Horrific injury list combined with tough fixture makes tough reading for Ross Lyon’s Saints

Saints fans would be pulling out their hair after Mattaes Phillipou’s injury, that’s before they took a look at their fixture again. Josh Barnes writes, it could be another year of waiting.

The Saints’ pre-season has been far from ideal. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

If St Kilda fans had any hair left after all these years, half would have been pulled out on Tuesday morning when their club dropped its worrying injury news on Mattaes Phillipou.

And the other half was surely gone when they reminded themselves of the fixture for the opening five games of 2025.

Phillipou’s leg stress fracture could put him out for more than three months, taking him potentially for nearly half the season.

It was a big blow for the kid that has had hopes pinned on him that have only grown thanks to a stellar pre-season, before the leg set back.

Mattaes Phillipou will miss a large chunk of 2025. Picture: Kelly Defina/Getty Images

Star ruckman Rowan Marshall is also under an injury cloud. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Missing potentially half a season cannot help the development of one of the high-upside players the Saints need to breakout for the team to genuinely rise up the tiers of the ladder.

Reading further down, those Saints fans will have noticed their best player, Rowan Marshall, is only in “hopeful” status for round 1.

If SuperCoach players were shattered about the Phillipou injury, at least newly-signed ruck Harry Boyd looks set for big minutes, but he will be an uncapped player asked to carry a big burden.

Firecracker Liam Henry is still slowly building to fitness, defender Dougal Howard may not help a defence shored up by the loss of Josh Battle as he recovers from a dislocated shoulder, and if depth midfielder Paddy Dow is seen before the mid-season bye that will be a grand success.

These aren’t hammer blows to St Kilda’s season but it’s murky territory for a team that starts the year in a tough place.

The Saints will be eating pie floaters until mid-April when they play more of their first five games in Adelaide than in Victoria.

A normal away game against Adelaide in round 1 is followed by another away fixture against Port Adelaide the week before Gather Round, when Ross Lyon’s team meets GWS.

In between, St Kilda hosts Geelong and Richmond.

Even fully fit, would Saints fans bank on one win from those five?

The next month contains games against the Western Bulldogs, reigning premier Brisbane, Fremantle and Carlton, all in Victoria.

Optimistic Saints fans would have them on par with the Dockers and Dogs, particularly with Fremantle travelling for that game, but the wheels could quickly fall off the season.

Does another year of pain await for Saints fans? Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Saints figures were puffed up all off-season about the final weeks of 2024, in which Lyon’s men won five of their final six games and took down some finalists in the process.

But that came after being 6-11 on the season and well out of the finals hunt.

Lyon has preached patience since building his second regime at Moorabbin and the club is pleased with its young talent.

It’s a public sentiment that likely will buffet him from outside pressures, even if his team falls to an ugly 1-8 start, but those pressures always build.

Those seemingly never-ending deep reserves of patience may be drawn down on once again by Saints fans.