Allan Jeans once told Dermott Brereton he wished St Kilda would get it right ... they still haven’t

IT’S decision time for St Kilda. They’ve missed the mark for a long time, but it’s time to “get it right”, just as the club’s Coach of the Century Allan Jeans once wished. Dermott Brereton on how they can do that.

What do the Saints need to do to fulfil Yabby's wish?

JUST get it right Saints.

As a young man I occasionally had the privilege of sharing a lift home with my coach Allan Jeans.

Roughly a quarter of a century later after those shared drives, “Yabby” would be named the Saints’ coach of the century.

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In the car Jeans sometimes spoke of his love for the St Kilda Football Club, but there was also a tinge of bewilderment that sometimes seeped through.

He never mentioned it, but I got the feeling that some decisions that were made involving him rankled.

He spoke of his affection for “Cowboy” Neale, Barry Breen and Travis “Bongo” Payze.

Allan Jeans celebrates St Kilda’s Grand Final win in 1966.

Even though he was a policeman by trade, you could hear the admiration in his voice for the rogues of his era.

Jeans would talk affectionately of John Bingley and how one of his handful of games was the 1966 premiership.

I asked him just how good Daryl Baldock was compared to our own Leigh Matthews.

He would reply: “I’m not going to tell you, laddie, who was the best player I have coached, but I will tell you that Barry Lawrence was the best player to coach.”

But if I asked him the differences between the Hawks and the Saints his mood would change.

“They’ve been going for 100 years and all they have to show for it is one premiership,” he would say. “I wish that they could just get it right.”

Allan Jeans and Dermott Brereton at Hawthorn training in 1989.

I didn’t understand what he truly meant by “just get it right”. I never really pressed him on it. I was young and he was the master but the mood in him always changed.

More than likely, it was the decisions made from the top down. Decisions that had hurt him as well.

For the modern-day Saints, the top office needs to get a series of upcoming decisions absolutely right.

A brief look at the past 10 years reveals:

IN 2006 the Saints sacked coach Grant Thomas after building a list that took him and his much loved Saints into the finals.

THE then-president Rod Butters has since revealed that and other decisions were made while his mind was affected by alcohol and other drugs.

He was a good guy, Rod, but a less than perfect lifestyle influenced him and in turn he influenced the board to push the only person in the club that was willing to stand up to him.

ROSS Lyon was appointed and five seasons he took the club to a grand final three times and to four finals series in a row, making him the club’s second most successful coach behind Jeans.

Former St Kilda coach Ross Lyon.

Former St Kilda coach Scott Watters.

But the top office fell asleep at the wheel and in 2011 Lyon was courted by Fremantle when they learned of a “get out” clause in his contract.

SCOTT Watters was appointed next. Highly credentialed as one of the masterminds behind Collingwood’s midfield in its 2010 premiership year, Watters shook things up and was very keen on several new aspects of the footballing department at Seaford.

A workaholic who suffers fools even less gladly than my mate Sam Newman, Scott ruffled up a few people and it is fair to say that thereafter, the tail wagged the dog. And the dog influenced the board to move on him.

To this day I have not met anyone who is smarter on reading game styles and strategies and analysing player strengths and weaknesses. It is almost irresponsible of our industry to have that level of IP sitting on the outside.

Some have tried to lure Watters back, but I just don’t know whether he wants to deal with it all again.

NOW we enter the era of Alan Richardson, one of the truly good guys in league circles.

My call on Richo was always, will he force it all to be his way like an Alastair Clarkson, Ross Lyon or Mick Malthouse?

When he was appointed in 2014, Saints president Peter Summers (rightly or wrongly, you can decide) got up and announced the club’s five-year vision: St Kilda: The Road To 2018.

Alan Richardson after speaking to his players.

Summers said “by 2018 we will be a top four side that is positioned to be a premiership contender”.

“By 2020 we will have our second premiership,” the president continued.

The Saints will be headhunting new assistant coaches for 2019.

And, if we believe them this time, only assistant coaches.

With a large degree of autonomy, Simon Lethlean has been handed the steering wheel and he will be looking for innovators.

He must find assistants who will challenge Richo to adopt a game style other than just what could be described as a “pressure type game”.

It must stand for something and mean something.

He needs to find an assistant like Justin Leppitsch, someone who has balls enough, for example, to fight to keep three small forwards (Rioli, Castagna and Butler) in the team when other selectors are caught up on low possession counts.

Jarryn Geary leads St Kilda off after the loss to Essendon.

He needs to find another Watters, someone who can select an opponent for an opposition star and take down that star based purely on skill set.

He needs to find another version of Richo, to help develop the young players recently drafted into better players than their draft order dictates.

He needs to find a young David Noble who will challenge him and force him to come up with new answers.

And he needs to lure a hard nosed assistant with smarts who will stare down the barrel and ask the question: “If Dan Hannebery is still as good as he was, why is Sydney letting him go with several years left on his contract?”

If Lethlean is lucky, he will find all these qualities in one or two new assistant coaches.

And then of course we have to wait and see what the board, however it might be comprised, truly wants.

Real change, some change, or no change.

Because each time the Saints have reached a fork in the road over the last 52 years, history shows us that they haven’t been all that good at selecting the correct path.

As Yabby said, “just get it right.”

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