Red White And Black

At last, footy’s sort of back.

The Fox Footy Channel launch threatened to drown us in it all before the season had kicked off – highlights of great games and players past, dramatic off-field moments and, above all else, of the commentators and Fox Footy Channel personalities themselves in the first hour alone.

The latter aside, it was the stuff that’s usually reserved for “That Was the Season That Was” productions (R.I.P.) and Grand Final Week in general as we become reflective and the footy season reaches its climax. It was a bit much for the rubbing of eyes and regaining of cognitive functions as we awoke to a new season.

Eventually, the footy itself returned. Half-games played at half-intensity, but it still felt like a bye weekend knowing the Saints wouldn’t be onstage for another week.

This pre-season has a bit more of a pragmatic purpose for St Kilda. The 2009 matches saw the Saints master their defensive game plan over several weeks (culminating in what was by many accounts the worst match of footy “known to science”, against the Bulldogs in already stupefying heat at Princes Park), but aside from then there hasn’t been an urgency  try something really different or throw the young kids into any sort of battle for a number of years.

But now the reality of time has set in, and its not since the massive refresh the club’s list underwent a decade ago we’re faced with really having to inject some youth into the side. Of course, the usual suspects will remain just that – Roo, BJ, Joey, Dal, Fish and so on – but the on their use-by date has never been so fixed. The middle and bottom tiers are in serious need of improvement, and with the state the list is in, that’s going to be left mostly to players aged Armitage-and-under.

Saints fans will have a particularly keen eye on the young guys that gave us a teaser of their abilities in 2011 – Siposs, Cripps and Ledger come to mind first (AKA The Three Young Guys Scott Watters Could Name at His First Press Conference), with bigger things naturally expected of last year’s most consistent improvers in Jack Steven and Big Ben. We’re still waiting for Armo to really take his game to the next level, and I’d have to be going on players’ comments that he’s had a great pre-season to genuinely maintain anticipation for another of his years. I’m wishing no less, however.

Siposs has (necessarily) put on some muscle, and though he didn’t get the ball much in his games he used it wonderfully when he did. It will be interesting to see what part of the ground he’ll be covering come game time. Cripps is in a similar category after spending his brief time on the field in 2011 as a pinch-hitting small forward (7.2 from 16 kicks), but I’ll be looking forward to seeing if he’s used closer to his more natural half-back positioning.

With Lenny back, the midfield might take on a more recognisable configuration come the home-and-away season; however there will be question marks on how much game time he can run out and he certainly won’t be featuring for a huge amount of the NAB Cup. It means Jack, Armo and Ledger will have a chance to really stamp their midfield credentials; they might not all fill the exact same role but added depth is required either way. 2010 draftees Sam Crocker and Nick Winmar will be looking to make a real impression; add to that Jack Newnes and Seb Ross, the two most talked-up of the most recent draftees and our midfield of 2017 is starting to form in the heads of any of us willing to jump the gun.

Ideally that midfield will be watched over quite literally by Big Ben (unless GWS have anything to do with it). Like Jack, he became an integral part of the team in 2011 and rave reviews of him from within the club over the summer point towards some more exciting footy this season. The NAB Cup for Big Ben won’t particularly be about proving himself, because almost regardless of form 2012 will be his first year as the number one ruckman. But we’ll be looking for glimpses.

At either end of the ground, some changes are likewise set to be made. Tom Simpkin had been pencilled in as more or less a straight swap for Zac but now there’ll be Beau Wilkes to consider also. Gwilt will miss the pre-season matches and Raph has a calf injury, so a couple of running defender spots have already opened up (perhaps an opening for Cripps).

Up forward, to go with Siposs, there are twin blonde talls Rhys Stanley and Daniel Archer. Neither can claim any glowing praise thus far in their careers (Stanley has been buoyed by his 2009 Grand Final Sprint win hype since then) and a genuine tall forward needs to put their hand up as Roo gets set for the occasional rest and The Last Man to Have Captained the Saints to a Premiership of Any Kind will be spending time in the ruck. Archer remains on the rookie list but was promoted at first chance in 2011, whilst the clock is ticking for Stanley.

As for the smalls in attack, Ahmed Saad and Terry Milera look to provide some X-factor after being bumped up from state leagues. They look set to excite if they can get involved in the play regularly enough.

The NAB Cup is open season for teams, officials and pundits. Everyone is optimistic about their club and this one is at the beginning of a new era, let alone a new year. We can talk about Siposs, Newnes, Saad and others and I can name nearly every young player on the list in this post and get excited for the future because it’s just that – the future. It hasn’t happened yet.

Come Friday night, it will have begun.

I know I’ll be in the tiny minority on this one, but I am curious and somewhat excited to see former Saints coach Ross Lyon appearing on the original (and best) Fox Sports footy show On The Couch on Monday night.

Nearly six months on and the amount of resentment and disgust hurled at He Who Must Not Be Named on various social media channels, fan forums and in general footy chat has not died down very much.

Of course, the indignation is understandable to a degree. It was a break up that hit the club’s faithful right in the face and shocked the football community as a whole. Mark Harvey is still speechless, I’m sure.

Personally though, I can remove myself from the dismay of the departure of He Who Must Not Be Named and acknowledge that he is a very good coach. I would have thought that a lot of fans would have by now been able to put aside some of the petty mud slinging. Particularly since it is clear that the fans are so overjoyed with Scott Watters – so why bother with the continual abuse to his predecessor?

The facts are, and will remain, that He Who Must Not Be Named was a great coach of the St Kilda football club. What he achieved over ’09/’10 in particular was nothing short of astounding. Needless to say, it was short of what we all wanted – but He Who Must Not Be Named gave the players every chance to bring home the bacon. The results that were garnered were remarkable and I doubt any current coach could have matched them.

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At the risk of being a wet blanket, just when the Saints are doing their utmost to lay out the prettiest picnic blanket for 2012 and beyond, I can’t help but only coming away with a bittersweet feeling from yesterday’s presentation of the Captain Riewoldt and the 2012 leadership group. There always seems to be an asterisk placed besides everything the club does that is seemingly good these days.

While most Saints fans were high-fiving and backslapping at the prospect of Saint Nick leading this “new era”, again the dreaded free-agency term reared it’s head again in reference to Brendon Goddard.

In 2011 it was the Ross Lyon contract that hovered in the background, and this year it seems that the media will continue to stir the free-agency pot with BJ, as they will with a host of other players I’m sure.

Goddard, of course played the straight-bat, acknowledging that free agency was a “reality” whilst reaffirming his commitment to the club for this year – that somehow was meant to be reassuring. The comments felt quite similar to the type of stuff that one bald maestro was uttering only 18 months ago, and we know how that turned out.

At the end of the day, BJ is right of course – free agency is a reality, and us fans as much as anyone are going to have to get used to it. The prospect of players being traded before their contracts are up or players putting themselves up for grabs is part of the landscape now. Some would argue that fans should be happy that the AFL’s version free agency (at this point in time) is quite restricted.

From a Saints perspective though, it was an annoying asterisk placed alongside what was a pleasant day for the fans. Another bit of fine print that potentially extinguishes the excitement generated by the main event.

The presentation of the players was symbolic beginning of the Watters era. The official cleaning of the slate. Us fans can only brace ourselves for a year of media speculation and muckraking in the Goddard direction, and focus on forging ahead with whoever has drawn a line in the sand. Reality bites sometimes.

The feel-good PR exercise that has been the pre-season summer continued today as My Favourite Hair in the AFL was reinstated as St Kilda captain.

Swat had nearly enough for a 21 and the sub fanned out behind him as he introduced the 2012 captain and leadership group, which featured the usual suspects in Sammy Fish, Nicky Dal, Joey, BJ and Schneids, plus relative surprises Jimmy Gwilt and Big Ben (before going on the reveal Lenny’s Leadership Mentor role).

Watching the press conference on Fox Sports News, with the backdrop of a very temperate, overcast Melbourne day got me more excited about footy’s return and what the future could hold for this club more than anything else. It feels as though a new era at St Kilda is well and truly upon us.

It’s great to hear Swat talking about how in-depth the processes were to get to this point and the players talking about the experience of the leadership camp over the past week, as well as Nick’s thoughts as he accepted the role in front of the playing group. There seems to be some genuine excitement permeating from the playing group.

Nick’s words were particularly poignant: “Ideally in twelve months’ time, my name won’t be up the top, it’ll be one of those guys’ or one of the others’ Scott’ll mention were close in the voting so that’s what it’s all about from here: it’s about transition, it’s about the leaders serving and trying to make themselves redundant because we’ve got those young guys coming through.” The philosophy of a constant evolution and development of a football club seems to have seriously arrived with Swat and his off-field team.

I’ve pencilled in Big Ben as our 2017 premiership captain, and my daydreaming fantasies (see red, yellow and black clash jumper) aside it’s always great to see a youngster take another step in their career. Before his late inclusion in the Collingwood game, Big Ben was struggling for form but his turnaround on the field since then was sensational. It’s exciting at this point in time to think which of the youngsters we will watch take similar steps in the near future.

Having the ‘Fro in there also shows a changing dynamic within the more senior group also, but as Swat said, there could have been several others quite easily in the leadership positions. For a team that has struggled as far as the “bottom six” theory goes and with an equally questionable middle tier in 2011, we can only hope for now that that’s a good sign.

Of course, today was really just another successfully-executed PR opportunity. Freak knows the club needed not just a day but a whole summer like this – it’s been refreshing for the fans, let alone the players, board and staff. But soon enough it will be time to play some footy.

Having re-read Caroline Wilson’s article (Watters set to burst Saints’ bubble) from Saturday’s The Age, amongst the leadership and culture speak I found a most telling passage in which Scott Watters calmly sorts the playing list into three categories:

More tellingly, Watters loosely divided his players into three categories. “There’s the really strong established group,” he began. “Some of those who set really high standards for themselves and some didn’t reach those standards last year.

“Then there’s the middle group who see an opportunity to redefine the way they’ve been judged and gain more exposure. For them, it was like going back to school on the first day. And then the younger group coming through, some who’ve been on the list and some new arrivals.”

So far, with Watters at the helm fans have been doused in comments about opportunity, rejuvenation and so on, so it was refreshing here to see the head coach deliver some frank thoughts on the playing list. And boy, was he on the money.

Last year the Saints did not reach the heights they achieved in the previous two seasons, and there are myriad reasons for that, but perhaps the most glaring one was the failure of the core senior group to churn out the stellar performances that they had had in ’09 and ’10.

While it’s true that Ross Lyon was able to squeeze a lot of productivity out of lesser players and manufacture roles for players such as Clint Jones, Jason Blake, Robert Eddy et al, within that rigid structure the stars were still the driving force behind the side’s formidableness.

Anyone who’s held up any sort of magnifying glass to the Saints over the past five years will tell you that the stars of the team have shouldered far too much of the responsibility of the team’s performance. On a smaller scale, the perfect example of this was the absence of Lenny Hayes for virtually the whole season last year. Once Hayes went down with a season-ending knee injury, the midfield depth was severely exposed. The injection of Jack Steven into it halfway through the year enlivened it, but much largely was left up to Nick Dal Santo to get his Lenny on. The likes of Jones, Farren Ray and David Armitage all had disappointing years.

Pundits constantly bandy around the term of the “bottom six”, but with this team you could probably tweak that to bottom ten.

I would be the first to jump for joy should Lenny Hayes get back to his best this year but if the club is wanting to rejuvenate and claw some ground back on the competitions leaders, then a top season from one of Rhys Stanley, David Armitage, Brett Peake, Jason Gram or Raph Clarke (amongst others) would be cause for much more celebration.

It is true that some of these “middle group” players may have been starved for much opportunity or perhaps been slotted into uncomfortably strict roles during the Lyon era, but for the likes of Armitage, Clarke and co. patience is running thin in regard to them delivering their best consistently.

In all honesty, I reserve my optimism for “the younger group” – your Ledgers, your Siposs’, your Cripps’, your Ross’ etc. These players are modern day players – athletic and skillful. The players under Lyon’s tenure took on a solider-like mentality and commitment, which was always admirable and for the most part very effective. But hopefully these youngsters can be T-1000s in comparison.

All in all, I do expect the senior core group to come out looking to bring their A-game from round one, especially with a new coach to impress. If the Saints are really to avoid a slide this year though, then set your eyes on the teams lesser lights and see if they deliver.

The ISC website was updated in the past week or so and we got the first decent look at the 2012 clash jumper:

I certainly think it’s an improvement on the 2011 “Vague Cross” design, with the broader red and black panels on the front bringing it closer to the panel/slab jumper’s pre-mid 1990s changes.

St Kilda's 1915-1918 jumper, from footyjumpers.com

Of course, the horizontal stripe is there to give the cross effect and also to stop the AFL whinging about there not being enough white in the design; however it’s slightly but noticeably broader than the vertical stripe which, as they say in classics, throws it out of a whack a bit.

I and many fans I’m sure will be pleased to see something closer to the panel/slab jumpers (my red, yellow and black jumper fantasy not withstanding) taking the field against the traditional jumpers of teams such as Carlton, Melbourne and Essendon. It also shows off the club’s colours more boldly – genuinely a red, white and black jumper as opposed to a white jumper with a bit of red and black.

I get the feeling the preference here for the clash would be unbroken panels with the white stripe as per the above version and white back – closer to the design worn by the club from 1933-1952 and arguably as “traditional” as the current home jumper.

Another draft has been and gone; everyone is excited about another new batch of youngsters whose names we hope will be heard in the booming voice of Craig Willis after a winning Grand Final sometime soon.

The draft always feels like a mini rebirth of a club, for Saints fans it’s representative of a much bigger club rebirth. We know that there is much more of a chance of these and other youngsters getting game time in 2012, and the general feeling is that under Swat the entire list, through to the most senior of players, feels regenerated and optimistic.

The same can be said of the fans. We all needed regeneration after the amazing, harrowing three seasons that have just passed us by, though we certainly didn’t expect it on this scale.

So it’s exciting to hear those names that will now share responsibility for a huge part of our lives; names that will become part of our own vocabulary as St Kilda fans.

There’s a new Ross at the club – Sebastian – who Swat likened to Scott Pendlebury; if that’s the case we can only hope he doesn’t walk out on the Saints after five years of great service.

Daniel Markworth, Jack Newnes, Jimmy Webster and Jay Lever, the other youngsters picked up on Thursday, have all been talked up for their attributes as is par for the National Draft fallout course. Tony Elshaug, however, went out of his way to mention each individual’s great character, which was a notable statement and said quite a lot about the club’s new direction and approach to professionalism.

Of course, then there are Beau Wilkes – part of Swat’s plan to slowly bring the rest of Western Australia over with him – and Jason Blake. Wilkes, ideally, will be a handy and flexible depth player at worst, and Blake’s redrafting simply reminded us of where the club has been and of his wonderful services to the Saints as he eyes game 200.

For now, we imagine each of the additions to the list in their designated part of the ground, and them linking up in passages of play with our current stalwarts. Goddard to Newnes, Newnes to Ross, Ross to Dal, Dal to Markworth. Or something like that (we might have to wait a couple of years for that one should BJ still be around at all). Either way, for a club that runs on hope and new beginnings like no other we are certainly in our element right now.

As St Kilda fans, these are the moments we prize the most.

Many of us cringe when we think of the “apron” design clash jumper worn by the club in 2007 and 2008.

Photo by Lachlan Cunningham, © The Slattery Media Group

It wasn’t simply the design that was bad – there was nothing bold about the basketball-singlet-style lines and the bemusing worn effect given to the club logo – but it was also that it had replaced the widely popular candy-stripe jumper, which had been forced out simply because it looked a bit like Collingwood’s jumper.

The design was widely panned by supporters, and the promise of change at the end of the 2008 season given by Nathan Burke at that year’s AGM was met with great enthusiasm.

Of course, the odd thing was that the apron design had won a head-to-head poll against this design:

In my opinion, this design is far superior – it’s far bolder. The black cuffs and solid logo look great, and the red, white and black stripes are at the very least echoed in the chevrons. It looks far more like a St Kilda jumper than the apron ever will.

But it seems that the poll results might have said something similar.

The designer of the the chevron jumper is “Mero”, who runs the fantastic footyjumpers.com. His knowledge of the history of all VFL/AFL (and beyond) clubs’ jumper designs is incredible and reflected in his website. (St Kilda’s own progression of jumper designs is on of the busier histories, so the site is well worth a look for that alone: for all jumpers, see here, and for full home uniforms, see here. There were definitely some interesting designs through the years.)

Mero posts regularly on the BigFooty.com forum, and in a thread titled “Jumpers that never were”, he posted something yesterday rather remarkable about the design (there’s some more information about his assisting the club with the design, the St Kilda Heritage Museum, and with the 2005 Heritage Round jumper design later in the thread). Taken directly from his post:

“The jumper I designed, with the chevrons down the sides was leading the poll with one day to go.

And when they announced the decision it was the other jumper by something like 60% to 40%.

My thoughts were they had decided on the one they wanted, and ran the other one to make it look like the fans had a say.

Not bitter, wasn’t getting anything out of it, so it doesn’t matter, and I don’t barrack for StKilda, but I was taking an interest because of the design, and they definitely pulled a swifty.”

It’s worth noting that Nathan Burke, made the promise of change as part of the new board that had just taken over from Rod Butterss’ regime, which had overseen the clash jumper design issue about a year earlier.

So perhaps the Butterss board actually did rig the poll. There’s never been anything to suggest the apron design was close to popular with fans, for reasons that simply wouldn’t apply to the alternative design. To be honest, assuming Mero’s story is true, I hope whoever gave him the information before the poll closed was wrong for whatever reason, and that the board didn’t in fact disregard the wishes of its fans after explicitly giving them the impression they’d been granted a say in the operations of the club.

To some this would be a non-issue, but to many the jumper is the representation of the club. It’s how you know the individual players and the team as a whole you are looking at represent the St Kilda Football Club.