FOUR emerging St Kilda players will wear numbers recently left vacant by 200-game players of the Saints.
The numbers left vacant by the departures of Nick Dal Santo, Justin Koschitzke, Stephen Milne and Jason Blake will be taken up by Tom Curren, Spencer White, Maverick Weller and Josh Bruce.
[ RELATED: All numbers announced ]
Curren will take over the 26 from Dal Santo and White will move into the 23 worn by Koschitzke. Weller, who was rookie-listed by the Saints last month, will wear the no. 44 made famous by Milne. Bruce will take over the 27 worn by Blake.
Curren’s first three years on the St Kilda rookie list were spent wearing 43 but after he was elevated to the senior list to play his first senior matches this season, he has moved up the pecking order to take the guernsey left by Dal Santo.
White was given the number 18 in his first season on the St Kilda list but has moved to number 23 after Koschitzke personally chose him to carry on the tradition of tall forwards in the number.
Koschitzke had worn the number proudly for 11 years after he was handed it from former teammate Stewart Loewe.
“Kosi asked me towards the end of the year if I wanted to wear it. It is a huge honour and of course I would love to,” White told saints.com.au.
“I’ve seen highlights of Stewart Loewe play and he was one of the greats. He played 300 games and Kosi played 200 games so I’m really aspiring to get my name on the locker with those two greats of the club.”
The first significant player to wear 26 for the Saints was Jack Davis who wore it as he won three club best and fairests in the 1930s.
Others to have worn the no. 26 include John Manzie who wore it in 117 games from 1967 to 1975 and Ian Rowland who would have fair claim to being one of the unluckiest players in St Kilda’s history.
Rowland played 18 games for the Saints in 1966, missing just two weeks in the middle of the season. He took part in the preliminary final win over Essendon as 20th man but was dropped for the following week which turned out to be St Kilda’s only premiership win.
He never played for the Saints again, finishing his career with 109 games.
Another brief custodian of the jumper was Daryl Hewitt who wore it for 26 games in 1981-82. Hewitt’s sporting profile was somewhat overshadowed by his nephew Lleyton who went on to become one of Australia’s greatest ever tennis players.
23 is equally as significant in the Saints’ history going back to the days of utility Kevin Roberts in the 1960s. Roberts played 106 games from 1960-69 but was unfortunate to miss out on the 1966 premiership team due to a broken collarbone.
Stephen Theodore took over the no. 23 from Roberts and went on to carve out a 134-game career over eight years, including a spot in the losing 1971 Grand Final team.
The games record holder in the number 23 was Loewe who started his career in the relatively humble no. 50. But after eight games in that number he moved up the order to play another 313 in the famous 23.
Upon his retirement speech at the end of 2002, Loewe officially handed the guernsey to Koschitzke who moved along one spot from the number 24 he had worn in his first two seasons.
He wore the number over 176 games until his career came to a close at the end of 2013.
Milne wore 44 in every single one of his 275 games for St Kilda before retiring at the end of 2013. He has kicked the equal most goals of anyone to wear the number in the history of the VFL/AFL with 574 – a record he shares with former Fitzroy, Sydney, Footscray and Collingwood player Richard Osborne.
All players will be officially presented with their new guernseys by former club greats at the club’s family day in early 2014.You have a chance to be a part of the journeys of our new players by taking part in our player sponsorship program. This allows individuals and groups the chance to enjoy unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to their sponsored Saints. Sponsorship starts from $1900 per player. For further information, contact Senior Corporate Sales Executive Scott Ellis on (03) 8765 4317 or scott.ellis@saints.com.au
