St Kilda plots high stakes free agency bid off-loading stars to get draft picks and free salary cap space

IT is the 40-page document St Kilda hopes will deliver its second premiership.

Collingwood v Brisbane at the MCG, Melbourne Australia , 16th August 2014. Collingwood's Steele Sidebottom Pic : George Salpigtidis

IT is the 40-page document St Kilda hopes will deliver its second premiership.

The Saints have been trumpeting their vision to climb the premiership dais by 2020, but welcome to the blueprint of how they plan to construct that winning team.

The document — nestled in a drawer at the club’s Seaford headquarters — details a recruiting model aimed at adding 18 talented teenagers to this year’s wooden-spoon outfit over four years.

Based on proven premiership models from the past 15 years, including Port Adelaide (2004), Collingwood (2010) and Hawthorn (2008, 2013 and 2014), it includes list analysis of every player in the competition.

The blueprint was presented to the Saints’ board last year and was pivotal to the shock trade of Ben McEvoy, which in part netted midfield hard nut Luke Dunstan in a boom result.

Here’s the part that will excite Saints fans the most; the recruiting component culminates with an aggressive assault on free agency.

St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs are the only sides yet to sign a restricted or unrestricted free agent since its inception.

Saints football boss Chris Pelchen said his club was unlikely to target anyone next year, but after that the message was clear.

“We’ve made a very deliberate approach to that,” he said. “We’ll be going very, very aggressively at free agency from 2016.”

Superstars including Steele Sidebottom (Collingwood), Rory Sloane (Adelaide), Dan Hannebery (Sydney) and Jordan Roughead (Dogs) could form that year’s pool.

The Saints will have the salary cap space to land a big fish.

“It’s (the document) extensive and also restructures our TPP (total player payments) model to ultimately accommodate the free agents we’re intending to bring in,” Pelchen said.

The Saints were the highest-paying club in 2012 — which handcuffed them as Essendon threw a mint at Brendon Goddard — but by 2016 the war chest will have been created.

“We’re committed to building a talent base to challenge for a premiership,” Pelchen said.

It follows a decade of disasters at the draft.

Ben McEvoy reaps the reward of St Kilda’s future planning. Picture: Getty

From 2003-12 the Saints activated 10 top-30 draft picks — the least in the AFL, including the expansion clubs.

Three of those (Brad Howard, Tom Lynch, and Jamie Cripps) played a combined 24 games for the Saints as then-coach Ross Lyon took recycled busts Ryan Gamble, Dean Polo and Adam Pattison.

Greater Western Sydney existed for two years of that period and boasted 17 top-30 picks. The Giants pulled the trigger 11 times inside the first 15 picks in their maiden draft.

While not apportioning blame, Pelchen said it was time to heavily invest in the talent pool as the Hawks did during his tenure at Waverley and the Pies when Saints coach Alan Richardson ran their academy.

“It’s a critical period for us as a club,” Pelchen said.

“Our intention is to increase our activity in the first three rounds of the draft in that period (2013-16) by 50 per cent.

“So instead of having what would equate to one selection in each round for those four years (12 selections), we’re intending to have a total of 18 selections.

“But we fully acknowledge and respect that a lot of work needed to be done.”

The Saints were runners-up in the race for wantaway Giants Kristian Jaksch (Carlton-bound) and Jono O’Rourke (traded to Hawthorn) but will land Swan Tim Membrey.

This week they want to secure a third prized draft pick — somewhere between current selections one and 22 — with the coveted first pick up for grabs if multiple juicy selections can be returned.

After a dearth of high-end picks, St Kilda hit three winners last year when chief recruiter Tony Elshaug called the names of Jack Billings (No. 3), Luke Dunstan (18) and Blake Acres (19) and they then landed dreadlocked midfielder Eli Templteton as a rookie.

Three down, 15 to go, according to the plan.

Billings this month signed a three-year deal, following 18 other young Saints to commit in the biggest clutch of re-signings announced by an AFL club.

“We have full confidence in our recruiting staff to deliver on the list strategy. Their level of research and planning is the equal of any in the competition,” Pelchen said.

He also admitted the imminent rise of the Suns and Giants — among others — was a factor in their planning.

“It has to be,” he said.

“The expectation is they will continue to improve, but having said that the industry changes so quickly you can’t just expect that the evolution of talent will be predictable.”

“Our window of opportunity is going to open later this decade, we appreciate two of the clubs (expected to also be competing) will be GWS and Gold Coast.

“We don’t believe we can be limited to only those two clubs, but we need to take into account their anticipated improvement.”

As president Peter Summers said: “If we are going to be a contender, we may as well plan to win the bloody thing.”