THOSE familiar with the work of the famed American playwright Neil Simon would know all about 'The Odd Couple'.

 

The play - which became a famous TV sitcom of the same name - featured two disparate characters, the impeccably groomed photographer Felix Unger and the always-rumpled sportswriter Oscar Madison, brought together by fate to share a New York City apartment.

 

St Kilda's fate at Thursday's NAB AFL National Draft is also in the hands of its own odd couple, Ameet Bains and Tony Elshaug.

 

List manager Bains is an impeccably groomed Melbourne Grammar-educated former city lawyer. The rough and tumble Elshaug is a speedy former Essendon premiership rover and longtime coach who would be the pride of Oakleigh Tech, if indeed, that school still existed. These days, it's a McDonalds store.

 

Under the guidance of former St Kilda head of football Chris Pelchen, but now on their own, the pair have been charged with replenishing a playing list that four years ago was pushed to the brink in terms of age, games played and most importantly the salary cap in a valiant, but ultimately failed bid to win the club's second premiership.

 

Spend some time with the pair and with others at St Kilda, it becomes clear that the pair has learned quickly and learned well. It was only four years ago that football tragic Bains was working as an in-house lawyer at Toyota Australia and Elshaug after a long and storied coaching career, had chosen to move into full-time recruiting.

 

"When you talk to player agents and you talk to the industry there is a sense that our staff work as hard or harder than any others," said St Kilda chief executive Matt Finnis.

 

"They're analytical and smart and under Ameet's guidance we have really good systems in place to make the right decisions. It's an area of the business I have great confidence in."

 

Like any truly committed couple, Elshaug and Bains take turns to offer each other the plaudits. 

 

"Ameet is the brains of the outfit. He's the intellect, well educated, well schooled and an even temperament," Elshaug said over a coffee one recent Saturday afternoon, taking a rare break from his laptop and the hundreds of hours of match footage that have become his constant companion each morning, noon and night.

 

"I'm from the school of hard knocks out at Oakleigh Tech. He's the Melbourne Grammar boy; it's the football world versus the commercial world. He has a broad sense of world sport, whereas I only like some sports. He understands sporting drafts the world over and he understands kids. He's the one explained to me what Twitter is and how all the kids do it."

 

Relay those comments to Bains and he rolls his eyes and laughs. No doubt, he has heard all this before many times, probably from Elshaug himself during the countless hours on the road they have spent together.

 

"We've become very close mates and what has bonded us pretty quickly on the professional side has been our approach to things," Bains said.

 

"Not withstanding his self-deprecating quips, Tony is very process driven ands very structured."

 

"We might articulate and document that differently but our mindset is the same and to do our jobs properly there has to be enormous rigour in what we do; process, structure, discipline and governance in everything has meant we have worked well together from day one. We think the same in everything we do," he added.

 

When Bains joined the Saints, the club's off-field image had taken a battering from episodes such as the 'school girl affair'. His role mainly encompassed list management, but there was also a legal requirement to the position and the one-time Carlton supporter, and member of that club's welfare sub-committee, jumped at the opportunity to work full-time in footy.

 

His star has risen at the Saints and once the new football general manager is appointed in the next few weeks, Bains will be left to concentrate on his new position as chief operating officer. List management and player contracts will remain part of his role, but so will key projects such as strategic planning, the New Zealand partnership, Moorabbin, the potential Junction Oval move, as well as the existing arrangement at the Linen House Centre and the City of Frankston.

 

On the day he talks to AFL.com.au, we meet at a city cafe where he has just attended a meeting of the club's risk and audit committee. Wearing a nice suit, Bains looks and talks like the Collins Street solicitor he once was; the only giveaway to his current employment is the discreet Saints logo on his computer bag.

 

This will be his last national draft, so to speak, and he wants to get it right. Four years of working alongside Elshaug and he has learned how to scout the TAC Cup and the national Under-18 Championships. Give him some match footage and as he says, "I'm now comfortable with it. I'm poles apart from where I was four years ago and Tony has been important with that."

 

Elshaug is a footy lifer. His 137-game playing career spanned three clubs - Melbourne, Essendon and Collingwood - between 1979 and 1988 and he is one of very few in football to have played under three of all the time greats of coaching, Ron Barassi, Kevin Sheedy and Leigh Matthews.

 

He coached Dandenong to a famous VFA premiership in 1991, which led to one of the great post-match interviews (search Dandenong VFA Grand Finals on YouTube) before joining North Melbourne as an assistant coach under Denis Pagan.

 

Theirs was a partnership that lasted 13 years, first at North Melbourne and then at Carlton. "He was a great coach of young people and I learned so many fundamentals from him. I got to understand what makes a good player and what makes a good player in each position."

 

Pagan's influence in Elshaug has spread to how he recruits players. "What's the make-up of a person? You draw on players you have been around who have been successful and see how that applies to these kids."

 

From his days at North Melbourne, Elshaug reflects on champions such as Peter Bell, Adam Simpson and Anthony Stevens. "They weren't the prettiest players, but by god they could play. I know the game has changed a bit, but some things haven't changed."

 

Elshaug coached the Kangaroos to the 1996 reserves flag and was by Pagan's side as the club won the '96 and '99 AFL flags. He was touted for a time as a senior coach in waiting but the closest he came was late in 1999 when finished second behind Danny Frawley for the job at Richmond.

 

He followed Pagan to Carlton in 2003, where he initially shared an office with Ross Lyon, also an assistant with the Blues. When Lyon took over at St Kilda in 2007, he brought Elshaug with him 12 months later, initially as general manager of football development and then as an assistant coach. He was a key lieutenant as the Saints went agonisingly close in 2009 and 2010.

 

"I've been very fortunate to have some great people in my corner," he said.

 

There had been more misses than hits with St Kilda's drafting until Elshaug took over as recruiting manager in 2011. Tired of the coaching grind, he threw himself into the third phase of his football life with gusto and the results so far are pleasing with Seb Ross, Jimmy Webster, Nathan Wright and Spencer White all showing promise.

 

The three first-round picks from last year, Jack Billings, Luke Dunstan and Blake Acres all look the goods, while rookie-listed players Mav Weller (top 10 in the best and fairest this year) and Eli Templeton are also tracking well.

 

Divorced and with an adult daughter, Elshaug is ideally suited to the recruiting game, which requires him to be on the road most weekends from early February, which is when the elite talent in South Australia begin playing games, through to October.

 

"There are different levels of satisfaction when you compare playing to coaching to recruiting," he said.

"My playing career was a long time ago but playing was about the thrill of being involved in good teams, having success and the ability to express yourself as a player.

 

"Coaching is not just about the players, but a whole lot of other factors as well. Fundamentally I wasn't a standalone coach but one of a group and as Denis used to say, you don't really know what it's about until you get thrown the keys."

The buzz of recruiting for Elshaug might be Spencer White. The annual recruiting trail, keeps him from watching the Saints most weekends, but he rushed from the airport to witness the debut in round 22 this year of White, the athletic forward who Saints fans had been salivating over for the previous year.

 

Elshaug rushed back from South Australia and stood anonymously behind the Punt Road goals at the MCG late on a Sunday evening as White kicked three goals and demonstrated that maybe, just maybe, he might be worth the excitement.

 

White had endured a fair bit to get to the Saints. His father died, he didn't get into the school of his choice and overcame an asthmatic condition that kept him from having a decent night's sleep until he turned 18.

 

And when Elshaug turned up at his door to speak to him shortly before the 2012 draft, White had his wrist in plaster.

 

"He'd fought really hard to get the opportunity so I wasn't going to miss out on watching him play his first game. Three goals, some nice contested marks … he made the most of it and I was really pleased. It validated my thoughts that he can play," he said.

 

"Walking back to my car afterwards, I heard some Saints fans talking about him excitedly, and that's the sort of thing in the recruiting game that can lift your spirits."

 

'Felix' Bains will make sure that the 'i's' are dotted and the 't's' crossed on draft night. But as 'Oscar' Elshaug says, "Everyone knows who the good players are but the hardest thing is to find those on the edges who might be better than they are now."

 

What he hopes is that 35 years in the football industry will arm him with what he needs to make the correct decisions for St Kilda.

 

"What have I learned over the journey? What's going to stand up football wise, athletically and as a person? You take that, rank the importance of the role they play and how they perform and that's how we come up with the list for the draft," he said.