St Kilda
Coach – Ross Lyon
2022 –
Points For – 15th
Points Against – 7th
Top 5 Best and Fairest
- Jack Sinclair
- Callum Wilkie
- Jack Steele
- Tim Membrey
- Seb Ross
2022 Rising Star Noms
Marcus Windhager (Round 22)
Ins – Zaine Cordy, Mattaes Phillipou, James Van Es, Olli Hotton, Isaac Keeler
Outs – Paddy Ryder, Dan Hannebery, Jarryn Geary, Josiah Kyle, Dean Kent, Darragh Joyce, Ben Long, Jarrod Lienert
My Prediction
Talk about your nightmare years, the last season for the Saints was the sort of thing you thought only the Bombers did to their fans. Line them up, get the fans all hopeful and then be totally useless with no light at the end of the tunnel. Whilst doing this, you sign your coach up for two more years and then sack him for someone who previously left you for a better offer years earlier. After signing up said coach, you bring back any of your old players with even a skerrick of coaching experience.
The backline is probably their most solid area of the ground. Howard and Battle hold down the KP spots and do it well. They have Wilkie on the FB line who has been really solid and then you are looking at Hill (who doesn’t want to be there) and Sinclair who keeps improving and is probably their most fun player to watch.
The midfield is pants. Crouch will be in there, Hunter Clark will be back, probably slightly annoyed at their efforts to trade him last year and most of the workload will fall on Seb Ross and Jack Steele. They will be hoping Phillipou and Wanganeen-Milera will come in and provide a point of difference this year but any time you relying on first and second year players, it tends to be a struggle.
The forward line will miss Max King for a fair portion of the season after his tissue paper frame again struggled with the whole contact sport thing. Membrey has been solid for them but he is as unexciting as the stupid tattoos he wears with pride. They have brought in Cordy who may get some time up forward and then you are looking at all the smalls in Gresham, Butler and Higgins. It is not going to be a high scoring forward line.
They lost Ryder to old age which leaves Marshall to be the one out ruck. This wont be a bad thing as despite looking like he got lost on the way to comic con, he is a relatively good ruck. The coach will be enthralling. How long until the fans turn on him. He is promising a more attacking mindset but that is all talk as he doesn’t have the pieces for a game plan like that. He has just enough spuds to go defensive and go back to old school Lyon at a time when the game is moving away from that. It feels like this is going to end badly.
The Saints list is showing signs of extreme mismanagement over a long period of time. They have traded and drafted their way into mediocrity and it is going to be a slow journey out of it. I suspect the journey from mediocrity will be via the draft as they slowly drift down the ladder. I think it starts this season when they make their way into the 12-14 range.