Ins – Jake Carlisle, Nathan Freeman, Jade Gresham, Bailey Rice, Brandon White, Nick O’Kearney, Nick Coughlan
Outs – Daniel Markworth, Farren Ray, Tom Simkin, Arryn Siposs, Spencer White, Ahmed Saad, Adam Schneider
My Prediction
There seems to be a genuine optimism around St Kilda and where they are at the moment. They have managed to get a couple of early draft picks including Paddy McCartin last year who is being groomed to be the heir to Reiwoldt. Has a slight whiff of the Jack Watts about him but only time will tell.
They looked like coming through trade week like champions. Getting a proven 8-10 year KP back, an early mid as well as keeping a first round pick. A lot of that has unravelled since although internally it could be a different story. You do hear that Carlisle has put the head down and is working hard, although for Carlisle, what he does on the track has rarely been the question. If they straighten him out then they have a very good player on their hands. Freeman would be shot if he was a racehorse.
They found a good once with Josh Bruce last year. He has been better than anyone expected. They will need him to improve or at least maintain his form of last year for the Saints to improve. Armitage finally became a player. There is some signs of promise but I don’t think the list is anywhere near as good as the optimism would suggest.
Saints are still a couple of years away from being a challenger for the 8 and could even drop this year. 14-16th for mine.
Twitter and social media generally have many good points but the thing I like most about it is it’s immediate ability in identifying the spastics and dropkicks among us. Moron identification used to take a lot longer. Thanks to Twitter you now know instantly.
Love these profiles you do every year Allblack. Agree with your summation.
Their list seems pretty unbalanced with a lot of quality at the wrong end of the age graph, not much quality between 24-28 and the rest are young kids. Could be a rocky few years as a result.
Ins are much better than their outs, IMHO
Still a lot of old stagers, particularly back (5 of their first string backline last year were 30 or over), but not many of them really that important. Should tread water, maybe improve. Like us, they should be more worried about getting games into McCartin et al than wins & losses.
I think Hickey was better than Longer in 2014 but longer played more last year and hickey always injured
geez Sinclair -you can tell I don’t watch many saints games as I have barely heard of him.
Expect Rice & Gresham to break into the team for Cameo’s.
Carlisle strengthens the defence, and allows goddard to develop being the 2nd/third tall with fisher swapping for matchups.
Gilbert has barely played recent times but if him, dempster, fisher are all back then they have an experienced defence.
Saints will be light on for depth, but should start the year stong and fall away as the year goes on due to the amount of younger players in the squad.
Membrey, Reiwoldt, mccartin and bruce in the forwardline is too tall, but I think they need to get games into mccartin now. maybe that means membrey is playing reserves again.
What was the point of Membrey again?
Still think if he's a genuine option to get a lot of games, they've got plenty of issues.
Point of membrey was they had no one other than reiwoldt up forward. And stkilda struggled to attract quality players.
then they drafted mccartin and Bruce turned into a good forward, hence making an average membrey a reserves player. He still played 9 games, which was more than mccartin (3) last year, but I expect mccartin to play more than membrey in 2016, plus I threw a few fast smaller players in the team as well - Rice, Billings, Gresham
Whether you’ve got other guys there or not, he’s a 6’1" leading marking player, slowish, and not much of a leap.
I just don’t know what problem he was meant to solve. I’m sure he’ll pootle along and take his 3-4 marks and kick his goal or so every week, but for me I’d rather a guy like Shaunye, who’s got some weapons, even if he doesn’t use them anywhere near often enough. You can see how and why he could develop into a guy who could open up games.
St Kilda FC has received a copy of the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision regarding the 34 past and present Essendon players, which includes Jake Carlisle.
Jake is understandably devastated with the decision, and our priority is to provide him with ongoing welfare and support.
St Kilda is currently liaising with the AFL and the AFLPA to determine more detailed implications of this morning’s decision and will provide further updates as appropriate.