St Kilda defender Nathan Brown says Saints not shying away from goal to play finals

AFTER spending recent seasons outside the top eight, the Saints are ready to step up. And defender Nathan Brown has backed his coach’s view that there’s no limits on St Kilda in 2018.

Nathan Brown: “We’re not going to shy away...” Pic: Getty Images

ST KILDA is not shying away from its desire to do “something big”.

Saints defender Nathan Brown said the team had swept away the cobwebs that plagued last week’s JLT Community Series loss to Carlton, and believes that the group has matured after an 11th-place finish last season and is ready to handle the expectation that 2018 will bring.

“We owe it to ourselves and our supporters that we put our best brand of footy out that we know that we can play so we can put ourselves into finals contention,” Brown said.

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“I think we’re ready to do that. And I think we’ve got a group that is old enough now to handle that expectation.

“Richo is not shying away from the fact that we want to be up there challenging for a flag. We truly believe that if we bring our best footy, we can go a long way to doing that.

Nathan Brown (centre) with teammates Jake Carlisle and Luke Dunstan. Pic: Getty Images

“We all set goals as a team that we don’t want to be outcome focused — we want to focus on the process and that’s every week and every minute and every game.

“But that is ultimately the outcome that every team is striving for. We’re not going to shy away from the fact that every season counts nowadays and we’re going to strive for something big.”

Jack Billings and Josh Bruce will return for the Saints tomorrow night after injury troubles in what Brown said will provide a huge boost for the forwardline.

It will be St Kilda’s last chance to notch a positive result before the season proper kicks off in three weeks’ time — and they know it.

Jack Billings will be back for the Saints. Pic: Michael Klein

“We always match up really well with the Demons and we let ourselves down twice against them last year,” Brown said.

“Even though it is a practice match, it is our last chance before Round 1 to really set the tone with the way we really want to play tomorrow night against a great side that will be playing off for finals.”

Top draft picks Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield will again both feature tomorrow night at Casey, with Brown confident the duo would be up to playing in Round 1.

“I truly believe that, yeah. I think they are,” he said.

“They’re smart. If you don’t have the body size as a young fella, it’s about composure and those two have that in spades. I think they’re ready.”