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ALAN Richardson knows there is no quick fix to St Kilda’s problems last year, but that doesn’t mean he and his coaches aren’t working overtime to accelerate the regeneration.
Speaking to The Herald Sun, Richardson reflected on the 2014 season with a glass half full approach that has become synonymous with his coaching style.
“All right, at times I did get frustrated with our performance on game day, but I really enjoyed the year,” Richardson said.
“I really enjoyed working with these young blokes who are really committed to improving. I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed driving and working with our leaders, who are as committed as any group I’ve seen about leaving a strong legacy.”
One of the reasons St Kilda struggled to maintain consistency last year was in part due to the high turnover of players, according to Richardson.
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Forty-two players pulled on the red, white and black guernsey in 2014 – the second most in the AFL behind GWS.
However with this chopping and changing came a silver lining - an opportunity to blood young Saints at the highest level.
“The list strategy that we have means that at times when we’ve had injuries to key players we were always going to be a bit thin from an experience put of view. But some of the benefits have been enormous, though,” Richardson said.
“To get a look at someone like (Cam) Shenton and be able to expose nearly all of our rookies to senior football. Those opportunities were fantastic.
“On balance I was fairly pleased with the steps that individuals took, but there’s enormous amount of room to move from a team perspective,’’
“Anything that required less synergy was OK; anything that required 18 blokes to have a great understanding of what was going on was undoubtedly a challenge for us, given the amount of constant change that we had to personnel and the lack of experience.”
Alan Richardson in 2014.
St Kilda registered three wins in its first five games of 2014, surprising Essendon in the process. However its next victory didn’t eventuate until round 18 against a shell-shocked Fremantle outfit.
“At the start of the year, when we had that experience in the team, and when we able to get some back later in the season, we were much more predictable to each other and our performances were stronger.
“That’s going to be our challenge, and we’re going to be younger again this season.
“Even though there has been a really strong buy in from the players, and there has been a really good period where we’ve been able to build that together, but now it’s time for us to demand a bit more of each other.’’
