St Kilda’s football department is about to get a whole lot smarter according to General Manager of Football Simon Lethlean.

Lethlean announced the appointment of St Kilda’s newest football analyst Darren O’Shaughnessy on the Dare Drink it Through Podcast on Monday afternoon, citing his experience and intelligence as key factors in the posting.

“We’ve been fortunate to acquire Darren O’Shaughnessy who’s been at the Hawks for seven years now,” he said.

READ: Lethlean on Steven rumours

“He’s a really well-respected data analyst who we think will make a great impact on our program.

“We probably lacked some real grunt and analytical smarts that need to be there for us to go the next level in how we analyse our recruiting, how we analyse our game-plan, matchday, and how we utilise all our data.

“It’s a great coup for the club I reckon, to get a guy of his quality.”

Lethlean said O’Shaughnessy’s experience under widely-respected biomechanist David Rath would hold him in good stead at St Kilda.

“Darren has really strong skill sets in ingesting the data we get from Champion and our GPS and our recruiting…and actually formulating how we better utilise and get greater insights from that information,” he said.

“He’ll just make us a much smarter program, because he’s experienced and has great knowledge in that area, and he’s been doing great work at the Hawks under David Rath and others over the years in a pretty successful program.

“He’ll be a great addition to the club.”

In this week’s episode…

Host Clair White is once again joined by St Kilda General Manager of Football Simon Lethlean to discuss Jack Steven’s future, the Dan Hannebery deal, trade rumours, the off-season outlook for both players and coaches, a new football analyst for the club in Darren O’Shaughnessy, and predictions for the biggest week of the year.

Episode Guide

0:27 – Trevor Barker Award

1:33 – Jack Steele

3:05 – Seb Ross

3:45 – Jack Steven

5:04 – Stuv’s future

6:22 – Trade rumours

7:20 – The Hannebery Deal

10:05 – Jack Lonie and Tom Hickey

11:00 – The off-season outlook

13:14 – Darren O’Shaughnessy

14:17 – Finals takeaways

15:39 – Grand Final week predictions