ST KILDA is confident it will retain its Anzac Day fixture in New Zealand for the next two seasons as part of the club's three-year deal with the Wellington City Council. 

The Saints will play the Sydney Swans on Thursday night in the historic match – the first for premiership points outside of Australia – and on the expected success of that, will play four games in Wellington over 2014 and 2015. 

The Saints want keep games on Anzac Day, with Thursday night's match to be played at Australian east coast twilight, directly after the Essendon-Collingwood blockbuster at the MCG. 

"My understanding is it will be," St Kilda general manager of commercial operations Shane Wakelin told AFL.com.au.

"For the long-term success of growing the game in New Zealand, I think having the game on such a symbolic date as Anzac Day is incredibly important to grow the game here."

More than 20,000 tickets have been sold and it is estimated there are 4500 Australians who have made the trip to New Zealand for the inaugural event. 

The Saints believe a crowd of over 25,000 at Westpac Stadium, which holds 34,000, will be "significantly successful".

The club will aim to inject more resources on the ground in New Zealand, with the intention to create more commercial opportunities and generate membership.

"There are no set benchmarks. I think there will be a discussion between the club and the AFL and the Wellington City Council around the event, and it will more be in relation to how do we grow it over the course of the next two years," Wakelin said. 

AFL deputy CEO Gillon McLachlan said the move to play in Wellington was "a important stepping stone" in the growth of the game but admitted a New Zealand-based team was a while away.

"We wouldn't want to put caps on this but I think it's obviously a long way off, we're putting our toe in the water and we look forward to tomorrow night being a success," McLachlan said.

"As we dream, maybe that's possible. It's not in the short-term but we would not like to cap our dreams."

He also didn't rule out matches in other overseas venues but indicated growing the interest in New Zealand and ensuring Thursday night's game wasn't a novelty was priority. 

"There other potential opportunities but in the short-term, New Zealand is the obvious one and we're looking to make tomorrow night a success," he said. 

"New Zealand is so suitable because of their appetite and passion for sport, how well the time zone works, the relatively close distance, the cultural similarities.

"I think the first one always has that, 'let's go and have a look', but we have great confidence that when people go and see our game live, it only whets the appetite.

"We think we can develop peoples' interests and passions in our game.

"We also think we can develop the Anzac story and as we look to the centenary in 2015, I think that's a great horizon to have a look at."

Wakelin said the Saints had learned a "significant amount" in the planning for Thursday night's game and were confident they would be able to expand that further in the coming years. 

"When the club committed to this particular offshore venture, I think you have a preliminary thought and understanding of what those commitments may be, just from a planning point of view," he said. 

"I think that's gone far beyond what we initially thought but what we achieved in the process, we've got some great learnings from that and going into hopefully the next two years, we can build on that."