The fans have spoken, and as voted by you, Jack Steele is the Round 14 Dare Iced Coffee Sainter of the Round.
While St Kilda’s night in Alice Springs ended in disappointment, the hard-hitting midfielder made his presence felt with a dominant 26 disposals (15 contested), eight clearances and a goal.
Steele racked up majority of his possessions in the defensive half, battling relentlessly in another blue-collar display to clear his side out of congestion and add a game-high 459 metres gained to his impressive outing.
In near-identical circumstances to last week’s battle against the Lions, the No. 9 pieced together a huge first half (16 disposals, one goal) before receiving significant opposition attention in the second, this time from Demon Jack Viney.
Unfortunately for Steele and the red, white and black, the result mirrored that of last week with another defeat by less than a straight kick.
The 24-year-old now holds an 11-point lead at the top of the Sainter of the Round leaderboard, and with just three games left for the year, cannot be beaten.
Two votes go to Bradley Hill, who busted his guts in a rousing final-quarter display to almost push the Saints to its ninth win of the year.
Hill’s tireless running display saw him rack up 12 disposals and two inside-50s in the final 20 minutes of play, with some clever work allowing Jack Sinclair to stream through the middle and give Tim Membrey his first goal of the night and draw the Saints within single figures.
Saturday night marked the recruit’s highest disposal tally in new colours (27) and his third consecutive match with over 400 metres gained.
Rounding out this week’s voting is Rowan Marshall, whose well-rounded performance played an important role in the steering the Saints towards a potential victory.
The runner-up in last year’s Trevor Barker Award notched up 11 hit-outs against Max Gawn in the ruck – in tandem with Paddy Ryder (17) – and kicked the Saints’ second goal in under a minute to put his side within two points at the main change.
Marshall was prominent both in the air and at ground level, with six marks (two inside-50) and four tackles adding to his 13 touches.
St Kilda will take its allocated bye this week, before facing Hawthorn on Sunday afternoon at Metricon Stadium.
