DAVID Armitage has praised two of his peers ahead of Saturday’s clash with the Western Bulldogs.
While Saints stars Nick Riewoldt, Lenny Hayes, Nick Dal Santo and Leigh Montagna have traditionally been seen to be the front men of the St Kilda operation, Armitage said the next generation of which he is a part have shown this year that they are ready to take the next step.
“Big Benny (McEvoy) has been great. He is in the top couple of ruckmen in the league at the moment. Jack (Steven) gets under the guard, he sneaks through,” Armitage said on Melbourne radio station SEN.
“He’s quick and doesn’t have a great running style but he is quick. He’s a great little player and those two have been our most consistent players.”
“He is a powerful little beast. He has worked hard on his kicking and it is starting to show through. He’s getting more possessions and he is a beautiful kick for goal. He is really damaging.”
Armitage, McEvoy and Steven all arrived at the Saints within 12 months of each other and have steadily improved to the point that they are now considered three of the team’s most important players.
The Saints have won just the two games this year but Armitage said there have been some promising signs so far.
“Before last week against Adelaide we had given really good effort. The results haven’t gone our way but we were pretty happy with what we dished out,” he said.
“It was good to get the win against Carlton. That was a really good win and we felt we were building but we sort of released it against Adelaide, especially in that last half we went downhill from there.
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Armitage there were some basic areas the team had worked to address before Saturday’s game against the Western Bulldogs.
“We will be looking to bounce back this week and we won’t be taking the Bulldogs lightly. They are very good at contested ball and clearances. We will have to match them in that area,” he said.
“Our ball movement ended up being slow and Adelaide were able to shut us down. We’d turn them over and they were able to run away with it down the other end and kick the goal.
“I put it down to that. With our ball use we weren’t daring enough. We were stagnant and we’ve looked at that all week. We’re looking to play with a bit of dare and overlap run with our handball.”
