Saints hit for six by ex-coach

FORMER St Kilda coach and football boss Grant Thomas has slammed the club, saying they are decades from adding to their lone premiership.

Thomas took specific aim at president Peter Summers and chief executive Matt Finnis, accusing them of being pedestrian and not at the cutting edge. The Saints will finish in the bottom four this season and Thomas, who was sacked as their coach at the end of the 2006 season, said they keep finding ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

Asked how far they are from their next flag, he told Macquarie Sports Radio: “Decades. I mean it’s not the foreseeable future.”

St Kilda’s only premiership was in 1966.

Thomas coached the Saints to consecutive preliminary finals in 2004-05 but left after they were beaten in a 2006 elimination final. He was football boss and took over as coach after Malcolm Blight’s disastrous 2001 tenure.

Ross Lyon then coached the Saints to losing grand finals in 2009-10 and they have not made the top eight since he left for Fremantle after 2011.

Thomas said the Saints have had some very good coaching appointments, along with some very bad ones.

“It doesn’t mean it should end up as an unmitigated disaster,” he said.

Thomas, who fell out badly with former Saints president Rod Butterss, said the problems are amplified when people in charge at the club are not competent enough.

“At the moment you have Peter Summers and Matt Finnis — they’re lovely people and they want the best thing for St Kilda. But ... you get sucked along in their slipstream. I’m not sure they are at the cutting edge of what’s required to be successful. They seem to me to be quite pedestrian and quite placating in their approach to footy.

“You just want something a little more intense and focused.

“Unfortunately, St Kilda are littered with poor decisions and we invent ways to stuff things up and shoot ourselves in the foot — it’s just a fact of life,” he said.

“It’s undeniable and in a lot of ways it’s a tragedy.”