St Kilda could welcome back young duo Jack Billings and Jimmy Webster for this weekend’s trip to Adelaide to face the Crows.
The pair missed the Saints’ 34-point victory over Fremantle last weekend, with Billings sidelined with an ankle complaint and Webster unavailable due to illness.
St Kilda coach Alan Richardson suggested the pair would return for the trip to confront the Crows, but wouldn’t guarantee them a spot, drawing parallels with when Tim Membrey came in for Paddy McCartin and kept the 2014 No.1 pick out of the team for a couple of weeks due to his strong form.
“The message has been that they need to rest up this weekend and train strongly this week and there’s every chance that they’ll come back in,” Richardson said.
“But if those players who have replaced them perform strongly, not unlike Paddy and Membrey earlier in the year, our want was to get Paddy back into the team a bit earlier but Tim kept him at bay. We’ll just have to wait and see on that.”
St Kilda could have a full-strength squad to choose from for Sunday’s clash at Adelaide Oval. Billings and Webster were the club’s only listed players unavailable last weekend.
Coach Richardson said it causing several welcome headaches at the selection table, particularly with highly-rated youngsters Hugh Goddard and Tom Lee performing strongly in the VFL.
“There’s been a lot of talk and rightly so about Goddard and Tommy Lee, who are playing really positive footy and they’re keen for their spot and are building nicely, but Fish [Sam Fisher] at this stage is holding them at bay and that’s good, that’s healthy.”
With one eye on the future and one firmly focused on the present, Richardson indicated that both Goddard and Lee would receive more exposure to senior football as time went on.
“It will really be when we think it’s the right time for them and for the right time for the team,” Richardson said.
“Tommy had a couple of opportunities – he was pretty positive against the Hawks. He did some reasonable stuff against GWS; it wasn’t great for all of us. Often if you’re last in and the performance isn’t great you can be first out and that was the case.
“We really like what Hughie’s doing. He had a pretty slow start from a form perspective at VFL level, but his last month’s been much more positive. We won’t rush that. When we think he’s ready he’ll come into the team. We’re really confident that he’s going to be a really good player going forward.”
After downing the Dockers, St Kilda has now strung together consecutive wins for the first time since Round Two, 2014 heading into this week’s clash with the Crows.
