As Greater Western Sydney marched towards their maiden finals appearance last season, Jack Steele piled up dominant performances in the NEAFL one by one but couldn’t break into the Giants’ star-studded midfield.
In the final game of the home and away season he accumulated 43 disposals, 10 clearances and nine inside 50s against Redland before following it up in the preliminary final two weeks later with 42 touches, 11 tackles and nine clearances.
No matter what he did, opportunity didn’t come his way. He knew he had to look elsewhere for opportunity and there were plenty of suitors who had been tracking his progress.
St Kilda’s list management team was one who had been keeping a close eye on the hard-nosed midfielder ever since he was taken two picks after the Saints’ third pick in the 2014 draft at No. 24.
Saints’ Pro Scout Wayne Hughes spent so much time at the Giants home base at Spotless Stadium that one of their co-captain’s became suspicious of his presence and asked him why he kept bobbing up in non-football heartland.
Fast forward to Saturday afternoon at Etihad Stadium, following two eye-catching displays in the JLT Community Series, and Steele was one of only a few Saints to stand tall in the 30-point loss to Melbourne.
In a completely one-sided midfield duel, Steele finished with a career-high 23 possessions (12 contested), 47 pressure points (fourth most of any Saint), seven marks and four clearances to be one of Alan Richardson’s best players.
Steele’s father Stuart and mother Joanne, who both still live in the nation’s capital, arrived in Melbourne on Saturday morning and drove straight to Etihad Stadium to watch their boy for the first time as a Saint.
Having watched their son relocate from Canberra to western Sydney as a teenager to pursue his football ambitions, the Steele’s saw their boy settle in the harbour city before making a monumental decision to uproot his life again in search of greener pastures.
“Jack was pretty settled at the Giants, he was happy there. They are obviously a really well-run club, they’ve got a great list and they are on the way up and have everything going for them. But St Kilda offered him opportunity and I think that’s what he wanted more than anything,” Steele senior told saints.com.au after arriving at Etihad Stadium straight from the airport.
“He was happy living in Sydney; he was friends with all the players; loved living in a harbourside suburb and being not too far away from the beach. So to leave all that was a really big decision, that was the hardest part about the whole thing; to actually leave and go.”
Despite spending the majority of his life in rugby heartland, Stuart is an avid football fan, stemming from a stint he spent in Melbourne with his wife in the early 1990s. He has no doubt his son will love this city and love the club he chose when he had plenty of suitors chasing his services last October.
“We think he’ll really like Melbourne; we lived there for five years and we loved the place. We’re really excited that he gets to savour football in Melbourne and gets to experience all that.
“In Sydney, you can go anywhere and no one knows who you are. Obviously it’s a lot different down here, we’re just over the moon that he’s got here.
“We’re chuffed that he got to St Kilda because we see Saints as a club that’s progressing and going to climb the ladder; we couldn’t be happier.”
And judging from his performances over the last month, St Kilda couldn’t be happier either.
