St Kilda defender Dylan Roberton picked up where he left off last season, further establishing himself as a critical component of the Saints’ evolving back six.
The 25-year-old, who reached the 100-game milestone against Sydney in Round 21, proved to be one of the Saints’ most versatile defenders in 2016, with the former Docker utilised in a variety of roles on smalls and talls.
After getting off to a good start to the year, Roberton’s season hit a speed bump in Round 3 when he injured the medial ligament in his knee in the win over Collingwood at the MCG.
Roberton returned for the trip to Western Australia in Round 8 after a month on the sidelines and went on to play the final 15 games of the season where he helped compensate for injuries to key personnel in defence.
The pick of Roberton’s season came against Fremantle in Round 10, where the rebounding defender provided plenty of drive out of the back half, finishing with 29 possessions, a career-high 11 rebound 50s and six marks.
He also featured prominently in the votes in the Trevor Barker Award for his performances against Melbourne in round 17 and Carlton in Round 20, before finishing his season with a polished effort against Brisbane, where all but one of his 23 touches hit the target.
Alan Richardson’s Views:
“‘Robbo’ gave us some real versatility; he’s a really good player on the talls, at times we played him on the resting ruckman; at times we played him on their smallest forward; he’s got good speed and he’s got good size. He’s a very strong communicator and a very impressive leader. His ability to get things done on the ground and organise others and support his teammates is very positive.
“We saw some examples of his ball use in the last game with the way he hit up ‘Rooey’ at times; we like the ball in his hands; he makes really good decisions and executes. Another thing he did really well this year is gain yardage for us, he goes forward with the ball and gives us great drive off half-back. At times we put him on the wing but then Rohan Welsh starts to panic when we take him out of defence – that’s how important he is to us. He’s become a very important member of our team.
“He’s very similar to Geary in the way that he directs the defence, ‘Gears’ can be a bit more blunt with his direction and the way he communicates, where Robbo is more instructional he’s almost a coaching kind of communicator back there; they complement each other really well and when you add ‘Joey’ into that mix, who’s probably a bit of both, then you’ve got a great mix of leaders down there.”
The Numbers:
18 games
18.9 possessions
293.2 metres gained
4.8 marks
3.9 rebound 50s
