St Kilda’s desire for added size and depth in their midfield received a significant boost on Friday morning, following the signing of Greater Western Sydney midfielder Jack Steele.
With the Giants’ midfield brimming with top-end talent, the highly rated Giants academy graduate heads to Linen House Centre after two opportunity starved seasons, in exchange for a second-round selection in next year’s National Draft.
After being taken with selection No. 24 in the 2014 National Draft – St Kilda now has four players on their list from inside the first 24 picks – Steele played 17 games during his time at Spotless Stadium.
Saints Chief Operating Officer, Ameet Bains, says the addition of Steele will provide the club with greater midfield depth; an area that clubs who featured late in the season possess in spades.
“Jack’s a tough, big-bodied midfielder that will complement the mix we’ve got in there already and offer some high quality support to players like Jack Steven and David Armitage,” Bains told saints.com.au on Friday afternoon.
“You only need to look at this year’s premiers the Western Bulldogs, and at Sydney and the Giants to see how important it is to have a really deep midfield.
“We identified leading into the trade period a need to add more midfielders, particularly midfielders with size, and we’ve found one in that mould in Jack.”
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While Steele has been aligned with the Giants for quite some time now, and was the first Giant to be drafted from the expansion clubs Canberra academy, St Kilda has monitored his progress closely over the journey in the event an opportunity like this would materialise.
“Although Jack was a Giants academy player, we followed him closely in his draft year and have monitored his progress ever since, particularly in the last 12 months when we identified the potential for him to move clubs in search of opportunity,” Bains said.
“Greater Western Sydney’s midfield depth and class will be the envy of the competition, if it isn’t already. So it’s not hard to see why players of the calibre of Steele struggled to get a regular game up there.”
Bains explained that the 20-year-old nominated St Kilda as his desired destination because of the path the club has traversed in recent seasons under the guidance of Alan Richardson, as well as the appeal of playing senior football on a regular basis.
“Jack had a number of options, but he was really keen to come to our club. He sees an opportunity to play regular senior football at St Kilda and was attracted to us because he sees a club that is building the right way,” he said.
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