ST KILDA will continue to pump youth into its list at season’s end.
The Saints will focus heavily on recruiting the right players at the end of 2013, with coach Scott Watters acknowledging the club’s poor retention rate in recent seasons.
“You have to look at all options – the options that are available to you – recruiting, trading, free agency. You explore everything and we will explore everything,” Watters said on Wednesday.
“Our club from 2006 to 2010 has got the worst retention rate from a recruiting point of view if you look at what we recruited in that time and what remains at the club.
The Saints have blooded six debutants this year and have debuted 11 players as it approaches the mid-way point of Watters’ second season at the helm.
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“We need to improve our list, we don’t shy away from that and we think over the last 18 months we have exposed a lot of players who are going to be able to help us and are building a good foundation for us,” he said.
“But we also know that we need to attract new talent to the club. We have to improve and we look forward to that opportunity.”
Youngsters Nathan Wright, Jack Newnes, Seb Ross, Ahmed Saad and Terry Milera have been some of the young players who have benefited from exposure at senior level so far.
For Watters, the improvement of the younger players has been a significant plus and said youth was still a key priority when looking at ways of improving the club’s list.
“If you look at the demographic of our list and the type of younger players we brought in last year and again this year, I would say players over the age of 25, 26 probably don’t fit in with where we’re going,” he said.
“We need to build this side and continue to improve. We have made some improvements already – we have increased our ruck stocks and while it might not be clearly evident in our forwards yet because Tom Lee and Spencer White haven’t played a lot of footy at this point, they are going to be good players for this club.
“So our forward stocks – there is a bit more progression there. We need to increase the depth of our midfield and increase our defensive stocks. We can’t do it all in one hit but we are working through it.”
