Lyon determined to develop Saints philosophy

St Kilda players have received some extra support before Friday night’s Round 3 match against Collingwood, with a strong show of fans at today’s open training session at Linen House Oval.

Speaking before today’s session, Senior Coach Ross Lyon told the media he is looking forward to meeting the Pies for this weekend’s opening match at Etihad Stadium.

“We’re right there on the big stage on Friday night, with the footy world tuned in to watch two quality teams.”

Coming off a very impressive 104 point win over North Melbourne on Saturday night, Lyon is now looking ahead to focus on keeping the momentum going for the rest of the season.

“Our appetite for the contest was really strong. We thought we came off a great win in Round 1 and were able to back it up for Round 2. The ongoing challenge is to keep it going as it can be daunting to look ahead and see all the quality teams out there.”

Lyon continued, “We’ll just focus on our preparation and train as best we can to give our best effort and go out there (on Friday night) and see where it takes us.”

Keeping Brent Harvey to a mere four disposals after the weekend’s game, Clinton Jones is expected to have another vital role in shutting down the speed and agility of a number of Collingwood midfielders.

Lyon expects Jones will rotate alongside a number of Pies on Friday night including Didak, Davis, Swan and Pendlebury.

Speaking on Jones’ performance, Lyon said; “He did a good job, the way he went about it was really positive but obviously we were the dominant team on the night, which made his job easier. He might get a couple of players, as Collingwood rotate a lot, so he’ll probably just have to take a few - three or four.”

But the season has only just started for the Saints, and Lyon has a number of things he feels still need developing with the side.

“We’ve got a lot of improvement left it us, we had quite a flat second quarter after a really good first quarter (on the weekend). But different opposition brings up different challenges.” Lyon said.

“Our whole philosophy is to get our game style right and respect the opposition and prepare. But also to really try to go out and play to our structures and give our best effort.”


With the Saints membership tally currently at our highest ever, we are urging all Saints fans to get down to Etihad Stadium to show off your red, white and black this Friday night. For ticket details please click here, or to sign up as a Saints member go to saints.com.au/membership.