At a glance:
- St Kilda CEO Matt Finnis has reinforced the club's support of Seb Ross and Tim Membrey and their decision to leave the club’s Sydney hub for family reasons.
- Finnis said that while the decision was debated, there were no "misgivings" and that Ross and Membrey had the full support of the club.
- St Kilda will hold a live Q&A with members this Thursday afternoon with a panel consisting of Brett Ratten, David Rath and Simon Lethlean.
St Kilda CEO Matt Finnis has reinforced the club's support of Seb Ross and Tim Membrey and their decision to leave the club’s Sydney hub for family reasons.
It comes after journalist Caroline Wilson, speaking on Footy Classified on Monday night, questioned the pair’s departure ahead of the club's season-defining game against Adelaide and said that senior players and officials were aggrieved by their decision.
Membrey is expecting his first child with wife Emily, while Ross’ wife Marnie gave birth to twin boys last month.
“I think our players know – and we’ve got a pretty consistent record of this as a footy club – that we’ll always put family first and they’ll be supported by those decisions,” Finnis told SEN.
“As a CEO I’d love to have our best players on the park, I do that every week, but as a father I also understand that we’ve got to prioritise what we know is important within our own families, and no one can know that except for the families themselves.
“It’s one thing to have the conversation, I just think that we need to be really mindful of speculating about the context in which decisions are made when we can’t possibly have a full set of visibility on that."
Finnis said the club assessed all options to have Ross and Membrey remain in Sydney, and that while senior figures at the club debated the decision, full support was given to the pair to be with their young families.
"There are no misgivings, but what I would say is that like any organisation that’s in a highly competitive industry, we debate these decisions, but ultimately once decisions are made we get behind the players, we give them our support and we get on with our business,” Finnis said.
“You can be disappointed, but you can be understanding. I don’t think (the) emotions are mutually exclusive. I just feel like sometimes we can have a lack of empathy about that in the way in which these things are discussed.
“Caro’s called stuff out which has had great benefit for our game, but I would have handled that differently in the sense of naming a player’s partner, publicly speculating about medical issues when none of us can be fully aware of that context.
“There are things that are legitimate for debate, but let’s maybe just bring a bit more empathy to the way in which we go about that.”
While Finnis confirmed he’d spoken to Wilson about the issue, there are ultimately “bigger challenges” for the Saints to turn their focus towards.
A 5-8 record in 2021 following an exhilarating top-eight finish last season has the Saints searching for answers, with extensive work behind the scenes to “bridge the gap” coming into play.
“(This year has) told us that we’ve still got a fair bit of work to bridge the gap between where we ultimately aim to be and where we think we are right now,” Finnis said.
“You have the losses that we’ve had this year – and to be frank, even some off the wins – and you’d expect we’re sharpening our focus in assessing what is the basis for that. We’ve been doing that for some time.
St Kilda used its two-week stay in Sydney to directly address aspects of the club’s performance and program which have been major factors in its slip down the ladder.
“The focus for that trip was to say ‘hey, we’re going on the road, we don’t know how long it’s going to be, this is not Noosa 2.0, but this is an opportunity’,” Finnis said.
“It’s an opportunity for us to start to fast-track the work that we’ve called out to bridge the gap and how it is that we’re going to get there.”
