St Kilda footy boss Simon Lethlean charged with saving the Saints — and making call on Alan Richardson
AS St Kilda’s season of woe continues the club’s new footy boss will play a key role in trying to lift the embattled club. And JON RALPH writes his biggest decision will come on the coach.
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SIMON Lethlean finally has his reformation project.
A man sacked by the AFL and overlooked by multiple clubs searching for a CEO has a chance to affect meaningful change in football.
Saving St Kilda’s football team is no small task for the AFL or the club’s hierarchy.
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The club is $10 million in debt, the momentum of the rebuild has evaporated and every fan is asking what is being done to fix this mess.
The first seismic decision Lethlean and CEO Matt Finnis must make is this: is Alan Richardson this year’s Damien Hardwick or this year’s Mark Neeld?
St Kilda has not won since Round 1 and it’s hard to find a strength of Richardson’s coaching this year.
His tactics have been questioned, the trademark pressure has vanished, he hasn’t extracted improvement from many players and on Saturday’s effort they weren’t playing for him.
As Richardson himself admitted on Sunday, if the formline keeps up he is a goner.
In football almost every single coach in that situation was once sacked in a storm of fan anger and media pressure.
But Hardwick survived his annus horribilis, so did Mark Thompson in 2006 and so did Nathan Buckley last year.
All those clubs had significant reviews into their entire football program of the kind you figure is coming at St Kilda this year.
Lethlean himself came to the club after the most recent review, which moved on footy boss Jamie Cox, brought in defensive coach Henry Playfair, goalkicking coach Ben Dixon and increased the club’s work on mental strength.
Instead of calling for the sacking of Thompson, Buckley and Hardwick, the reviews backed them in with rapidly overhauled programs.
Collingwood shifted 39 football department roles, Geelong brought in Leading Teams, Richmond brought in Neil Balme and added tactical support in Blake Caracella.
St Kilda says it has already boosted its development programs, fixed a VFL alignment that was close to broken, done the heavy lifting with a massive influx of kids.
Adam Kingsley is an elite assistant coach, Playfair comes from the Sydney program, Danny Sexton is highly regarded and they have a stack of development coaches.
St Kilda has the salary cap room but not the draft picks (it hasn’t got a second or third-rounder) to go for established talent, but why would Rory Sloane want to come to the Saints?
Money is the only incentive — a massive deal that blows Adelaide out of the water — and he has never been that kind of guy.
It’s hard to see them massively overhauling their list given most of the kids are re-signed, with the use of future draft picks their only option to trade in players.
Unsigned ruckman Billy Longer should go elsewhere, Sam Gilbert is 32 in August, Koby Stevens (concussion) will likely retire, Nathan Brown is uncontracted but still filling a role.
They don’t have 28-year-olds in the mould of Nick Dal Santo to trade out to go younger, they don’t have enough picks to trade players for a quick fix.
So they will add a young star with their first pick (No. 3) and then have to improve within.
Whether they can afford to sack Richardson is another thing altogether.
If he was on roughly $500,000-$600,000 without a contract clause, you can double that as a payout then add the 75 per cent footy department tax if they pushed over that cap.
But St Kilda would never have handed him a two-year extension through to 2020 without adding a clause that will limit their payout, so it will likely be a decision on Richardson’s talent rather than pure finances.
It sounds simple, but they just need to play better.
The talent is there with Jack Billings who kicked four goals in 10 games, then went back to the VFL to kick three goals amid 53 possessions.
Against Gold Coast he will return, as will Josh Bruce (four goals) and Jake Carlisle.
They might as well throw in Nathan Freeman as a feel-good debut after four and a half years of toil.
This club and list still has much potential, so Richardson, Lethlean and Finnis have 10 games to calm the masses and consider making the big or small changes needed to turn St Kilda around.
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