The Look Ahead will be the staple pre-season content piece, setting a tone for all 18 teams. The plan is to use them as a scene setter for team trends and individuals. In other words, don’t expect predictions, expect topics to be introduced – from both a list build and on-field perspective.
St Kilda’s first season under Ross Lyon (for the second time) exceeded nearly all expectations, with all eyes set on whether they can build on the 2023 campaign.
Player contracts
There isn’t a huge amount of debate to be had over the Saints’ out of contract players this year, although it will be interesting to see how many years Phillipou’s next deal has on it.
Aside from that, I wonder whether there’ll be an attempt to lock up Owens and Wanganeen-Milera early, especially if they continue on their current rate of development. Their player archetypes are hotly in demand around the league.
List demographics
As the core of St Kilda’s side hits their late 20s and early 30s, the list starts to inch towards a veterans and youngsters divide.
With little in between, a result of choices under prior management, it’s now vital for both ends of the list to either progress rapidly – the youngsters to mitigate the gaps in front of them – and continue producing – the experienced end to ensure there’s still an experienced presence without too much being left to too few.
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Changes in personnel
In:
Pre-Season Draft: Riley Bonner
National Draft: Lance Collard, Hugo Garcia, Angus Hastie, Arie Schoenmaker, Darcy Wilson
From other clubs: Paddy Dow, Liam Henry
Cat B Rookie: Liam O’Connell
Out: Oscar Adams, Jack Billings, Jack Bytel, Nick Coffield, Leo Connolly, Jade Gresham, Tom Highmore, Dan McKenzie, Jack Peris
How do St Kilda evolve – if they need to?
By the end of last season St Kilda were roughly where they’d expect to be in a best-case scenario under Ross Lyon in 2023: towards the top of a mid-table clump, with a good defence, underperforming offence, plus underlying numbers to match on nearly all counts.
No team aims to run things back identically for consecutive years, so there’ll be change in some respect. The query (from one person writing a blog) is whether St Kilda want to make minor tweaks to the offensive part of their game or instead look for more of an overhaul.
Make no mistake, part of the ‘underperforming offence’ part in 2023 was by design because of the resources invested in establishing their defensive backbone.
Is it about turning over more of the list looking to find game changers, given St Kilda only used 32 players in 2023? That number was comfortably the fewest in the league, with two of those 32 only making one appearance each. Or has Lyon already put a line through several, biding time until they can be farewelled?
Or is it simply about continuing on the path started in 2023 and betting – completely reasonably – that the list will have a better handle on what’s expected in 2024, with offence improving naturally as a result?
Either way you’d expect some sort of shift, whether subtle or drastic, so the Saints can position themselves to break through the glass ceiling – whether in the short or medium term.
What is success for St Kilda in 2024?
In a way, St Kilda aren’t in too dissimilar a position to Essendon; both attempting to build from the middle and needing youngsters to progress quickly.
The difference between the two is the Saints’ core is a couple years older than the Bombers’, leaving slightly less margin for error.
With that in mind, the best success this year is threading the needle between winning now – and replicating 2023’s finals appearance – while youngsters contribute immediately and those in the three-to-seven-year bracket start carry a heavier load.
That being said, even if the veterans have a collectively below par year, it can be mitigated by the younger brigade coming along quicker than expected – it wouldn’t be the worst thing from a long-term point of view.
Overall it shouldn’t be a year where the bottom falls out – unless teams collectively figure out a Ross Lyon defence anyway – and that’s rarely ever happened in 14 years of senior coaching.
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