‘We won’t drop Brad Hill’: Speedster emblematic of St Kilda’s problems

Brett Ratten left himself with no wriggle room when asked whether St Kilda would consider axing their most under-fire player this week.

“We won’t drop Brad Hill,” the Saints coach said after his side was humbled to the tune of 86 points by Richmond at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night, the second time inside a fortnight that the Saints had been beaten by 12 goals or more.

Brad Hill is emblematic of St Kilda’s issues at the moment.Credit:Getty

“It was a five-day turnaround, he didn’t perform to the level that he can, he played well last week. We need to back him in, and he needs to get going too. It’s like all of them. It’s the same as [Nick] Coffield, the same conversation I had with him this week. He needs to get going because we can’t keep giving games. Hilly’s had some OK performances.

“I think everyone’s just putting the spotlight on him, but there’s a few others as well.”

Hill is emblematic of St Kilda’s issues at the moment. The Saints are banged-up, flaky and a long way off the pace.

That is an issue for any side, but particularly so for a team as heavily invested in the present as St Kilda.

The Saints have the oldest list in the league. They have a long injury list, but that’s the type of thing that can happen when you have an old list, not to mention when you’ve brought in injury-prone players (Dan Hannebery, Brad Crouch and Zak Jones).

Hill was signed at the end of 2019 on a long-term and extremely lucrative deal. Ratten is right when he says the Saints need to back Hill in, because what other choice do they have? A club that signs Crouch, James Frawley, Jack Higgins, Paul Hunter, Shaun McKernan and Mason Wood over the same off-season is one that doesn’t have the luxury of allowing a player like Hill to go back to the VFL and find some form as part of a slow and steady list build.

Last year, Hill played every game yet didn’t finish in the top 10 in the best and fairest. The rest of the foreign legion brought in at the end of ’19 (Jones, Dougal Howard, Paddy Ryder and Dan Butler) all outperformed him.

There was a school of thought that after a year of building chemistry with his new teammates, coupled with a return to longer quarters, Hill would again find the form that made him a star at Fremantle. That form has been largely elusive, and Ratten conceded the speedster wasn’t working hard enough.

Saints coach Brett Ratten, pictured, conceded Hill wasn’t working hard enough.Credit:Getty Images

“[His workrate] was down. Hilly’s a proud person and he’ll bounce back. At times he had to work harder. That wasn’t just him. You can’t just categorise him because there was a few others in that boat as well.”

Clearly, the Saints’ ruck situation has been a major problem for them to this point of the season. Rowan Marshall and Ryder have played just one game between them so far in 2021. Hunter has proven to be a great story of persistence, making his AFL debut at 28, but he has been found badly wanting in his three appearances.

The ruck nadir for Ratten appeared to be Richmond’s third-quarter dominance out of the middle, despite the fact Damien Hardwick was employing the 184-centimetre Marlion Pickett to give Toby Nankervis a chop out.

“With all respect to Pickett, rucking, but he’s not a ruckman. So we had an advantage that we could have taken in the centre and we were losing centre bounce clearances probably as much anything else, and the ball was just going their way. That was very, very disappointing. We missed Marshall tonight, there’s no doubt about it, and we missed Ryder. But Marshall will be back next week and Paddy might be a week or two away. So we’ve got to do something about it,” Ratten said.

Marshall (foot) and Jones (managed) were both close to being picked for the Richmond game – coming off a five-day break – and are due back for next weekend’s date with Port Adelaide, while Ryder should also play at some stage in the next fortnight. Jimmy Webster (groin) is likely to miss a week.

Will Ratten make a statement at selection? Part of the problem is the options are limited. Youngster Ryan Byrnes is a player Ratten said he is keen to have another look at, but the pacy onballer is only just returning via the VFL on Friday following a major hamstring injury.

McKernan and Wood too are ideally only backups and struggled in the first few weeks of the season to both be on the outer by mid-April.

“It’s a bit like snakes and ladders, isn’t it? We move forward three steps and then we go backward five. So we can’t pick and choose,” Ratten said.

“Footy’s a funny game. We’re definitely not where we want to be. We’ll cop the hits, and we should cop the hits for that performance again.

“It’s nearly the same sort of message from two weeks ago. We have to rebound here and there’s a lot of footy to be played.”

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