Andrew Bassat and the St Kilda Saints know everyone is watching after an off-season recruiting spree

Anyone at St Kilda who expected that the arrival of summer would give them a chance to take a breath and reflect with satisfaction on their hard work off the field in 2025 was mistaken.

Club president Andrew Bassat decided the time was right to conduct a mini-review of the football department.

The boss was not in the same frame of mind as he had been three years earlier when 100 people were interviewed on the way to senior coach Brett Ratten being sacked, a decision that initiated the second coming of Ross Lyon at the Saints.

This time around, Bassat simply wanted to know what the club could do better, following three seasons that had been focused on building the foundations for sustainable success based on the recommendations flowing from that 2022 review.

“We’ve made substantial progress, but we can still improve. We did not play finals last year,” Bassat said. “We’re recognising there are a bunch of areas we can improve.”

He questioned 20 people, including Lyon and chief executive Carl Dilena, to determine what was needed, the trio unafraid to look under the bonnet and in the mirror.

In the process, the Saints settled on club great Lenny Hayes, despite his inexperience in the role, as the new football manager to support Lyon. Chris Ford, a former state secretary for the ALP and a highly rated operator who has been at the club for a year, will support Hayes.

Bassat’s approach is an indicator that the Saints hierarchy is aware that everyone at Moorabbin needs to stay dialled in to what lies ahead.

This will be the year when the success of Bassat and Lyon’s sometimes unconventional, and often disruptive, strategy to become contenders will be reviewed externally using the bluntest of measures: wins and losses.

Ready, or not?

Having secured the essential signature of the super-talented Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera for the hefty price of $2 million a year over two years in August after extending Lyon until 2027 in March, the club has been able to put into effect its decision at the start of 2025 to add established talent to a core of promising youngsters.

“The pivotal discussion, and there were several of them, was early [last] year, which was, do we press that button now or not,” Bassat said.

“What you don’t want to do is have this big recruiting spree where you’re too far off it.”

In 2025, St Kilda didn’t just press a button. They detonated a blast which blew away conventional thinking on how best to lure players.

Carlton ruck Tom De Koning, without a top-five finish in his club best and fairest in 100 games and with just eight Brownlow votes, snared an eye-watering and eyebrow-raising contract worth $1.7 million per year for seven years.

His Blues teammate, defender Jack Silvagni, joined him in the red, white and black on a five-year deal, as did Suns midfielder Sam Flanders and the Eagles’ Liam Ryan. Money was no issue as the departure of Josh Battle to Hawthorn a year earlier and careful salary cap management had left the Saints with a money bin.

The cost didn’t do much damage to their draft hand, completed for the price of a first-round pick and a bunch of later picks.

As doubts about key forward Max King’s durability lingered, they retained a frustrated yet contracted Rowan Marshall who had requested a trade to Geelong after De Koning signed.

They also took the hit to their reputation when they left the Giants’ Leek Aleer at the trade altar after pursuing him to the point where he told Greater Western Sydney he was out.

Jack Steele was traded to Melbourne in a deal both parties now see as mutually beneficial.

It was calculated and hard-arsed and controversial. The Saints were unapologetic though, as their strategy was executed to compete in a tough competition, one where clubs closer to the top of the ladder find it easier to access top-end talent than those crowding the bottom rungs.

“History will prove us right or wrong,” Bassat said.

Getting to the starting line

The president understands that when they take the field against Collingwood at the MCG in an opening round blockbuster on March 8, and simultaneously celebrate the 60th anniversary of their famous 1966 flag, many will be hoping for them to stumble.

His view remains firm that radical action was required to gain enough traction to rejoin, if wins come, the contending clubs, which would in turn attract talent. If that meant ruffling a few feathers, so be it.

Loading

“It’s just so easy to have a crack at us. If we cared about that, we wouldn’t have taken the path that we did. We feel we’ve made the right call, and as I said, things could go our way [or] they could go against us, but we feel we made the right calls. We feel good about that. We’re really united as a football club. The noise and negativity almost unites us further,” he said. “We’ve got some serious talent on the list now, and we had to give them a shot at success.”

Despite the words, Bassat’s mood is not defiant. He is filled with the same nervous anticipation as the fan of any team.

He is acutely aware the Saints have done nothing yet and that, in such a hard competition, nothing is guaranteed.

What Bassat is proud of right now is the way the club has stuck to its guns to execute a long-term strategy in an impatient world.

“We didn’t play finals as we had hoped at the start of the year [but] when we look back on the 12 months, we say we’ve definitely taken a step forward towards the sustainable success we want. That’s my most important objective, really, to take another big step forward. I hope, as part of that, we are playing and winning finals,” Bassat said.

“You get the fundamentals right first and the outputs like revenue and profit, take care of themselves. That’s what we switched to as a football club …getting games into the younger players, getting accountability happening, getting a system happening, getting people to play their roles, and sacrifice for the team and all those sorts of things.”

He believes only an experienced, hard-bitten coach such as Lyon could have weathered the storms caused by inevitable turbulence as his demanding style kept his and everyone’s eyes trained on the long term.

“He [Lyon] has kept with him a copy of the review recommendations the whole time because he’s been looking at it,” Bassat said. “I think there were 37 recommendations in there, and he’s been measuring himself by making sure they have made strong progress against all of them.”

The need for such progress meant casualties and missteps were unavoidable.

Bassat admitted communication around some issues arose as an area for improvement when he conducted the football department review at the end of the season.

The president won’t go into specifics, but it was clear a better job could have been done at times last year with ensuring senior players were kept abreast of how the list management strategy was progressing. Marshall has put his head down, but he was disappointed how the year transpired, and Callum Wilkie, who may be captain in 2026, needed reassurance about the club’s direction at key times during the season.

“We can always do those things better. That’s one of the things we found out that probably some of the communication could have been a little bit better this year, but broadly we’ve communicated well,” Bassat said.

“Players understand the reality of the competition, which is moving towards perhaps a US-style reality where there’s five or six players who are paid a lot more than the average. We can’t hide from that reality. We need to embrace it.”

Plenty will fall on Hayes to soften inevitable blows as the pressure on results grows even fiercer this season.

Loading

The new-look Saints

St Kilda’s significant turnover of the list can’t be understated; just 19 players remain from 2023 when the Giants beat them in an elimination final under Lyon in 2023.

In the past two seasons, only the Kangaroos have selected more new players than St Kilda (16 playing their first Saints game in 2024 and ’25), with excellent draft selections by the late Chris Toce and then Simon Dalrymple giving them a youth group to develop.

Six of the top 10 in the Saints’ 2022 best and fairest have departed (by comparison, the Eagles are the only other team to have lost as many as six from their top 10 list of that season; Collingwood have lost none of their 2022 top 10 and most clubs have lost between three or four of their top-10 players from four seasons ago).

Lyon took over the fifth-oldest list (on average age) in 2022 after the Saints finished 10th. This year they finished 12th but feel more confident in a profile that had them 14th (in average age). In 2026, they are 10th in the competition when it comes to average age. A dozen established players have between 50 and 100 games experience.

Sources who wanted to remain anonymous to speak freely backed Bassat’s assertion that Lyon’s influence on list management (a media release confirming Hayes’ appointment said Lyon oversaw list management) was for St Kilda to adhere to what could deliver long-term sustainability rather than grabbing the nearest player on offer.

“Ross doesn’t really oversee list management,” Bassat said. “The risk with a coach being too strong a voice in list management, of course, is short-termism. I have not seen that risk permeating. Ross has a voice, and he is a strong voice, but it is a really good [forum for] debate.”

Until 2025 Bassat said Lyon argued strongly to “stick to the plan”, focus on the draft and resist the temptation to chase whatever player became available.

Now Lyon has the chance, with an even amount of luck, to use his significant coaching prowess to mould the individuals into a winning team. Despite the juggling of hats post-season, he wants to do what he does best: coach.

Having taken his beloved Saints to the edge of flags in 2009 and 2010, only to be beaten by teams stacked with father-sons (Geelong’s Gary Ablett jnr, Matthew Scarlett, Tom Hawkins, Mark Blake in 2009 and Collingwood’s Heath Shaw, Travis Cloke in 2010), he faces an even bigger challenge, with two expansion teams a simple indicator of why life is harder.

Can St Kilda start games better in 2026 having trailed at quarter-time in 10 of their last 11 games? Will their midfield be able to stop momentum when it turns against them? Can they become miserly in defence after sitting 13th for points against in 2025? Can the energy remain high when the demands required to improve are unrelenting?

And the biggest question for many: can King get some continuity after repeated setbacks caused him to miss last season and play just 23 games since Lyon arrived?

The Saints remain confident after some worrisome moments over the past few seasons, particularly relating to King’s knee. A diagnostic ultrasound finally gave them a sense they had identified the issue which had been confounding specialists. Despite having a procedure before Christmas, they remain optimistic he can feature in the early rounds.

Loading

“He’s a great kid and he deserves a good run, and if he does have a good run I think people will be reminded about how good he is. He’s never had people like ‘Nas’ and Max Hall, and some of those players putting [the ball] down his throat,” Bassat said.

“I am excited to see what he can do.”

That sentiment is a microcosm of what many are feeling – whether sceptical or positive – about the Saints in 2026. They are excited to see what they can do.

St Kilda’s real review starts in less than 50 days.

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.