Opening Round kicks off on Thursday and the pre-season has provided plenty of answers, but certain questions can't be answered until the real stuff starts.
Zero Hanger has outlined a topic likely to garner plenty of discussion at each club in the first month of the season.
4St Kilda Saints
How quickly can the recruits repay the faith?
St Kilda's AAMI Community Series win over Essendon would have been buoying, with all of Tom De Koning, Sam Flanders and Liam Ryan playing a significant role in a comfortable win. The Saints' were the busiest club in the off-season, spending a war chest as they sought to attract the final pieces of a September-bound lineup. Fixtures against Collingwood, Melbourne, GWS and St Kilda will give a good early indication of how well balanced the club is and those are the sorts of scalps St Kilda need to start claiming to be taken seriously after playing catch-up for the last two years. Rightly or wrongly, pressure will quickly ramp up on De Koning if he starts the year quietly given the financial investment, and although he does not come out of contract again until next year, discussions about the future of Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera will grow ever louder if the Saints don't have a significant uptick in form.
