St Kilda’s often lacklustre form was one of the bigger disappointments of the 2017 AFL season, and many are calling it a wasted year. But is it a major setback for their playing list, or just a bump in the road to finals and premiership contention?

AFL list management series
18 – Brisbane Lions
17 – Gold Coast Suns
16 – Carlton Blues
15 – North Melbourne Kangaroos
14 – Fremantle Dockers
13 – Collingwood Magpies
12 – Hawthorn Hawks
10 – Western Bulldogs
9 – Melbourne Demons
8 – Essendon Bombers
7 – Port Adelaide Power
6 – West Coast Eagles
5 – Sydney Swans
4 – GWS Giants
3 – Geelong Cats

2017 in short

St Kilda came into the season as one of the most popular tips amongst pundits to leap into finals, but when push came to shove they ultimately fell well short of that goal.

There were some good wins – a Friday-night victory over GWS was memorable, and their utter domination of Richmond was truly something to behold.

But as much as they impressed at times, they disappointed more at others. It’s clear that on the path they started walking at the end of 2013, they still have some ways to go before they reach their destination.

For a more comprehensive review of St Kilda’s 2017 season, check out this piece by Stirling Coates.

Coach

Alan Richardson joined St Kilda after Scott Watters was messily dismissed at the end of 2013, and while his four years in the job hasn’t so far resulted in a finals campaign, he has established himself as a respected operator.

Out of contract at the end of next year, it hasn’t been confirmed yet but word is that he will likely sign a two-year extension securing him until the end of 2020 sometime during the off-season.

This is a wise move – while the Saints didn’t have the season they hoped for, it doesn’t seem likely much of the blame for this should be put at Richardson’s feet. Showing patience and giving him security will likely pay dividends in the long run.

Under Richardson the Saints have largely been known for their manic pressure. That’s a good trait to have, but they haven’t yet developed either the confidence or skills to play quality, classy attacking football just yet.

As Maddy Friend wrote last week, the Saints need something other than just defensive pressure to define who they are as a team. One of Richardson’s key goals over the next few years must be to work out what that is going to be.

Captain

With Nick Riewoldt clearly preparing for retirement, he gave up the captaincy at the start of the year and it was taken up by 29-year-old Jarryn Geary.

At that age, Geary is clearly a short-term option as club captain while they wait for a future leader to emerge – it’s hard to say who that is at this stage.

Perhaps Luke Dunstan, if he can cement himself next year playing the kind of football he did late in 2017, could be the future St Kilda skipper.

However, it may well be the case that their next captain is not even on the list yet.

List management

As the last year of Ross Lyon turned into the short-lived reign of Scott Watters which turned into the beginnings of the Alan Richardson era, St Kilda realised they were in quite a bad list position.

Their recruiting under Lyon and Watters had been remarkably wasteful, and it had left them with a list that had a few ageing stars from the near-premiership era and not much else.

For example, see how the Saints had two first-round picks in 2012 thanks to Brendon Goddard’s departure and spent them on trading in Tom Hickey, who is now their back-up ruckman, and Tom Lee, a mature WAFL key forward who played only 17 games for the club. Madness.

They embarked upon a two-pronged strategy – bringing in additional high draft picks where possible to start a new generation of talented youth, and aggressively recruiting mature players to build from scratch some middle tier talent.

At the end of 2017, we are seeing just about the last of that older generation finally depart, with Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna and Sean Dempster all hanging up the boots. Sam Gilbert, David Armitage and Jarryn Geary are the only players remaining from that era of the club.

Looking at St Kilda’s middle-tier talent you can see clearly the strategy they have gone through of bringing in players from other clubs to try to fill what was a gaping hole on their list.

Their middle tier is players like Jack Steven (27), Shane Savage, Tom Hickey, Koby Stevens, Dylan Roberton (all 26), Jake Carlisle, Maverick Weller, Josh Bruce (all 25), Jack Newnes, Sebastian Ross and Billy Longer (all 24).

Of that group of 11 players, only three of them have been at the Saints for their entire career.

The issue with this is that most of these players were not highly-rated recruits but instead the off-cuts of the opposition – some of them were canny pickups by the Saints, but is it strong enough to be the core of a premiership team?

That is certainly what St Kilda intends as they have publicly stated that they are planning to bring in their next premiership by 2020 – a timeline that places Jack Steven at 30 and will have what is now the middle tier pushing towards being the veteran core.

Time will tell whether or not they can achieve that but it would certainly look better with just one really elite player added in. We don’t know living outside the four walls how much of a play the Saints really made for Nat Fyfe or Dustin Martin this year, but they would have been absolutely perfect for this purpose.

After this, St Kilda have youth coming through that is the combination of their heavy investment at the draft over the past few years along with a few more trade recruits.

Tim Membrey (23), Luke Dunstan, Jack Sinclair, Nathan Freeman, Jack Billings (all 22), Blake Acres, Jack Steele, Paddy McCartin, Daniel McKenzie, Jack Lonie, Hugh Goddard (all 21), Ben Long and Jade Gresham (both 20) are the key players in this group.

The problem for the Saints so far is that so many of them have been wildly unlucky with injury, and others just haven’t shown as much quality form as you’d like to see by now – Paddy McCartin somehow having the misfortune to be in both groups.

As a result, Jack Billings and Tim Membrey are the only ones so far from this group to have really cemented themselves as star players. However, it would be foolish to give up too early on any of them – with a bit of patience, many of them will come good.

St Kilda players by age
Nick Riewoldt – 34yr 10mth
Leigh Montagna – 33yr 10mth
Sean Dempster – 33yr 7mth
Sam Gilbert – 31yr
David Armitage – 29yr 2mth
Jarryn Geary – 29yr 2mth
Nathan Brown – 28yr 8mth
Jason Holmes (R) – 27yr 10mth
Jack Steven – 27yr 5mth
Shane Savage – 26yr 7mth
Tom Hickey – 26yr 5mth
Koby Stevens – 26yr 2mth
Dylan Roberton – 26yr 2mth
Jake Carlisle – 25yr 11mth
Maverick Weller – 25yr 6mth
Josh Bruce – 25yr 2mth
Jake Newnes – 24yr 6mth
Sebastian Ross – 24yr 3mth
Billy Longer – 24yr 3mth
Jimmy Webster – 24yr 2mth
Darren Minchington – 23yr 8mth
Nathan Wright – 23yr 6mth
Tim Membrey – 23yr 3mth
Ray Connellan (R) – 23yr 2mth
Lewis Pierce – 22yr 9mth
Luke Dunstan – 22yr 7mth
Jack Sinclair – 22yr 6mth
Nathan Freeman – 22yr 2mth
Jack Billings – 22yr
Blake Acres – 21yr 10mth
Rowan Marshall (R) – 21yr 9mth
Jack Steele – 21yr 8mth
Patrick McCartin – 21yr 4mth
Daniel McKenzie – 21yr 3mth
Jack Lonie – 21yr
Hugh Goddard – 21yr
Nick Coughlan (R) – 20yr 11mth
Brandon White – 20yr 7mth
Bailey Rice – 20yr 6mth
Nick O’Kearney (R) – 20yr 6mth
Darragh Joyce (R) – 20yr 4mth
Ben Long – 20yr
Jade Gresham – 20yr
Ed Phillips – 19yr 5mth
Josh Battle – 19yr

The Saints have three players out of contract at the moment who require immediate attention. These are Dylan Roberton, Shane Savage and Jack Lonie.

Roberton has had a brilliant season, enough to be named in the All Australian squad of 40, but still finds himself without a deal for 2018.

The Saints obviously will want to retain him, the difficulty will be in working out what is an appropriate size of deal in terms of length and remuneration given his unexpectedly elite form.

Savage, on the other hand, had a bit of an average year, even being dropped to the VFL for a while when his form wasn’t passing muster.

He offers some class and a penetrating kick that the Saints just don’t have enough of to let him slip, so expect something to get done here as well.

Jack Lonie burst onto the scene early in his career but has stagnated in the time since. You wouldn’t want to give up on him this quickly and suspect he too gets a new deal.

Looking ahead to 2018, Blake Acres will be one to lock away soon as the WA clubs will start sniffing around if he starts the season without a new deal in place.

Paddy McCartin as well will have other clubs quickly leaving him voicemails if not locked up for the long term, so would also be a priority re-signing.

St Kilda players by contract status
2020
Josh Bruce
Jack Steven

2019
David Armitage
Josh Battle
Jack Billings
Jake Carlisle
Luke Dunstan
Jarryn Geary
Jade Gresham
Tom Hickey
Ben Long
Daniel McKenzie
Tim Membrey
Jack Newnes
Bailey Rice
Jack Sinclair
Jimmy Webster

2018
Blake Acres
Nathan Brown
Sam Gilbert
Hugh Goddard
Billy Longer
Paddy McCartin
Darren Minchington
Ed Phillips
Lewis Pierce
Sebastian Ross
Maverick Weller
Nathan Wright

Out of contract
Nick Coughlan (R)
Ray Connellan (R)
Sean Dempster
Jason Holmes (R)
Darragh Joyce (R)
Jack Lonie
Rowan Marshall (R)
Leigh Montagna
Nick O’Kearney (R)
Nick Riewoldt
Dylan Roberton
Shane Savage

Unconfirmed
Nathan Freeman
Jack Steele
Koby Stevens

Delistings and retirements

Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna and Sean Dempster have already confirmed their retirements.

That, theoretically, gives the Saints the three open list spots they need for the draft without the need for delistings, assuming they don’t want to bring in any other players.

If they do, then they face a hard decision on how to make room for them, as aside from their rookie-listers there’s not much in the way of out-of-contract players they’d be happy to part with.

They might even need to look at trading away a contracted player who they feel they can do without just to create list space.

Free agency

The Saints don’t have any free agents this year, with all those players who were eligible either signing new deals with the club or retiring.

They were seen as potential players in the market at the start of the year with rumours of heavy interest in both Nat Fyfe and Dustin Martin as possible additions, but both have re-signed with their respective clubs.

Tom Rockliff, Jackson Trengove and Steven Motlop are the three reasonably-sized fish left in the free agency pool at this point, and should perhaps all be of some interest to the Saints.

However Rockliff is probably too similar to their current wealth of inside midfielders, and Trengove and Motlop not in good enough form to justify really splashing the cash.

They may be best off saving their funds to go after a really big piece in 2018 or later, rather than simply taking the best available now just because it is there.

Trade period

More than anyone else, St Kilda’s big target this year will be out-of-contract Giant Josh Kelly.

Kelly would be the perfect addition to the Saints – a superstar midfielder who offers the class that they badly need, and at only 22 years of age he could be the centrepiece of their youth generation.

Obviously they are just one of several clubs in the mix to get him, but if he does give them the nod as his preferred destination it will be a major coup.

The only problem then is the cost of trading him in – the Giants would likely ask for both of their top ten picks this year, and it’s not unreasonable to do so.

The ideal scenario for the Saints would be to find a way to crack a deal with the Giants where they don’t pay quite this much, or if they do, they get back something nice the other way as well – perhaps Matthew Kennedy.

There’s also been a bit of talk about them going after Lachie Whitfield, but he is contracted for next year and this seems to have gone a bit cold – though he’d be a fine addition.

Draft

First three rounds: 7, 8, 44.

Thanks to their canny trade with the Hawks last year, Saints fans know that they will either land a big fish at the trade table or make another significant investment into the draft this year.

If they do then their clear biggest need is midfield class. They’ve got a lot of grunters and grinders, and they need to balance this out.

The two players I’d be looking at here are Jaidyn Stephenson and Jack Higgins. These two make an interesting pair – Stephenson is 189cm, Higgins 178cm – and they’re both known for their ability to drift forward and kick goals.

The only potential concern would be with Higgins as an undersized midfielder, that he might be too similar to existing players Jack Billings and Jade Gresham. These players can still fit into modern footy, but not often too many of them in one midfield.

It also wouldn’t surprise to see the Saints place a bid on Richmond father-son Patrick Naish, a light-bodied winger would suit St Kilda, but the Tigers will surely match if they do.

Outlook

Why did the Saints disappoint this year? Personally, I believe it’s because they still relied significantly on getting consistent performances from the likes of Riewoldt and Montagna. They were unable to deliver it, and the next gen weren’t quite ready to stand up.

There should definitely be concerns about the quality of the middle tier. The Saints have done a fine job at the trade table for the most part but there’s only so much you can do trying to fill such a big gap on your list on the run.

The youth are also giving the fans headaches at the moment – but don’t make any rash decisions, and just give them time. Not all of them will come good, but most of them will.

If the Saints still want to win their second flag by 2020 then they’re likely going to need more talent still added to that middle tier and, having not picked up either Fyfe or Martin, it’s hard to say where that might come from.

I suspect the more likely result is that their next real premiership assault will come when it is the current youth have all hit their prime and become the core of the team. That may take a bit longer, but likely has greater odds of success.

This would most likely see them really challenging for a flag around, say, 2022-2027, though they could easily crack into finals well before that, perhaps as soon as next year.

If the Saints can bring in Josh Kelly this off-season, great – he will be the central figure that generation of youth builds around and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him become a future captain of the club if so.

If Kelly says no and instead the Saints take two top ten picks to the draft and pick up a pair of classy midfielders, that result is almost equally as good, and possibly even better if the selections really break the mould – albeit with less immediate impact.

Despite a disappointing season, if those in power at St Kilda stick to their guns and continue to make good decisions then fans will sooner or later get the taste of success they crave.