St Kilda list manager James Gallagher has outlined the reasoning behind the Saints' movements during the recent trade period.
The Saints added Brad Hill, Zak Jones, Paddy Ryder, Dougal Howard and Dan Butler during a busy window, while also picking up Ryan Abbott as a delisted free agent last week.
Gallagher said the Saints knew what they needed heading into the off-season, and just went about topping up their list with quality.
โLater in the year, some of the areas we wanted to improve were midfield, run, speed and kicking ability,โ Gallagher told SEN Mornings on Tuesday.
โThrough his manager, we got an indication that Zak Jones may interested in coming back to Melbourne and this happened late in the year. We wanted to speak to Zak because we thought he can play a really important role for us.
โDougal (Howard) did come up late in the piece but that had been really clear from our list strategy perspective that we needed to know who our key lockdown defender was going to be for five or six years.
โWeโve tracked him for a quite a while and Iโve been an advocate of his, but he was under contract and it felt highly unlikely. But when the opportunity did come up late, he became a priority for that position."
The Saints will now start the draft with pick 51, but Gallagher said the club weighed up that idea when going after their trade targets, and said they needed to strike while the iron was hot.
โThey all sort of bob up at different times and you just need to weigh up whether youโre prepared to pay what you need to pay both from a salary cap and trade perspective," he added.
โIf youโre not willing to pay with an early draft pick or a player then thatโs OK and you can walk away but we made that decision that if you we bring all these guys in this year then letโs do it.
โItโs not every year you get an opportunity where a Brad Hill, a Zak Jones, a Dougal Howard, a Dan Butler and a Paddy Ryder say, โI want to come and play for your footy clubโ.
โYou donโt want to knock back those opportunities when they come up.โ
