2008 AFL Draft Review - St Kilda Saints

St Kilda was one of the biggest players in the 2008 National Draft with six selections. Their first pick was at 13 where they were expected to look for a key position player. It was no surprise that when it came to their pick they took Tom Lynch from the Sandringham Dragons. Lynch headlines a draft class that the Saints should be quite pleased with. Let’s take a closer look at them.

Pick No. 13 - Tom Lynch

Tom Lynch is a hard working key position player who can play either up forward or in defense. Lynch has very good endurance which allows him to play up the ground when he is up forward and run his opponent around. When playing in defense his reading of the play is one of his great strengths. Like most key position players drafted, Lynch will be a work in progress for the Saints and someone they will look for to hold down a key position for 10+ seasons.

Pick No. 47 – Rhys Stanley

 

 
Rhys Stanley is a young ruckman drafted from West Adelaide. Stanley is quite athletic and is a good mover around the ground something that is almost a pre-requisite for an AFL ruckman today. Stanley will be a work in progress for St Kilda so don’t expect to see a lot of him over the next couple of years.

Pick No. 48 – Nicholas Heyne

 

 
Nicholas Heyne is a medium sized midfielder/forward from the Gippsland Power. Heyne is still quite light so he will need to put on some weight in order to be up to the physical nature of the AFL game. Heyne is very smart around goals and this showed as he kicked 37 goals in the TAC Cup last season. One negative about Heyne is that he isn’t the most consistent player and can go missing for periods of a game.

Pick No. 62 – Alistair Smith

 

 
Alistair Smith is a medium sized midfielder from Perth in the WAFL. Smith has very good pace and endurance and is a lovely long left foot kick. He was restricted with osteitis pubis last year and didn’t play a whole lot so that would have to be some concern for the Saints.

Pick No. 74 – Paul Cahill

 

 
Paul Cahill is a key forward from Sturt in the SANFL. Cahill is a very good athlete who has great speed for his size. He is a very good contested mark but lacked the consistency to play at senior level in the SANFL last season. Cahill looks like he will be a project player for the Saints so don’t expect to see too much of him in season 2009.

Pick No. 83 – Colm Begley

 

 
Colm Begley is a medium sized midfielder/defender who has been drafted from the Brisbane Lions. Begley came out from Ireland and played 29 games for Brisbane before being delisted last season.

John Peake from St Kilda had the following to say after the Draft:

People have to remember that we took Farren Ray and he’s part of our influx of players. Once we did that it changed our direction and what we did with pick 13 because Farren is going to give us some run and carry through the midfield and play half-back. You also have to remember that we had a need for a good hard-leading third forward like a Ryan O’Keefe and we think we got that in Tom Lynch. We focused on Tom once we got Farren Ray into the mix and it was great to get Lynch on board as well.

We also had to look at filling a number of structural holes we thought we had on our list. With Rhys Stanley, while it’s not a need right now to have another developing ruckman, we’ve only really got on in Ben McEvoy and Stanley will be a good combination for Ben because he’s more of a leaper who can also go forward. In a couple of years’ time hopefully we have set the club up with two ruckmen that can take over from Steven King.

Going into the draft St Kilda were in desperate need of some young key forwards and they have drafted accordingly along with a nice collection of players to fill other areas. Tom Lynch and Paul Cahill are a couple of key forwards who give the Saints something to work with for the future. Rhys Stanley adds to their ruck depth whilst Nick Heyne was a steal at Pick 48 after the expectations were he would be a 2nd round pick. Smith gives them some much needed pace through the midfield. St Kilda will be very happy with this collection of draftees and it definitely gives them something to work with for the future.

How do you think St Kilda fared at the draft? Can you see any of their draftees having an impact in 2009? Leave us with your thoughts.