{"id":496313,"date":"2026-02-22T07:18:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496313\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T07:18:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:18:39","slug":"loved-their-bravery-former-st-kilda-stars-laud-clubs-aggressive-off-season-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496313\/","title":{"rendered":"“Loved their bravery”: Former St Kilda stars laud club’s aggressive off-season – AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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St Kilda legends Leigh Montagna<\/a> and Nick Dal Santo<\/a> have lauded the club’s aggressive off-season in a bid to rise from no-man’s land.<\/p>\n

The Saints went hard in the trade and free agency period, landing Tom De Koning<\/a>, Jack Silvagni<\/a>, Liam Ryan<\/a> and Sam Flanders, <\/a>with the spree showing early rewards against Gold Coast on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Zero Hanger,\u00a0Dal Santo was unsure whether the Moorabbin club’s forceful play on rival players would pay off in this yeae, but commended its decision to take risks.<\/p>\n

“I loved their bravery,” said the former Saints and North Melbourne 322-gamer.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to take some risks. I don’t know where it measures on the scale of risks, but when you’ve got a certain amount of money that you can spend, there’s a lot of change. But to make change, you need to do some really brave things.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

“Whether that pays off this year, I’m not sure. I still think the competition is so difficult and so challenging, but you’d like to see, in years to come, that it starts to build.”<\/p>\n

However, Dal Santo said the new Saints quartet will be an upgrade for the club.<\/p>\n

“They’re all quality players in their own right,” he added.<\/p>\n

“I think what they can bring is a better version of what we had in previous years, from a Saints perspective.<\/p>\n

“We know they’ve played in finals. Some have played in grand finals. So, you’d like to think that complements what St Kilda’s had previously, and at some stage it all clicks.”<\/p>\n

Montagna endorsed the move by his former club, even if it meant “overpaying players”.<\/p>\n

“I like the move,” Montagna said.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think that St Kilda and a lot of other clubs have been stuck in the middle or down the bottom have realised that you need to be aggressive at trade and free agency.<\/p>\n

“That means probably overpaying for players. That’s an advantage that St Kilda has planned for, which I like. It’s not something they’ve just shot off the hip and done. They’ve actually planned and executed this.”<\/p>\n

The new and brash era underway at Moorabbin also welcomed a new leadership group, headed by co-captains Jack Sinclair<\/a> and Callum Wilkie<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their underlings, headed by $2 million-dollar man Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera<\/a> as well as Marcus Windhager<\/a> and Mitch Owens<\/a>, make up the core of St Kilda.<\/p>\n

The trio are deemed by Montagna as central to the club’s fortunes going forward, as long as they continue on their trajectory to stardom.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think that’s a great mix,” Montagna said of the club’s new leadership group.<\/p>\n

“Because the success of St Kilda is going to be built off that young core, and what level they can get to, that’s going to determine how far they go.<\/p>\n

“So to have some young leaders in there, driving that core group, that’s what I experienced in my time when there was Dal Santo, Riewoldt and Hayes, and the young guys coming through who drove the standards. And then we were able to become a pretty good team.”<\/p>\n

The Saints got a good look at how they’ll line up in this year when they faced Gold Coast on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Flanders, against his old mob, was best afield in the practice match, gathering 31 disposals in the victory.<\/p>\n

De Koning (14 possessions and eight hit-outs) and Ryan (10 touches and a goal) showed some of their strengths, although there is an injury concern around Silvagni after suffering a concussion.<\/p>\n

St Kilda takes on Collingwood on March 8, for which Silvagni will be pushing for selection, pending he passes concussion protocols.<\/p>\n

Get set for the footy with the FREE Zero Hanger 2026 AFL Season Guide!<\/a> Packed with 150+ pages of player profiles, team previews, insights and analysis, the 2026 AFL Season Guide<\/a> is built for fans who want the full picture. Download your free Season Guide HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Kilda legends Leigh Montagna and Nick Dal Santo have lauded the club’s aggressive off-season in a bid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-496313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496313","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=496313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}