee problem.

As a player, he battled injury but was known for his fearless approach to the game, particularly his strong tackling and bumping.

After retiring as a player, Lyon began his coaching career as an assistant coach under senior coach Robert Walls at Richmond in 1996.

Despite losing narrowly to Essendon and North Melbourne late in the season, the Saints finished two-games clear on top of the AFL ladder, winning the McLelland Trophy for the first time since 1997.

Lyon moved to Carlton in 2000.

He spent three years at Carlton both as an assistant coach and as the club's VFL coach where he worked under senior coaches David Parkin, Wayne Brittain and Denis Pagan.

In 2004, Lyon joined the Sydney Swans in an assistant coaching position as midfield coach, working under senior coach Paul Roos his former Fitzroy teammate.

He was instrumental in helping the Swans reach consecutive grand finals in 2005 and 2006, triumphing in the former year.

When the St Kilda senior coaching position became available at the end of 2006, a list of candidates was drawn up.

Lyon beat 52 candidates for the job, including favourite John Longmire.

He succeeded Grant Thomas as St Kilda's senior coach who had been sacked a week after the Saints were defeated in an elimination final by Melbourne in the 2006 finals series.

Upon becoming senior coach of the club, Lyon hired his own assistants, with close friend and AFL Team of the Century fullback Stephen Silvagni, Anthony Rock, former Carlton assistant coach Tony Elshaug and John Barker all being appointed in assistant coaching positions for Lyon's first season.

He also helped lure highly rated fitness coach David Misson to the club from Sydney.

He previously coached St Kilda from 2007 to 2011 and the Fremantle Football Club from 2012 to 2019.

Lyon began his first season as senior coach with a victory against Melbourne in Round 1 of 2007 and the Saints then won four of their first seven games.

Injuries hit the club badly in Round 8, however, with St Kilda having only 24 out of a possible 38 players to choose from against Hawthorn.

Lyon was criticised for flooding excessively and many became angry with the more defensive style of St Kilda over the subsequent weeks.

During the 2007 trade period, St Kilda were widely considered to have traded very well, picking up Geelong premiership ruckman Steven King, Geelong forward Charlie Gardiner and Swans pair Adam Schneider and Sean Dempster for draft selections 26 and 90.

St Kilda started the season strongly by winning the 2008 NAB Cup, defeating the Adelaide Crows by five points at Football Park.

Despite this strong showing the Saints went on to have a mixed first half of the season with five wins and six losses.

In the second half of the season, their fortunes improved sealing a spot in the top four with a record-breaking 108-point victory against Essendon in the final round.

The 2008 finals campaign, Lyon's first as coach, saw St Kilda lose to Geelong in the first qualifying final and then defeat Collingwood by 34 points in a semi-final.

In what would be veteran and club legend Robert Harvey's final game as a player, the Saints were well beaten by eventual premiers Hawthorn in a preliminary final, losing by 54 points.

St Kilda made a number of changes to their coaching and playing staff in the 2008/09 pre-season, adding Geelong assistant coach Leigh Tudor as the forward coach.

Over the pre-season Lyon worked on a new game plan based around forward pressure, midfield zone defence and pushing numbers behind the ball.

This was the platform for a record-breaking year.

St Kilda won 19 consecutive matches, including a game described by some observers as one of the best home-and-away clashes of all time in Round 14 against Geelong, which was also undefeated at the time.

Silvagni spent four years at the club as defensive coach, leaving at the end of 2010 to work with, while Elshaug became head of recruiting.

Other notable assistants to have worked with Lyon in his time as coach include Leigh Tudor and Robert Harvey.

Lyon is the most successful St Kilda coach by percentage of games won, with a 64.5% winning record.

The team narrowly missed playing finals for the fourth consecutive season, finishing 9th with 11 wins, 10 losses and 1 draw for the year.

Despite missing the finals, the Saints finished the year strongly, winning 7.5 of the last 11 matches.