Where is St Kilda really at? Mark Robinson looks at the list, the game plan, the coach and the future
Times are tough at the Saints, with some big calls to be made to find their next premiership side. MARK ROBINSON analyses their past, present and most importantly, their future.
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Last Saturday, after St Kilda dropped yet another close game, a despondent 14-year-old lad asked his dad if he’d ever see a Saints premiership.
The dad said “of course”, but was then jolted because he was once a 14-year-old with premiership ambitions himself. And he’s now 56.
Dad will stick fat – the Sainters always do – but he says this season, and in particular last weekend, was wrenching.
Another Saints friend this week lamented that when the Western Bulldogs won the flag in 2016, she was comforted in her belief that droughts could be broken and that her Saints could be next. Then Richmond broke its drought. Then Melbourne broke its drought.
Her Saints now hold the record for the most years since a premiership – it’s 58. And that includes this year.
For reasons only truly known to St Kilda fans, the 2024 season is a heartbreaker.
Surely, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not after last year.
It started with promise. The Saints blitzed Essendon with speed in the pre-season. And then in round 3, they ran the premiers off their legs at the MCG.
Last weekend against Hawthorn, however, they couldn’t run to catch a tram on Fitzroy St.
The coach is frustrated. The team lacks “sizzle”. The defensive DNA is infected. The offence is clunky and, bluntly, they stuff around with the ball.
Consequently, the list and its formation is up for examination, the game plan and the coach are under scrutiny, and the future is the most important word at Moorabbin.
THE RECRUITING
It always starts with missing out on Marcus Bontempelli (2013) and Christian Petracca (2014), because the Saints had the two immediate picks at the national draft before those two players.
St Kilda chose Jack Billings (traded to Melbourne) and Paddy McCartin (retired).
Tony Elshaug was head of recruiting back then. He was in charge from 2010-18. Those two decisions may not have been his decisions alone – need overruled talent in the McCartin selection. Has there ever been two more haunting back-to-back selections in draft history by any AFL club?
The Saints blundered again in the first round three years later. They had picks No.7 and No.8 in the 2017 draft. They selected Hunter Clark (injury-prone) and Nick Coffield (traded to Western Bulldogs). The next pick in the 2017 draft was Aaron Naughton, who is likely running second to Bontempelli in the Bulldogs’ best and fairest this year.
That year, defender Oscar Clavarino was taken at No.35 – and he was delisted in 2021.
Players available – other than Naughton – included Zac Bailey, Oscar Allen, Tim Kelly, Sam Taylor, Bayley Fritsch and Gryan Miers.
With an incredible amount of luck, from 2013-17 the Saints could’ve recruited a forward line of Naughton, Allen and Tom Papley, a defensive group of Taylor, Luke Ryan and Sam Collins, and a midfield headed by Bontempelli, Petracca and Jordan Dawson.
In the draft game, you win some and lose a lot.
The national recruiting manager at the Saints from 2018-22 was Chris Liberatore.
Alongside him was list manager James Gallagher, and they were joined in late 2019 by the guru, Graeme “Gubby” Allan.
Together, they selected Max King at No.4 in 2018 – for need again – but in doing so, left Connor Rozee and Zak Butters on the table.
In 2019, it was a successful trade-in year (Dan Butler, Bradley Hill, Paddy Ryder, Dougal Howard and Zak Jones) – although coach Alan Richardson didn’t survive – and they did the same in 2020 (Jack Higgins and Brad Crouch).
In 2021, it was back to the draft and the club nailed three key youngsters – Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, Mitch Owens and Marcus Windhager. But behind the scenes, tumult was looming.
By the end of 2022, Liberatore and Gallagher were both gone, Brett Ratten was sacked as coach, and the popular Chris Toce was appointed recruiting manager.
In Toce’s two drafts, Mattaes Phillipou and Darcy Wilson were selected with first-round selections, although there is conjecture about whether Toce got the players he wanted or “Gubby” got his. Clearly, there was a power play.
The combustible list management group again blew up when Stephen Silvagni joined his great mates Ross Lyon and Allan at the start of 2023. Toce and Jarryd Roughead departed, and Simon Dalrymple was poached from Sydney to be the talent identification and player movement manager, which industry people say was on the cards for 12 months.
Oh yeah, the Saints also lost chief executive Simon Lethlean which, is said, was another powerplay won by Lyon.
Saints footy boss David Misson – another Lyon disciple from the 2010 era – also arrived back at the club 18 months ago. He baulked at discussing in-depth the recent turmoil within list management.
“There was a feeling at executive level that things needed to change when Ross came in – I wasn’t in the role at that time,” Misson said.
“Chris Toce was made redundant and that was primarily because we looked to put a succession plan in place with Simon Dalrymple. We feel Simon has potential to be a list manager in the future.”
Asked had it been tumultuous, Misson said: “We have list management every fortnight and it’s really significant that everyone is on the same page, and it stems from the game plan the coach is trying to implement and everything is reverse-engineered from that, to be honest.”
So, not everyone was on the same page?
“Alignment is critical when you’re trying to build,” Misson said.
“As a footy club, we’re more aligned on every level than we have been for a long time.”
Misson also wouldn’t be drawn on past drafting mishaps, but he did highlight the wins of Jack Sinclair, Rowan Marshall and Callum Wilkie via the rookie list, which came under Elshaug’s watch.
“One of the more futile things to do is for AFL people to look back at previous drafts and say what could’ve been,’’ Misson said. “We’re just focusing on the here and now.
“Our last three (drafts) have been really good and we’re confident we have the list management who will keep delivering on draft night for us.”
One rival recruiting official described St Kilda’s recruiting of the past 10 years as a “mixed bag”.
“You miss Petracca, Bontempelli … just one of them makes a massive difference,” the rival said. “Just get one of them right. Imagine if you got them both (right).”
THE LIST
That the Saints played finals last year tells us either Lyon coached his socks off, or the Saints were lucky. Please don’t say they over-achieved because other than it being one of the most inane comments offered in football, you can only beat who you play.
“We are in transition,” Misson declared. It’s indisputable.
The most matches played from draftees in the past three years has West Coast on top with 199 games, from St Kilda (186), Hawthorn (177), North Melbourne (168) and Adelaide (122).
The clubs with the most players played from those three drafts is West Coast and North Melbourne (both 11), Hawthorn (10) and St Kilda and the GWS Giants (both nine).
“We played finals last year, but we brought a lot of players into the club at the expense of experience and with injuries (this year), you’ve got to inject some more young players and with that you get inconsistency in performance,” Misson said.
“At the same token, we’re rapt we’re getting games into those youngsters. We knew it was never going to be a linear progression and we accept that where we’re at right now is not where we want to be. We’re also confident in the direction we’re planning.
“In the past two years we’ve brought in nine players who we rated in the top 40 in the draft – I don’t think that’s been done for a while at this club. (We) got more games into teenagers than any team who had played finals in 20 years, I reckon.’’
From last year’s draft, Wilson, Hugo Garcia, Lance Collard and Angus Hastie have played senior footy, and key defender Arie Schoenmaker is yet to play, but has exactly what the Saints’ strategy has identified – speed. They also added Riley Bonner (Port Adelaide) and traded for Liam Henry (Fremantle) and Paddy Dow (Carlton), another three with wheels.
One rival club official said: “They did an amazing job last year. They were able to bring in speed. Every draftee can run. In the past, they probably had too many half-back flankers. There was a sameness. Now, they have a team with high-octane running.”
The Saints have 21 players out of contract at the end of the year. It’s a sizeable number.
They include Josh Battle – who they are in discussions with – plus Seb Ross, Tim Membrey, Jimmy Webster, Howard and Jones. Some of them are playing for their careers.
At the same time, they can’t dump too many oldies because the kids can’t carry a season.
Still, it’s a vastly changed age demographic compared to the Saints team Lyon coached the first time around.
“The context he finds himself in is very different,’’ Misson said. “I’m not going to speak for him, but (Lyon) had a fairly established list with a fair bit of talent and was very close to winning a second premiership (for the club). We’re not that list and (not) in that situation at the moment and no one understands that more than Ross.
“We have a deliberate strategy and we feel we’re very much on track. We’d like to be travelling better than what we are, but we’re still confident in the direction.”
THE GAME STYLE
Lyon said: It’s boring and it lacks sizzle.
“It’s not how we want to play,” he said after the Hawthorn loss. “We’re trying to establish our identity with the ball.”
The Saints average 74 points for and 77 points against per match. They’ve lost four games by eight points each or less and won two games by 15 and seven points. A hard watch is an understatement.
At times, it’s felt they were playing circle work – not the DNA of a Lyon-coached team.
Maybe it’s the kids and not being fit enough or smart enough.
Maybe the Saints are boring because the ball movement is too clunky, which affects the forwards. Maybe it’s because they don’t get bang-for-buck.
The Saints have the third-worst disposal-per-goal average this year.
Richmond is the worst with 36.4 disposals for every goal, then it’s the Hawks with 34.9 and the Saints at 34.6.
The worst team in the league – North Melbourne – is next with 34.2.
You want more numbers?
They are ranked No.5 in the competition for disposals and No.3 for uncontested marks, but No.15 for metres gained per disposal.
They are No.1 for kick-short percentage and kick backwards the fourth-most in the league.
They rank No.11 for points conceded from turnover – they were No.4 in 2023.
They ranked No.6 for forward-half intercepts and No.9 for points scored from these intercepts last season, but in 2024, they rank No.15 and No.17 respectively.
Across 2023 and 2024, the Saints rank No.18 for score per inside-50m rate and points from stoppages.
Pressure is supposed to be king, yet the Saints are peasants.
They rank No.16 for post-clearance contested possessions and No.13 for pressure applied.
“We’re obviously disappointed with the way we’re playing,’’ Misson said. “Ross’s frustration is, ‘Are we getting our messages across and are we coaching as well as we can?’.
“We’ve spent a lot of time this week on ball movement – six hours on Monday (but) we made it as simple as we could, because we reflect and think there could be some confusion there based on how we’re playing. We’re confident we’ve got that message across.”
So, what was wrong? Was it the messaging, the coaching or could it be that the players simply couldn’t deliver what the coaches demanded.
It was a lack of confidence, which made players second-guess themselves, Misson said.
“If you come to one of our game reviews, you would struggle to tell if we won or lost at the weekend. The coaches are very level, there’s no berating of players, no real personal criticisms,’’ he said. “It’s about presenting the facts and looking for solutions. That’s what happened on Monday.”
Key forward Max King is the poster boy for what’s wrong with St Kilda. Nevermind everything else breaking down, it’s the brother of Coleman Medal-leading Ben who has been singled out for criticism, this week by former Saints skipper Nick Riewoldt.
Misson said it’s unfair. People need reminding, he said, that King has undergone two shoulder reconstructions in the past 12 months and – after a bright start this season – banged his knee against the Giants in round 6.
“No one’s more disappointed with how Max King is playing than Max,’’ he said. “But we’ve got to look at Max’s past 12 months. And we’re seeing a guy who hasn’t played and hasn’t trained a lot in the past month. I find the criticism hard to swallow to be honest.”
THE COACH
If the Saints were a mafia family, Lyon would be the godfather, Gubby, Silvagni and Misson the underbosses, and Robert Harvey, Corey Enright, Brendon Goddard, Damian Carroll and Lenny Hayes the captains.
It’s a throwaway line, so don’t fret.
The point is, Lyon has total control. It’s probably true and certainly the perception is there. But in saying that, is there a senior AFL coach who doesn’t have control?
They all get what they want in terms of who is in the footy department.
That’s where it ends, Saints president Andrew Bassat said.
“Ross has not even remotely sought to interfere with the football club beyond coaching,’’ Bassat said. “The stories about him trying to influence beyond coaching are just not valid.”
Impatient fans want Lyon gone. They say his game plan is shot and the players aren’t listening. Mind you, those same fans six weeks ago, when the Saints beat Collingwood, hailed his performance. Patient fans maintain the faith – just.
“His coaching hasn’t changed a lot,’’ Misson said. “He’s always instructional and he’s always looking to find solutions, both during the week and on game day.’’
He stressed that the team “hangs in games’’.
“One factor is we’ll never give up,’’ he said. “That’s something he’s always emphasising, that is a feature and a brand of St Kilda.”
He argued Lyon was not defined by a defensive DNA, while also noting premiership teams of the past 20 years were ranked top-four for defence.
“I’ve been with Ross a long time and at no point is there an absolute focus on defence and a lack of focus on scoring,” Misson said. “We’re a team who wants to score as much as possible.’’
Lyon this week lamented the lack of ball movement.
“Let’s get some run, and overlap and be bold,’’ he said. “There was plenty of sizzle against Essendon (round 4) … I don’t like the way we’re playing at the minute.’’
In the second season of a four-year deal, there’s not a sliver of a chance Lyon won’t be there to fix it.
THE FUTURE
The Saints have cash – and Silvagni and Allan are poised to spend it.
It won’t be on Carlton’s Jacob Weitering, though.
“I saw that and the fact is, that’s a rumour, and we categorically deny that an offer was made (to Weitering),’’ Misson said.
He said midfielders would be targeted in the free agency space.
“Premiership teams of the past are usually teams with the best midfield – we’re cognisant of that,’’ he said. “We feel we have players already on our list who will fill that space, but it’s a space that needs to be constantly filled out.’’
Take that as the Saints will pursue every free agent available.
“Talk to the managers and the Saints have their fingers over everyone,’’ a rival recruiter said.
“But we will be going to the draft to keep bringing in young talent,’’ Misson said.
The rival recruiter said fans should have faith in Silvagni and Allan.
“Silvagni did a great job at Carlton,’’ he said. “They canned him, bagged him and sacked him, but he set them up. He and Gubby know what success looks like.”
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