St Kilda hasn’t featured on the Friday night stage since the start of 2015, but after a long absence from the marquee timeslot the Saints are excited by the opportunity, says Senior Coach Alan Richardson.
At Etihad Stadium on Friday night, St Kilda will face premiership contenders Greater Western Sydney, who played their first ever Friday night game only last weekend, where they beat the Western Bulldogs by two-points in a thriller in Canberra.
“It’s been a while, but it’s good for our club, it’s good for our players,” Richardson said at a press conference ahead of St Kilda’s return to the Friday night stage.
“(They are a) quality opposition, which is exciting for our group given we were pleased with last week.
“We’re really looking forward to the opportunity. We’re really excited by the opportunity in front of our home crowd.”
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Richardson said the Saints are under no illusion they have been rewarded for their progress in 2016 and will need to continue that ascension this season to feature regularly in the timeslot in future.
“Gill’s made that pretty clear,” Richardson said. “The AFL in the way that they structure the draw, have to be confident that anyone who plays Friday nights is going to be really competitive and probably play in a manner that the viewers like and that is to be attacking, to be aggressive and we’re pleased that we get the opportunity.”
While discussion around finals hasn’t featured much inside the four walls of Linen House Centre, Richardson said the Saints are starting to build a firm performance base to launch towards September from.
“We have really strong aspirations to play finals; we haven’t talked about it a lot.
“We identified at the start of the year that we’re not going to play finals unless we bridge the gap between our best and worst.
“At the moment we’re 3-3 which is a reasonable launch pad. We need to win games of footy against a team that’s in the top four and that’s the opportunity that presents itself.”
