Emerging St Kilda leader Mav Weller believes the AFL made a sensible decision cancelling Sunday’s NAB Challenge clash with Brisbane, putting player safety ahead of a need to get much needed minutes into players ahead of the premiership season.

After days of torrential rain in Mackay, and another downpour only hours before the scheduled bounce, the Saints’ second match of the pre-season was scrapped, causing player workload headaches for both sides.

A handful of senior Saints players were poised for their first run of the pre-season with Sam Fisher, David Armitage and Leigh Montagna among the inclusions. And after playing only the first-half against North Melbourne, Jack Steven, Jack Billings and Sam Gilbert were also looking for more game time as part of their preparation.

“In the end, I think common sense prevailed. It would've been a tragedy if we had of played and if someone got hurt. (Cancelling the game) was definitely the right call,” Weller told reporters at St Kilda’s recovery session on Monday afternoon.

“It wasn't ideal. It was an unfortunate event, something that we can’t control, no one can control.

“Seeing that patch of grass (floating on the ground), ‘Rocky’ [Tom Rockliff] and ‘Joey’ [Leigh Montagna] showed a lot of leadership going out there and testing it out, being representatives of the AFLPA.

“I think it was definitely the right choice and the boys could see that. I'd never seen anything like it really. 500mm of rain in five days is just unbelievable.”

INSIGHT: Torrential rain, pre-season football and St Kilda

Despite St Kilda missing the opportunity to play against proper opposition and to get game time into senior players, Weller is confident the cancellation won’t have an impact on the clubs preparation ahead of its season opener against Port Adelaide on Easter Sunday at Adelaide Oval.

“It won’t hiccup up our preparations at all, we’ve had a fantastic pre-season, this hiccup won’t hurt us,” Weller said.

“I can only speak for us, we’ve had a great pre-season. Those older guys have done the majority of the work.

“We feel that we’re ready for Round 1 and obviously we’ve got another test next week and a couple of weeks of training so we’ll be right come Round 1.”

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Following the abandonment of Sunday’s game, the Saints weren’t spared physical work, with the playing group put through a running session in a nearby park, on a surface that whilst not dry, was far less waterlogged than the Harrup Park Country Club.

“We just went for a bit of a run. We wanted to get something out of it. (The run was) pretty low key,” Weller said.

“We’d planned that period to have a good conditioning session and that’s still what this period of the year is, to get the body right ready to go for the year.”

St Kilda will round out its NAB Challenge campaign on Sunday afternoon when they play Melbourne in the twilight timeslot at Etihad Stadium.