St Kilda sacked coach Scott Watters yesterday. Source: Wayne Ludbey / News Limited
ONCE again, St Kilda confronts turmoil. Nothing new for a club which has churned through 15 coaches in the past 40 years.
Nothing new for a club which has churned through 15 coaches in the past 40 years.
But the mess that has engulfed the club this season was at least partly cleaned up when the Saints made the tough call to replace Scott Watters yesterday.
Faith in the coach had withered to such a point that his position became untenable when he conducted a non-sanctioned interview on SEN yesterday morning.
He assured Saints fans everyone was on the same page at Seaford, but it could not have been further from the truth, following breakdowns in relationships with key football officials and senior players.
Simply, some people felt they could not trust the coach any more. Not his behaviour or his football teachings.
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Sounds harsh for a man who guided Subiaco to two flags in the WAFL and helped steer the Saints to 12 wins in his first year in charge, narrowly missing finals.
But the fanfare around their last-round win over Fremantle, saying goodbye to Justin Koschitzke and co, glossed over the cracks which had begun appearing much earlier this year.
This is now a critical time for the club, struggling financially at a headquarters in Seaford that players merely tolerate, rather than love.
Saints fans should feel frustrated. One premiership since 1897, including two of the most heart-breaking of misses under Ross Lyon in 2009-10
But the past two years under Watters aren't a total waste.
Watters kept reminding us about how bad the Saints recruiting record was in Lyon's reign, leaving an ageing list without much fresh, top-end talent.
They won five games this year and probably less next year, following the departure of Nick Dal Santo and Ben McEvoy.
But the transition is on and internally there remains much hope in the 19 players which have been injected over the past two seasons and the three more stars they hope will be plucked from the top-20 of this month's draft.
Young midfielders Jack Newnes, Seb Ross and Nathan Wright and utility Tom Curren, and forward Tom Lee all showed considerable promise, albeit in patches.
Daniel Markworth and Spencer White are unseen high octane, speedy forwards, who should emerge next year.
Add to that this month's mature-age recruits, who are all 24 years old or younger, Shane Savage, Billy Longer and Luke Delaney, and the platform is there. At least they key defensive holes have been plugged.
But the rate of development has to quicken for these young players.
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Worryingly, the club's youth could not reap a single Rising Star nomination this year. It must have been a concern for the board when it made the call to cut Watters one year early.
The club is confident that Rising Star trend will turn.
Head of football Chris Pelchen this year told the Herald Sun he could not be more confident in the club's recruiting processes.
Pelchen helped setup premierships at Hawthorn and Port Adelaide and has vowed to get this month's national draft right.
"Not taking anything away from any of the clubs I have worked for, but the amount of work these (recruiting) guys are doing, across our whole recruiting network, is the equal of anything of anything I've been involved in,'' Pelchen said.
"The way of modern recruiting is about applying objective data to your decision-making and that's something we have applied great focus on.''
For now, the team has three elite players recognised by Champion Data. They are Jack Steven, Nick Riewoldt and Leigh Montagna.
Before the trade period, the stats gurus rated the squad the fifth oldest, but third last for quality.
Hence, the major trade action in the exchange period, designed to help materialise the grand visions the club has for finals in 2017-18.
Yesterday may look like a disaster, but the board decided things were only going to get worse had Watters stayed, which is why the trigger was pulled.
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