St Kilda senior coach Ross Lyon has confirmed Jack Steele will return to the Saints' starting line-up against Richmond for his 200th AFL game on Saturday amid speculation surrounding the captain's role at the club beyond this season.
The uncertainty emerged after Steele was surprisingly selected as the tactical substitute for St Kilda's Round 21 clash with North Melbourne, though Lyon believed the decision was blown out of proportion.
Steele's 29 per cent time on ground was the lowest mark of his decade-long AFL career, but Lyon defended the decision passionately at a press conference on Thursday, believing a lot of factors that go into the decision have been ignored.
"We've got to get through training, but Steele was always going to play this week," Lyon said.
"The sub is a really good tool for management. We've probably been one of the slower adopters of it because of circumstance, but it's something we'd like to do more often.
"Like all AFL players, you do your ice baths and your physio. He came on and impacted.
"Unless you're in it, it's hard for you to have empathy and understand how hard they hit and how often they tackle and how much of a grind it is. It feels like more has been made of it for whatever reason than gets made at other clubs, so I'm not sure the reason why.
"All I can tell you is we managed him last week, and we're really thrilled that it's his 200th game."
Steele has provided continuity to St Kilda amidst a tumultuous era of constant retooling, coaching changes and limited finals success. Ahead of his milestone match, Lyon highlighted his on-field qualities as well as his key contributions in difficult scenarios off-field.
"He's been a warrior at the club; two-time best and fairest, All-Australian, captain and he's led under some duress," Lyon said.
"He led during COVID and then with a transition coach and transitioning list, so he's shown great durability, along with our other leaders like [Callum] Wilkie and [Jack] Sinclair.
"They've been important in bringing our young players through like [Max] Hall and Nasiah [Wanganeen-Milera], and [Anthony] Caminiti. There's a lot that goes into the pot."
Blooding those young players in the midfield has evidently been a focus of Lyon's Saints in recent weeks as the club looks to develop its young core of talent and build up the pace of their midfield.
Lyon highlighted how that transition was accelerated in St Kilda's historic comeback win over Melbourne in Round 20, where a number of young midfielders generated damaging possessions in the fourth quarter, but believed it meant nothing about Steele's future in the group.
"When you hear Chris Scott talking about situational, [it means] it's not the same every week," Lyon said.
"I was fortunate enough to have a meal with Lachie Neale last week, and he just spoke about how the game's changed and there's less midfield stoppages, which we saw between the arcs, it's bouncing a lot more.
"That would suggest your blends have got to be a little bit different. If you look at the trends of the game, [Ed] Richards' gone in and smacked it, hasn't he? Rankine's gone in. If you look competition-wide, the trend is high transition and speed in there, rather than just big hitters all the time [like Steele]."
It's hard to deny that a changing of the guard inside St Kilda's midfield has further intensified in recent weeks, however, as star recruit Jack Macrae's time in the midfield - and on the ground in general - has plummeted.
Macrae attended just 50.3 per cent of centre bounces between Round 18 and 21, a significant reduction from the 76.5 per cent he attended in his first 14 games in the Saints stripes. He's also posted his lowest time-on-ground numbers of the season over the past three weeks, featuring on the field for just 63 per cent of Round 19's clash, 71 per cent of Round 20 and 66 per cent of Round 21.
Lyon spoke out against the concern, however, highlighting that the descent of Macrae's game-time also fell under the management umbrella.
"Last week it was by design," Lyon said. "Analytics tells us he's still really productive. I think he's the number one kick inside 50 in the competition. Analytically, his production is still really high, and we look to manage everyone. We like to keep speed on the game and rotate them through."
St Kilda will look to register their eighth win of the season against a youthful Richmond Tigers outfit on Saturday, with first bounce at 1:20pm (AEST) at the MCG.
