I have said many times before, that if I was in a position to influence an AFL club, the first person I would hire would be Chris Pelchen.

Why? He has a very good pedigree having had stints at Hawthorn (x2) Port Adelaide and St Kilda, he wants to be successful and he has a blue print for putting together a list of players that can take the ultimate step.

I have read quite a few comments on social media from St Kilda supporters saying they are glad he is gone. I would imagine that those supporters felt badly about players that were traded over the last few seasons and about the performance of their Club during that time.

I would suggest that those supporters consider that when Chris took over he was presented with an aging list that, through lack of vision had not been rejuvenated. He also had to deal with a diabolical total player payments problem and ensure that the up and coming young guns were re-contracted before they slipped into free agency. Needless to say he accomplished that and also had time to foster a new market in New Zealand and establish the Saints player academy.  By the way, I have relied on the St Kilda CEO’s summary of what Chris had done for St Kilda in putting that list together.

But, clearly that was not enough and to quote Matt Finnis, the Saints wanted to ‘drive further development in their high performance programs’.

Good luck is all I can say as rebuilding properly is all about timing and careful planning. Areas I think the Saints aren’t good at. I say this as parting company with the Head of Football who has control over the player list several weeks before the AFL draft seems a very strange decision indeed.