2024 AFL Season Previews: St. Kilda
Can the Saints go marching into September?
Ross Lyon made an immediate impact in the first year of his second stint. Can he build on that promise?
2023 ladder position: 6th (13 wins, 10 losses – eliminated at elimination final stage)
2023 best-and-fairest: Jack Sinclair
Senior coach: Ross Lyon
Story of the season
On July 8th 2022, Brett Ratten signed a new deal to ensure he would remain St. Kilda’s coach until at least the end of the 2024 season. The club president called Ratten the “best person” to take the club forward. That endorsement made it all the more shocking when Ratten was sacked just three months later following a post-season review of football operations which laid the blame for consecutive 10th-placed finishes squarely at his feet. One of the nicest men in football was out. A couple of weeks later, Ross Lyon was back in for his second stint as St. Kilda coach.
Fans and haters alike were immediately treated to an exhibition of pure, uncut Rossball – a 67 to 52 Round 1 win against Lyon’s other former club, Fremantle, at Marvel Stadium. That result kicked the Saints into gear. They won their first four games and, despite a close loss to Collingwood in a Gather Round classic, they never really looked like missing finals. The Saints eventually finished sixth – good enough for a home final. And although they were pretty easily brushed aside by an imperious Greater Western Sydney, most fair observers declared the season a success. Meet the new Ross: maybe not quite the same as the old Ross?
Summary of game style
Believe it or not, Ross Lyon built from the back. He took a defence that, in 2022, conceded the eighth-highest expected score in the AFL and turned it into one that conceded the third-lowest. He did it by getting his players to put the ball in spots that made it very hard for the opposition to score.
That strategy starts with how the Saints use the ball. Across 2023, St. Kilda ranked #1 in the AFL for kicks and marks, and #16 for metres gained per disposal. In other words, they used the ball conservatively, often opting to methodically shuttle it up the wing, one uncontested mark at a time. That handicapped their attack: the Saints were dead last for scoring shots inside 50 and 15th for goals scored. But therein lies the nefarious genius of Rossball. Slow, controlled ball movement meant that the Saints’ defence was rarely caught out. Opponents would regain possession in their defensive 50 or half-back and then confront a wall of red, black and white jumpers. They were then forced to either chip it around aimlessly (the Saints conceded the second-most marks per game and fewest metres per opposition disposal) or kick it long and turn it over. But this time, the Saints started their attack closer to goal.
Lyon’s low-tempo transition style doesn’t rely on efficiency. In fact, the inefficiency I described above is almost more of a feature than a bug. And it disguises the Saints’ below-average clearance work: 15th for clearance differential. 14 years into his coaching career, Ross is still the Boss when it comes to suffocating the opposition.
List changes
In:
Darcy Wilson (2023 National Draft, pick #18)
Lance Collard (2023 National Draft, pick #28)
Angus Hastie (2023 National Draft, pick #33)
Hugo Garcia (2023 National Draft, pick #50)
Arie Schoenmaker (2023 National Draft, pick #62)
Riley Bonner (Pre-Season Draft)
Liam Henry (traded from Fremantle)
Paddy Dow (traded from Carlton)
Liam O'Connell (Category B Rookie)
Out:
Jack Billings (traded to Melbourne)
Nick Coffield (traded to Western Bulldogs)
Jade Gresham (free agent – Essendon)
Jack Bytel (delisted)
Oscar Adams (delisted)
Leo Connolly (delisted)
Jack Peris (delisted)
Dan McKenzie (delisted)
Tom Highmore (delisted)
List profile
Number of top-10 draft picks: five (tied for fourth-fewest)
Average age at Opening Round: 24.5 (eighth-youngest)
Average number of games played: 69.4 (eighth-fewest)
Over the off-season, Ross Lyon identified his biggest list management challenge – the frankly absurd number of Saints players called Jack – and acted decisively. Three Jacks were given the axe. A problem that looked like it could become a mass contagion event (an entire list of Jacks!) was brought under control. But Lyon can’t allow himself to become complacent. The four remaining Jacks are surely biding their time. So are the three Liams.
After that humorous diversion, here’s the serious bit. St. Kilda’s Best & Fairest count from last year is a perfect illustration of the club’s interesting list management conundrum. Of the top ten, six are in their late twenties or early thirties. Two are in their mid-twenties. And two, Mitchito Owens and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, are 20 and 21 respectively. The Saints have a reliable core that’s inching up in age, an exciting (and, in my opinion, underrated) crop of young players, and a missing middle. That’s not to say the 22-25 group didn’t contribute anything: Jack Higgins and Josh Battle were in the top 10, and Max King probably would have been if it weren’t for a shoulder injury. But you usually want the mid-age cohort to be making a bigger contribution.
A missing middle (the Saints aren’t the only club like this – look at Adelaide) isn’t necessarily a problem. But it does reduce the margin of error for the older core. In the short term, the Saints’ progress will be incumbent on players like Jack Steele, Jack Sinclair, Brad Crouch and Brad Hill continuing to produce, while the likes of Owens, Wanganeen-Milera and Mattaes Phillipou take a step forward.
Line rankings
Defence: Above Average
Midfield: Above Average
Forward: Above Average
Ruck: Above Average
The case for optimism
To massively oversimplify (why else are we here??), there are two ways a club can improve, year-on-year. Players can improve, or coaching can improve. (If you’re lucky, both happen at once.) Let’s start with the coaching. This will be the third time that Ross Lyon is heading into his second year coaching a club. The previous two times? Those clubs made a preliminary final (St. Kilda in 2008) and then a Grand Final (Fremantle in 2013). In other words – and, yes, standard disclaimer: past performance is not a guarantee of future performance – it looks like it takes Lyon a year to fully communicate his ideas of how he wants his teams to attack and defend.
Saints fans should feel pretty confident that their players will be better-drilled this year. That’s pretty much a guarantee for a second-year Ross Lyon side. I think they should also feel that they should just be plain better. I wrote above that the Saints’ list is a bit bipolar – lots of players either near the beginning or kind of near the end, without much in the middle. But within that, there’s some nuance. The older players aren’t so old that we should expect them to start declining. But the younger players are in a position to make bigger contributions. Take Max King. He missed half the season with a shoulder injury. But he ranked sixth league-wide for goals per game. At 23, there’s still improvement left. Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera had a stellar second season, emerging as one of the league’s best half-backs. Owens and Phillipou contributed a lot. Liam Henry will add dash and dare on a wing (and, with Brad Hill on the other wing, will test the restraint of commentators who like the film Goodfellas). Anthony Caminiti showed plenty. Hugo Garcia, the 50th selection in last year’s draft, is impressing in pre-season. Good drafting can quickly elevante a team’s talent profile from middling to promising.
And then there’s the King of the Jacks: Jack Sinclair. Equally comfortable across half-back and through the middle, the 29 year-old has become one of the best players in the AFL. The Saints’ acquisition of free agent Riley Bonner may free him up to spend more time in the midfield, where his disposal will cause the most damage. Footy isn’t quite so simple as better coaching + better players = better result. But the ingredients seem to be there for the Saints to entrench themselves in the top six (a soft-looking draw should also help). That might not result in a deep finals run – but at least it should mean escaping the midtable irrelevance vortex.
The case for pessimism
One of the best things you can say if you want people to think you know a lot about footy is to rub your chin and proclaim, “Ross Lyon raises a team’s floor, but he also lowers its ceiling.” After all, this is a guy who’s made finals in 10 of the 14 years he’s been a senior coach. He’s made the top four six times! But, despite making three Grand Finals, he’s never won one. Good enough to get close. Not quite good enough to win.
It’s probably a coincidence borne of a small sample size – or just a byproduct of existing in the same era as two superteams (Geelong and then Hawthorn). Or of course, it could actually be a testament to Lyon’s coaching ability. Maybe he gets teams to perform above their level, and is ultimately brought undone by superior talent. All of the above is true – or at least plausible. But there’s still no dislodging the stubborn fact: Ross Lyon has never won a Premiership as senior coach.
Scroll up and reacquaint yourself with the summary of game style section. Last year, St. Kilda generated low-quality inside 50 entries and then frequently won it back in dangerous positions. It’s a style that ultimately depends on opposition mistakes. And, almost by definition, the teams that make Grand Finals don’t make many mistakes. Lyon’s deficiency isn’t psychological. It’s tactical. And, in a league that is tilting further and further in the direction of encouraging attacking football (e.g. the implementation of the stand rule), one wonders if he’s got the balance right. The Saints need to improve their efficiency going forward. But their attacking system partly depends on that exact inefficiency. It’s a tough riddle to solve.
The other cause for pessimism, or at least realism, for Saints fans: is this truly a Premiership-winning list? Lots of fans and pundits assume that when a team’s younger players improve, the team automatically improves. But the opportunity cost the Saints are facing is that, in the time it might take for guys like Mitch Owens, Max King and Mattaes Phillipou to reach their full potential, the current core (Sinclair, Steele, Callum Wilkie, Rowan Marshall et al) might start declining. That’s the problem with not having many key contributors in their mid-20s. It reduces the duration of your Premiership window.
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Breakout player
This is an interesting one. I’ll disqualify Owens and Phillipou, who both had very good debut seasons. Fingers crossed that Jack Hayes can get over the injuries that have so far prevented him from making a bigger impact. But I’ll go for Antony Caminiti. As his bio on the Saints’ website put it, he expected to spend 2023 “grilling steaks, waiting tables and getting his teeth stuck into an engineering degree.” Instead, he became a really intriguing proposition: a key forward who’s great at applying pressure inside 50. With a bit more size and craft, he could become a handful for opposition defenders. Liam Henry is a close second.
Most important player
The easy (and reasonable) answer is Jack Sinclair. But I think Rowan Marshall is indispensable to how the Saints play under Lyon. He’s a unicorn. He was fifth for hitouts while still averaging more than 20 possessions and five clearances per game. He exhausts his direct opponent by taking them from contest to contest, thereby increasing the Saints’ turnover ability. I’m surprised he isn’t talked about more as one of the best rucks in the game.
Biggest question to answer
Can Ross Lyon take this Saints team to the next level? We know they’ll be solid. But many of the Saints’ up-and-coming players – Owens, King, Wanganeen-Milera – would benefit from Lyon easing up on the handbrake just a bit. If he gets the balance right, they should be good enough to make the finals again.
What success looks like
Last year, the Saints comfortably made finals and then comfortably lost the elimination final. This year, Lyon should be aiming to win a final – and to understand if his younger players are developing quickly enough so that the older core will still be good enough to support a genuine Premiership tilt in 2-3 years.
In a nutshell
The Saints are the ultimate AFL barometer. Of their 13 wins last season, 11 came against teams that finished below them. Meanwhile, seven of their 11 defeats came to teams who finished above them. Ross Lyon’s challenge is to maintain his side’s formidable defensive solidity while adding scoring power.
Agree? Think I’m a fool who’s biased against St. Kilda? Share your thoughts in the comments.