{"id":180758,"date":"2025-09-30T19:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T19:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180758\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T19:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T19:42:09","slug":"bold-club-president-tells-the-afl-were-not-here-to-make-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180758\/","title":{"rendered":"Bold club president tells the AFL we’re ‘not here to make friends’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a very different sound coming out of the St Kilda<\/a> footy club and it is one being embraced by president Andrew Bassat.<\/p>\n

Stuck in AFL mid-table for years, the Saints have roared into free agency relevance, with Jack Silvagni, Tom De Koning, Liam Ryan and Leek Aleer all set to join the likes of Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and Marcus Windhager in red, white and black.<\/p>\n

Bassat knows moves of this level put “a target” on the Saints, but he also knows his club and its fans has tired of waiting around for the second flag in its history.<\/p>\n

“Recruiting aggressively as we have, no doubt involves a degree of risk,” he said at the club’s awards night on Monday.<\/p>\n

MORE: Superstar caps off sensational season with first best and fairest<\/a><\/p>\n

“There is no risk-free way to a flag and indeed, doing nothing is the greatest risk of all.<\/p>\n

“There’s no doubt that our being more vocal and also being more aggressive in trade, has put a target on our backs.<\/p>\n

“There’s a big queue of people lining up to take cracks if we fail. That’s fine, because we’re not here to make friends.<\/p>\n

“We must welcome the pressure and expectation that comes with once again being a relevant club.”<\/p>\n

One person on board with St Kilda’s direction is Essendon<\/a> great James Hird.<\/p>\n

\u201c(There is now) more chance of them going towards winning their second premiership,\u201d Hird told SEN.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone heard of the Tom De Koning offer, then the Nasiah $2 million (contract), then Silvagni.<\/p>\n

“t was a bit like, \u2018wow\u2019. But the more and more you think about it, you go \u2018that\u2019s right\u2019. Four years of drafting, and then you bring in free agency or you trade, that is the way the best clubs go.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Top free agents) want to go to clubs in a strong position and that\u2019s why the strong stay strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what St Kilda has done, the president has come in and put the people in charge of list management in and said \u2018this is where we\u2019re going\u2019. It\u2019s to be admired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they do well, because they\u2019ve taken the risk but it\u2019s a risk with salary cap space as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a very different sound coming out of the St Kilda footy club and it is one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-180758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}