Saints tweak game plan
ST Kilda football boss Simon Lethlean yesterday said the club was satisfied with its decision to deviate from its planned rebuild towards a premiership by 2020.
In 2014 the Saints’ blueprint for success was to draft 18 talented youngsters from 2013-16 and then make an aggressive launch on free agency.
The recruiting model was formalised in a 40-page document submitted to the club’s board.
The Saints were aiming to finish top four this year and deliver the club its second premiership by 2020.
But from 2013-16 the Saints drafted only 12 players inside the first three rounds and Nathan Brown (Collingwood) remains the sole free agent signed.
Lethlean yesterday said the draft deviation was a byproduct of the club’s productive trading.
“Any strategy to build a talented list must include a level of flexibility to consider the availability of players through trade and free agency each season, as well as of course the national and rookie drafts,” Lethlean said.
“The club was able to maintain a strong presence at the draft, while also bringing in the likes of Jake Carlisle, Tim Membrey, Shane Savage, Nathan Brown, and Jack Steele.”
At 1-2 and without a finals victory since 2010, fresh questions have surfaced over St Kilda’s direction.
Former football boss Chris Pelchen labelled the 2013-16 drafting block a “critical period for us as a club” after the Saints received the spoon in 2014.
“Our intention is to increase our activity in the first three rounds of the draft in that period (2013-16) by 50 per cent,” Pelchen said at the time.
“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. [And] we’ll be going very, very aggressively at free agency from 2016.”
The recruiting model was pivotal to the shock trade of star ruckman Ben McEvoy to Hawthorn in 2013.
There are mitigating factors as to why the Saints fell six draftees short of their target.
In 2016 the Saints cashed in on Hawthorn’s desperation to secure Jaeger O’Meara.
While they didn’t enter that year’s draft until No.25 (Ben Long), last year they were able to activate two top-10 picks (Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield) for the first time since 2001.
They also sacrificed a second-round pick in 2016 for hamstrung midfielder Nathan Freeman, who is yet to debut.
And while Pelchen, who left the Saints late in 2014, said a salary cap war chest would be created, only a handful of superstar free agents have chosen to move clubs.
This year’s pool of restricted free agents includes Rory Sloane, Andrew Gaff and dual All-Australian Jeremy McGovern while the Saints have also been linked to contracted GWS midfielder Dylan Shiel.