While he didn’t quite reach the lofty heights of recent years, star midfielder Jack Steven continued to play an important role in St Kilda’s midfield in 2017.
The three-time Trevor Barker Award winner – he has won the last two best and fairest’s – experienced an interrupted start to the season, suffering a punctured lung against West Coast in Round 2, which prevented him from flying back to Melbourne after the game and sidelined him for a fortnight.
The 27-year-old returned with a bang against Geelong in Round 5, before producing a brilliant best on ground performance in the drought-breaking win down in Tasmania a week later, where he earned the
Steven continued his run of form into the next few weeks against Greater Western Sydney, Carlton and Sydney before attracting close attention from opposition taggers through the middle part of the year.
Despite being nullified at times in the second half of the year, the St Kilda leader was still able to make a contribution through his selflessness through the middle of the ground and saved his best performance of the year against North Melbourne in the penultimate round of the season.
While he is unlikely to add to his three best and fairest's this year, the star midfielder is still capable of a high finish given the quality of his best performance this season.
Performance of the year:
Round 22 v North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium: 40 disposals, 15 contested possessions, 18 score involvements, 11 clearances, five inside
Alan Richardson’s views:
“In a year where he received plenty of attention from the opposition, Jack was still a really strong contributor,” Richardson said.
“Jack is one player who the opposition often puts some time into, and this was certainly the case when we were performing well in the middle of the season and receiving a bit more attention as a team.
“We were really pleased with his ability to be selfless and free up others when he was receiving a lot of attention, but he will need to continue to work on being able to break the tag.
“There were times this year when Jack wasn’t physically at his best through injury but he still gave his utmost to the team and was still quite effective for us.
“On the back of a strong pre-season, we’d expect Jack to come back in good shape and have a really strong year in 2018.
“One of the big positives in Jack’s year was the growth he made in terms of his leadership. He’s not an overly loud leader but he is a supportive communicator with his teammates and that went to another level this season.
“He worked really closely with Adam Kingsley this year to run line meetings with the midfielders which
The numbers:
20 games
26.3 disposals
10.5 contested possessions
5.4 clearances
4.7 tackles
4.3 inside
