Versatile key position player Tom Lee continued his transformation into a defender in 2016, playing four senior games in St Kilda’s defence amid a consistent season at Sandringham.
The West Australian began the shift from attack to defence in the latter stages of last season, before spending the pre-season training with the defenders to help improve the Saints’ depth in the key posts.
While Lee managed only four senior appearances this season, he was one of the Zebras’ most consistent performers, playing predominantly in defence. Although he did push forward at times and starred in attack booting five goals in the elimination final win over Port Melbourne.
After enduring an injury riddled career at St Kilda, the 25-year-old enjoyed a good run at it this season, playing 19 games across both levels to build some faith in his body.
Lee snapped a year and a half hiatus from senior football when he faced Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium in Round 4. He gathered career-highs for disposals (19) and marks (nine) in the Saints narrow loss in the apple isle.
Alan Richardson’s Views:
“Tommy Lee is a bit similar to Eli Templeton. You look at his year in terms of how many senior games he played and you may say that’s a bit disappointing, but I think Tommy’s improved and developed as a player. His whole pre-season was about playing in defence. Our plan was to play [Paddy] McCartin, [Tim] Membrey and [Josh] Bruce and [Nick] Riewoldt from time to time in attack, so opportunity was limited there. And we did have opportunity down back, given the age of some of our defenders, and whilst not this year, we need to make sure he’s potentially ready to go next year and the year after when the opportunity arises.
“With that in mind, he worked hard with Rohan Welsh and with Danny Frawley in particular – ‘Spud’ worked with our key defenders closely. Tom was as committed as anyone in improving. He played some really strong footy at VFL level and he had a reasonably solid game against the Hawks down in Tassie. Like all of the team he wasn’t as strong the week after against GWS and found himself out of the team. But overall I think his improvement has been quite significant this year, albeit at the level below.
“The most important thing for Tom is to have some luck with his body. A couple of games when he’s been in the AFL side, he’s ended up coming off with an injury. With his shoulders and legs he hasn’t been able to do quite the amount of work that he’s needed to do to be as strong and as physical as you need to be playing key position. We’re pretty confident that he’s been able to turn that around this year. Certainly our conditioning staff are confident that Tom’s going to be able to do the work this pre-season. He’s a good runner and a good athlete, it’s just about getting his body to the state where it can cope with the physicality of playing a key position.”
The Numbers:
AFL:
Four games
10.8 disposals
4.5 marks
2.5 rebound 50s
VFL:
15 games
12 goals
16.2 disposals
6.6 marks
