The balance for any AFL club between aiming for premiership success and developing your next generation can be difficult. I have seen this transition made successfully but I have also seen great teams fall from grace once their stars retire.
The Hawthorn Football Club had success through the 70's and had a core group of players who were their stars. It was difficult for many outside of the senior group to break in and therefore the team was very stable but had no injection of new and exciting - but more particularly hungry - talent.
Once the bulk of this senior group began to age the Hawks slipped out of finals contention for a few years.
The club learnt from this mistake and the lessons set up one of the greatest generations of success ever seen in VFL/AFL history.
In the 80's the Hawks once again had a great team. Some of these players were residual from its 70's era but they had also assembled a young group of star footballers which ensured they would be a formidable force.
After a few years of both Grand Final success and failure the club realised that the team once again had sameness about it and that the injection of new blood was the only way to stay on top.
Call it ruthless or simply great list management and planning, the Hawks began the task of moving on a vast number of premiership players who were starting to age and replaced them with the next generation.
In this period they kept their core of champs and surrounded them with talented youth such as players like Condon, Jenke, Anderson, Gowers and Morrisey.
This planning always kept the Hawks at the top of their game.
Many things in football change. Salary Caps, rules and new franchises but a clubs ability to always have one eye on their future is paramount.
The most recent example of this was from the reigning premiers Collingwood who handled the transition of its older established senior players out of the team and into the VFL - while slowly introducing a group of young guns to replace them - extremely well.
The youngsters were given confidence to succeed but played on the edge as they knew there were senior players waiting in the wings if they fell over.
This kept the Pies playing with massive intensity and eventually saw them take out the premiership.
The St Kilda Football Club has been desperately chasing their premiership dream now for many years. With the exception of some unlucky bounces they may have had their second cup in the trophy cabinet, but that is now part of football folklore.
Like many successful teams the Saints had a core of champion players. All emphasis at the club appeared from the outside to be put into this core group as it was them that could create history for the club and its supporters.
From a list management perspective it was decided to surround this core group with "top up" senior players from other AFL clubs. Their vision was to surround the champs with hardened men.
For the last 3-4 years there has been little change to this team as they have been blinkered to achieve their ultimate goal. Unfortunately fate got in the way and now this group looks like a shell of its former self.
The question that Ross Lyon brought up at his press conference after the game on Sunday evening was, does he need to back in the professionalism of these senior players or has he been in denial that the group is fading and has not injected enough youthful spirit into the line up to keep the Saints on edge and at their best?
Lyon has a fortnight to determine the direction of his club for the rest of the year.
He must ask himself whether he can continue to go with senior players who look past their best such as Brett Peake, Michael Gardiner, Jason Blake, Steven Baker and Sean Dempster?
On Sunday, although not dominant, Jack Steven, Alistair Smith and Rhys Stanley all showed glimpses of form to suggest that they need to be persevered with, while the coach himself suggested that Nicholas Winmar and Will Johnson may also need opportunity.
The club needs to find out if these five players can inject some level of spark back into Nick Riewoldt and the other Saint stars.
Personally, I think the club needs to explore even further than that, which possibly goes against the principles of its senior coach who prefers to play hard bodies in his line-up.
St Kilda went to the national draft on the Gold Coast late last year and identified a lack of run and skill in their line-up.
Their first two selections in Jamie Cripps and Sam Crocker were picked to correct this deficiency in the team. Other clubs have played their draftees, but St Kilda has not and what is more unusual is that Crocker is not even being selected to play senior VFL football.
In my opinion these boys need to be given a chance to show their wares.
The next month will identify the Saints direction. Decisions made will have the greatest impact on this club for a decade. It will be fascinating to see which pathway the club takes.
