St Kilda star Jack Steven is searching for more consistency in the back half of this season after an ‘eventful’ start to 2017.
The three-time Trevor Barker Award winner has produced performances cut from his game breaking best (Round 6 v Hawthorn and Round 7 v GWS), suffered a punctured lung (Round 2 v West Coast) and been heavily tagged (Round 10 v Western Bulldogs).
While the 27-year-old hasn’t reached the sustained heights of recent years just yet, he returned from a punctured lung in stunning form, polling coaches votes in the four consecutive games after returning, including the Silk Miller Medal against the Hawks in Launceston.
“I’ve been a bit up and down so far this year,” Steven told saints.com.au after returning from a mid-year break in Sydney.
“I had the lung issue which forced me out for a couple of weeks, had a few good games and I’ve been tagged a few times too.
“It has been a bit of an eventful start to the year, so hopefully I can get a bit more consistent in the second half of the season.”
Steven, who is averaging 27.4 possessions (11.1 contested), 5.5 clearances and 4.9 inside 50s this season, admits he is still learning how to deal with a tag, after Western Bulldogs premiership wingman Lachie Hunter sat on him in Round 10, a week after Sydney put plenty of work into him.
“Each sort of tag is different. I’m still learning (how to cope with a tag); that’s probably my next step really, I haven’t been tagged a lot,” Steven said.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to play your role, it might not be about you getting the ball sometimes, you might have to man someone else or just focus on defensive pressure or other stuff like that.”
Despite dropping the two games leading into the bye, Steven still believes the Saints form in the first two months of the season demonstrated how dangerous they can be when they move the ball the way they want to.
“What we showed is when we play to our structure and move the ball the way we want to, we are a really dangerous, dynamic team,” he said.
“We don’t want to go away from that, we want to add layers to the way we move the ball and the way we go as a side.”
St Kilda travels across to South Australia this week to face premiership contenders Adelaide, who sit in second place on the ladder and have won five of their six games at Adelaide Oval this season.
