Robert Harvey:
“I’m sure it’s no surprise to many but I’d just like to announce my retirement effective at the end of the season, whenever that may be for us.
“I’m very happy and honoured to have stretched my career out as long as I did.
"I’m very appreciative to the club and to [coach] Ross [Lyon] and the coaching staff for every opportunity they have given me to play until I’m 37 years of age.
“We chatted last week ... and decided that we would announce it this week. We wanted to get the Port Adelaide game out of the way first.
“I think I had a feeling in myself that the time was right. You think you have that feeling a few times and it is hard to know when the time is right, but I know within myself that it is the right time for the club, it is the right time for myself and they are the two main parties.
"There are a lot of young guys at the club and we are in better shape this year with the younger guys coming through. I’ve had 21 chances at a flag so I can’t complain. I’ve had a great run."
On telling the players:
“It is always hard to come off 21 years at a place. You try to get the words right and they don’t quite come out the way you’d like. It was the hardest thing I’ve done. Last week has been a bit of a roller coaster because I knew I was going to retire but when you actually say it and when you agree to say it, it is a different thing. I suppose after 21 years of being at a club and going through a range of emotions it all hits home. It’s fair to say it all hit home about half an hour ago when I spoke to the players.
“Our season is still alive and this is obviously my last chance at (the flag). The way Ross and the coaching staff and the young list that we’ve got, you take me and Fraser [Gehrig] out and we’d nearly be the youngest list in the AFL and I think that’s a great thing for the club, and we’ve got a great opportunity. We are playing good footy and a lot of it has been on the back of injection of a lot of youth in our side and they way they have attacked the footy has invigorated the older experienced players like myself. When you want to look back at that and see the effect you have had on a side in the last six weeks, it makes the decision a bit easier as well.
"It has never become a chore. Pre-season is something I have always been able to tick off as something that I enjoy. I might still actually do pre-season and not play. I do enjoy keeping fit, I love playing, that hasn’t waivered. I think as the game has modernised I have been able to roughly adjust to it in my own way, I’m obviously not quick but I suppose I’m lucky that the game still suited me a bit. I’ve been lucky to have a midfield, I believe, that is a great midfield. I’ve been able to come on in rotations, and help out guys like Lenny [Hayes] and [Luke] Bally, and Joey (Leigh Montagna) and Dal (Nick Dal Santo). I’ve been really lucky to be able to do that."
"I share a locker next to Jack Stevens now, who comes in every day and takes his school uniform off and puts his bag down, and that was me. Being next to him has been good this year because it has ignited my memories of that. I’ll never divorce myself of footy because it is all that I know. The footy club is something that I’ll always be connected to. I’ve played for the club for 21 years, and it is a club that is proud and has a proud history. It has only won one premiership, but it doesn’t distract from a lot of people putting in a lot of sacrifice over a lot of years to make it what it is now."
Ross Lyon:
"I’ve said it in the past but it is self-evident that the best-and-fairests, the Brownlows, the EJ Whitten Medals, great finals performances, like at AAMI Stadium dragging St Kilda across the line ... of the great midfielders and the great runners in Bradley and Ratten and Voss – he stands equal. No-one stands head and shoulders above him.
"He’s a great AFL midfielder and he has stood the test of time, week-in, week-out. Midfielders get so much protection now, but he ran them to death when they used to hang on and they used to whack you and they used to really target you physically. He never took his eye off the ball and he just continued to run them into the ground and when it was his time to go, he went.
"In my view – and I’ve been around now for a while, coming in in the early ’80s – I’ve seen his career right through from afar, and he is a magnificent St Kilda footballer and making as equal a contribution as you could imagine to the St Kilda football club.
"I rate him incredibly highly. As a young coach coming into a club, Robert, from the start, embraced me and has given me every opportunity and has driven the group along with our other leaders. He’s a magnificent person and a magnificent AFL footballer. His career is self-evident and when everyone looks at it he’ll be looked at as one of the greats and that can’t be debated.
"He’s a great player."
