ST KILDA is "very optimistic" about its future and believes its list is well-placed to contend for finals over the coming years despite its woeful start to the season, CEO Matt Finnis says.
The Saints have one win and a draw from nine matches and no respite is in sight ahead of a tough three weeks, with Richmond (MCG), West Coast (Optus Stadium) and Sydney (Etihad Stadium) to come.
A plan launched by the club in early 2014 aimed to make the top four by this year with a second premiership before 2020.
Finnis was a month away from beginning his role at the time of that announcement and Chris Pelchen was football manager, while president Peter Summers and coach Alan Richardson had been in their positions for several months.
Speaking at the launch of the club's pride game, which will be against the Swans, Finnis told reporters the core of the list would carry the Saints into their next era.
"You don't go throwing the baby out with the bathwater," Finnis said on Wednesday.
"We've got a plan that was put in place … and that's drawing towards the end of its period. We're currently in the focus of doing a lot of our strategic planning for the next iteration of 2019-22.
"What we believe is we've got a nucleus there. This is not a situation where you need to go back to the bottom and start again.
"Foundations in our footy club are a lot stronger than they used to be. From the nucleus of players, with the coaching program led by Alan Richardson, we are really confident that we'll recapture some of that lost ground. We're actually very optimistic about what the future holds for our footy club."
Finnis gave his reasons for that belief.
"Because of what we see, week in, week out. We see the core group of young players who are really driven to improve," Finnis said.
"You see what a Jimmy Webster can do when he starts to get his form combined with the confidence of the role he can play in our footy team. We've seen what Seb Ross is capable of doing. We've got young players coming in like Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield, experienced heads like Jack Steven and Jake Carlisle.
"This is a team which is not playing to its capability right now and we're optimistic that we can recover that form and it will be a team that can compete, that can contend, over the coming years, but clearly we're not doing that right now and so our focus needs to be turning that around right now."
Meanwhile, Finnis said St Kilda hasn't been approached by either the AFL or Victorian state government to replace Gold Coast as the team to face Port Adelaide in China next year.
Greater Western Sydney is in the running to be the Power's opponent.
"You think about things because there's a conversation going on about them (externally) but we haven't been approached by the AFL or the state government," Finnis said.
It's not a concept St Kilda would immediately reject.
"It becomes like any new idea or opportunity, you sit down and look at what are the pros, what are the cons, you go through a pretty robust process of looking at it, but what I can say is we haven't been doing that yet," FInnis said.
St Kilda remains interested in returning to New Zealand for home and away season matches but that is some way off.
"There's a lot of interest in Auckland about playing more games of AFL football. The reality is in Auckland they don't have a stadium which can host AFL games yet," Finnis said.
"Whilst there's discussions and strategy being developed over there in relation to that, it would appear to be some time away before they're going to be in a position to host AFL games."
Wellington hosted three Saints matches in 2013-15.
