Dustin Martin and Ben Cousins hilariously crash annual St Kilda reunion

There were a couple of unexpected attendees at an annual reunion between a group of St Kilda players from their late-2000s era last week.

Saints players from their most recent era of success, when they lost two grand finals and drew one in 2009 and 2010, gather together each year in the penultimate week of the AFL season.

Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna, Robert Harvey, Justin Koschitzke, Nick Dal Santo and Stephen Milne are a host of former St Kilda greats, among others, who still catch up every year.

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But Dustin Martin and Ben Cousins are two names they didn’t expect to see.

The pair of Brownlow medallists turned up to their yearly catchup last week.

“We have our prelim reunion,” Montagna told Triple M, laughing at his own expense for their absence of a premiership reunion.

“We did win a couple of prelims, so we celebrate it. We always get together once a year and we do it the week before (the grand final), and it was nice to see a few old faces.”

It was Collingwood premiership player Dale Thomas, who was part of the team that beat Montagna’s Saints in 2010, who revealed that Martin and Cousins had turned up

“It’s my understanding, and I am a sleuth these days — Benny Cousins and Dustin Martin were in attendance,” Thomas said.

“They didn’t play for the Saints.”

St Kilda got as close as you can get without winning a premiership. Credit: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Cousins won a Brownlow and a premiership at West Coast before being sacked in disgrace by the Eagles at the end of 2007.

Two years later, he joined Martin at Richmond, where he was thrown a lifeline by the Tigers.

But Montagna said he almost could have been a regular at the Saints catchups.

“’Cuzzy’ was close (to coming to St Kilda), we almost had Cuzzy at the end of 2009,” he said.

“And ‘Dusty’ was a mad St Kilda supporter growing up, so he was in his element.

“He was getting — this is true — selfies with Robert Harvey, and he was getting around everyone.

“And then one of the staff who still works at St Kilda was there just looked at Dusty, and he was still in good nick, and while we’re recruiting everyone to the club at the moment, they said, ‘Any chance, Dusty, you want to come out of retirement?’”