ST KILDA – CAN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING INTO SEPTEMBER
2021 FINISHED 10th 10 WINS 12 LOSSES
We look at St Kilda in our series of AFL 2022 team previews and this club now the longest run of a premiership drought in the AFL. St Kilda ebb and flow between the possible and not possible in AFL Betting odds season 2022 as we have a look at the Saints on a glass half full basis.
After reaching the Finals in 2020 for the first time in a long time, 2021 was expected to be the year the Saints sailed up the ladder. As tends to happen with many of these style of teams (a long time out of finals then just “expecting” it to happen the following year after making it) they fell short. Certainly partly the reason can be attributed to injuries, they had a terrible run no doubt. But the issues that would have kept Brett Ratten their coach awake at night was their inability to compete in many games. They got blown off the park by BIG margins this year and its unacceptable.
Saints go missing for a quarter or a half
The Saints lost 4 of there first 9 games by 50 points plus. Quite often Ratten’s side would go missing for a quarter or half and with the damage done there was no fight back. It was the classic case of leaving to much too few and it will up to the team to recalibrate in this area to get some consistency of effort.
St Kilda do have young talent
The positive of 2021 was once again the exposure of some nice young talent to good form. Spearhead Max King is an absolute star and whilst he didn’t have his kicking boots on at times he is a shining light the Saints can look to. The levels of performance they can get out of their high priced recruits in Dan Hannebery and Brad Hill will go a long way to deciding the Saints fate. They have had some youngsters Jack Bytel and Hunter Clark show promise. But if the seasoned campaigners can come and produce week in week out it will enable these younger players the ability to further strengthen their game as opposed to carrying the load.
Coach Ratten under the microscope
Brett Ratten will be under the microscope as he is in the 3rd and last year of his contract. In 2020 he seemed to make strong and genuine connection to his player group when they were in the hub. However the connectedness appeared to seriously wane when they returned back to normality in 2021.
Perhaps the other BIG area for the Saints this year is leadership. Jack Steele moved into a “co captain” role with Jaryn Geary. However early in 2022 Geary resigned from this role as leader leaving it all up to Steele. Jack is the type of leader that leads by example after his breakout 2020 season, but how he balances responsibility of performance with how to lead this group by himself will be an interesting side story to ST Kilda’s 2022 season. With a fit side the Saints can taste finals action again.
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