Senior coach Alan Richardson provides the latest on everything St Kilda ahead of the Saints’ Round 2 clash against Essendon.
Jack Steven’s return:
“We’re really pleased with what Jack was able to do for us last week. I think he’s still going to have to play a little bit forward for us for a while – he’s a really explosive player for us, Jack. He was able to do a terrific job for us at clearance, but it’ll probably still be a little bit more forward than we’re used to, but gradually we’ll increase that midfield time.”
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Paddy McCartin’s concussion:
“It’s been three weeks now since the incident and Paddy still has some symptoms, so that’s going to take a while. We can’t really put a time frame on when it is that he’ll be back training flat out or even playing … he’s in really good hands with our medical staff and external experts, we’re just going to have to wait until Paddy comes good, really.”
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“All he’s focussing on now is coming good from this recent knock, and so that’s where we’re at as a footy club. We’re not even in that space of having conversations about long-term, let’s just get him right and then deal with those issues down the track.”
Dan Hannebery’s omission from the leadership group:
“That was a decision that we made in consultation with Dan. We just think that Dan’s got to that stage where he just needs to focus on Dan and get himself right. There’s a lot in leadership, and we wanted to take some of that away from him just to make sure that he can get himself right to become the player we want him to be. We’re really confident that that’ll still happen. We just need him to be focussed on himself.”
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Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield:
“I’d imagine our fans would want to hear as to why they’re not in our team, they’re both early draft selections, they’re going to be really good players for us. They’ve got a couple of things that they need to work on, there’s some blokes that play similar positions that are in better form, and we expect them to continue to work on their game and build strong form and get back in. As I said, they’re going to be really good players for us going forward.”
Matty Parker’s debut:
“We liked his debut; we thought his first half in particular was really quite influential in terms of the way the game was played. He dropped away a little bit late in the game, but overall it was a really positive performance. He’s given us some real speed and some real hunt in the front half, but he’s given us flexibility.
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“It means that we can play Gresham, Billings, Kent is not dissimilar in terms of his attributes, we’re able to play them a bit more through the midfield, which is our want. So it was a really good debut by Matty.”
Max King joins training:
“He works his backside off, the big fella, and he was joining in for a couple of drills for the first time, and fingers crossed he keeps ticking the boxes as we ramp up his workload, and his high-speed agility.
“At this stage, we’re talking 6-8 weeks that he’s a chance to be playing some footy, and that’s really positive for a big bloke, early round draft selection, you’re always going to rate your time to make sure they’re right, but it looks like we’re going to see a bit of footy perhaps a little bit sooner than we’d hoped.”
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Ben Long’s omission:
“We like Longy’s aggression. Every now and again, perhaps he doesn’t quite get that right but by and large that’s a real positive for us. This is more a balance of the team; we just think that with Parker and Lonie, Kent and our want to just be a little bit bigger in front of the ball.
“Longy’s a little bit unlucky there, we’ve had a conversation about what he needs to do to not be the unlucky one going forward, but he’s a terrific player, he’s just committed to us for a while and we’ve committed to him.
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“We know he’s going to be a beauty, but he’s only a young fella. He’s only just started his AFL career and coping with non-selection is part of the journey and I’m sure he’ll deal with that really strongly.”
Blake Acres’ senior call-up:
“He had a slower lead-in to the really significant minutes than others, so he’s probably a week or two behind – that’s why he didn’t get selected – but he was really strong last week.
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“He’s a big guy, Blake, he’s 193-194cm, massive runner; he gives us real flexibility, and so we think he’ll be able to play a few roles for us not just this week but during the year, and we need a bit more flexibility in our team and Blake certainly provides that.”
