St Kilda’s fast start on Thursday night not only tantalised Saints supporters who are eager for their club to return to September in 2017, it also helped new key defender Jake Carlisle settle into his new role, amongst his new teammates in defence.
Carlisle, 25, arrived at Linen House Centre at the end of 2015 but has been forced to bide his time for well documented reasons. After playing a half in last week’s intra-club, the former Bomber played just over 60 minutes against Port Adelaide at Etihad Stadium.
“It was pretty good, I was a bit nervy at the start, but I felt the good start that we had as a group just helped me relax a little bit and go out and play footy. I definitely missed it that’s for sure,” Carlisle told saints.com.au after the one-point win on Thursday night.
“It was actually a surprise to what I thought. I played my part last week (in the intra-club) and felt a bit rusty. Tonight I just wanted to get through a good half of footy and anything on top of that was a bonus.”
While a pre-season hit out isn’t the quite same as the real thing, it was the first formal fixture Carlisle has played since the Bombers faced Collingwood in the final round of 2015, 537 days ago.
After spending the first half of the pre-season away from the main group while he recovered from hip surgery, Carlisle was pleased to get some much-needed exposure alongside his new teammates in the defensive end of the ground.
“It was obviously good to get out there and play with the guys and that’s the main thing – I haven’t played with them pretty much at all,” he said.
“I missed most of the pre-season through the main training sessions so it was obviously good to work and jell together as a back six to a back eight so it was very exciting to be back out there.”
Carlisle praised the impact of another new face, Nathan Brown, who arrived at the Saints last October as a restricted free agent after 130 games across 11 years at Collingwood.
“The good thing about ‘Browny’ is he just plays his role and listens to what’s being told; he communicates which is good; he sets up in the right spot and you can’t forget he’s a premiership player so he knows what it’s like,” he said.
“He’s just going to play his role every week, you know what you’re going to get from him and that does allow ‘Shinner’, myself, Dylan Roberton, ‘Gilbo’ and even ‘Sav’ to that extent to sometimes sit off, come across and take intercept marks, which obviously sets up our attack.”
