St Kilda captain, Nick Riewoldt, has been ruled out of Sunday’s Round 2 NAB clash against Brisbane in MacKay after feeling ill on Friday night.

Speaking to media at Mackay airport, Senior Assistant coach, Adam Kingsley, said despite Riewoldt and Jack Newnes (soreness) being late changes, the Saints would field a strong squad.

“We are without those guys but we’ve got close to a full strength team and we want to hit some form leading into Round 1,” Kingsley said.

“We are preparing for Round 1 so we need to keep building for that.”

Mav Weller will captain the team and Jack Sinclair replaced Newnes in the squad.

Kingsley said Mackay’s wet weather wouldn’t be a major concern.

“We’ll just play our normal game - with wet weather footy it’s just stock-standard stuff in Melbourne,” he said.

“We are looking forward to the game. It should be a really good one and we get another opportunity to practice Saints footy so we are excited about that.”

For the second consecutive NAB Challenge Series game, Senior Coach Alan Richardson is providing an assistant (Kingsley this week) with the chance to coach the side.
The 2004 Port Adelaide premiership star described Sunday’s game as a good development opportunity for him and said it will allow ‘Richo’ to sit on the bench and observe from a different point of view.

“I will just do my job as best as I can and I am really looking forward to the game,” Kingsley said.

Kingsley said the playing group wanted to make home-town hero David Armitage feel proud in front of his family and friends by putting in a good performance.