Being part of the team - a collective -has underpinned Montagna’s 10-season, 160-game career with the Saints.

As much as Montagna’s time at the club has been about persistence and an ability to evolve with the rhythms of the game, the 27-year-old’s career has also been marked by the company he has kept, or so it seems.

Nick Riewoldt to Lenny Hayes, Nick Dal Santo to Brendon Goddard, and Justin Koschitzke to Montagna - they have made up the face of modern St Kilda. When you think of one, it seems you immediately think of another.

This group of mates, for better and worse, has provided a reference point to Montagna’s AFL career.

“We’ve been on a hell of a journey,” Montagna says. It’s the perfect summation for the group, but probably one also appropriate when considering his own development.

As a junior at Balwyn Football Club in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, Montagna was a small, skinny player. “I was never a tough, hard nut and am probably still not,” he says with a smile.

His small stature (he is listed at 178cm but that might seem generous) counted against him, despite promising signs in the TAC Cup for the Northern Knights.

“I was never on the radar or touted as a future draftee until late in my under-18s year,” Montagna says.

“I managed to sneak into the Vic Metro team through a bit of luck and was playing some good footy at the right time and it just snowballed from there.

“Obviously, my size was always against me, but St Kilda saw enough in me to think there was something there.”

When Montagna joined the club at the end of 2001, Riewoldt and Koschitzke had already played, having been drafted in 2000 with pick one and two respectively.

Hayes, a tough midfielder from Pennant Hills in New South Wales, was selected two years year before that, along with a nuggety back pocket, Colac’s Steven Baker.

Read the full story in this weekend’s AFL Record, available at all matches.