Premier Cricket: How St Kilda plan to navigate their pool of talent

After winning successive club championships, St Kilda has added seven ready-made recruits. Captain Adam Crosthwaite is convinced it’ll work and he explains how they’ll all fit.

St Kilda captain Adam Crosthwaite has a simple answer to questions surrounding how he will squeeze all of the Saints’ new recruits in.

He hopes he doesn’t have access to all of them.

The Saints had a busy off-season, landing Tommy Jackson (Geelong via SA), Angus Newman (Dandenong), Josh Trembearth (Greenvale Kangaroos), Jordan Hesline (Richmond), Jet Liebke (QLD) and Mitch Sciberras (NSW).

While they all have First XI Premier Cricket experience, Crosthwaite holds no fears towards the selection room, as two of his stars are already involved in bigger and better things.

“We’re pretty comfortable with everyone playing and being available,” he says.

“We hope that we have a lot of guys playing for Victoria.

“Jono Merlo has found himself back in the side, we’re hoping to not have him majority of the year.

“Harry Dixon’s got a big year of under-19s World Cup, the Big Bash, which is great for him, we think he’ll be on representative duties.

“It all fits, the points all fit, we’re pretty comfortable of where we’re at and what’s going on.”

Tommy Jackson is one of the Saints’ many recruits. Picture: Mark Wilson

Crosthwaite says the Saints’ program and desire for club success becomes a lure for recruits.

“The objective every year is to win the flag, win premierships, the club has a massive history,” he says.

“We’ve won the club championship the last two years, we won thirds and fourths last year, seconds the year before, thirds and fourths again the year before that.

“We’re winning premierships, winning club championships, our players are playing for Victoria, playing for Australia.

“We think we have a program that is developing players within and when you build such a good program, it’s just natural that players want to come to the club.

“We haven’t chased any of these players that have come to us, they have seen and wanted in to the culture of the club and that’s super exciting.

“We want Victorian cricketers, Australian cricketers, premierships and club championships – we’re happy we have a program that develops all of that.”

St Kilda hopes to not have Jono Merlo for much of the year.Picture: Andy Brownbill

Despite bringing in a strong selection of ready-made players, the Saints haven’t had an influx of departures – particularly in the lower grades.

Crosthwaite feels it’s a reflection of a hard-working and hungry culture.

“There’s always that option,” he says of players leaving for more opportunity.

“If you play first-grade cricket for St Kilda, you know you’ve earned it.

“We have a really good culture between our first grade down to our Dowling Shield and our newly done women’s program.

“People don’t want to leave because it’s a great place to be.”