St Kilda captain Jack Steele says a failure in communication when standards weren’t being met across the club was the key to a disappointing 2021 season for the club.
After an unexpected finals appearance in 2020, many experts tipped the Saints to be a top-six team in the following year, before the Saints fell flat on their face.
Despite beefing up the list with the likes of Brad Crouch and Jack Higgins, St Kilda managed just 10 wins in 22 games, the same amount it managed in a shortened 17-game season the previous year.
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Steele is confident the Saints will enjoy a stronger 2022 season, but said the club was adamant not to make the same mistakes it did last year.
“We weren’t open and honest and fair dinkum about how we were going about things, the standards around the club (dropped),” he told Wide World of Sports at the AFL’s annual captain’s day.
“We’ve really tightened up on that and created a bit more of an edge and put a bit more of a price on that stuff.”
Steele admitted that while uncomfortable conversations are an important part of being a leader, they weren’t always well received by his teammates.
“They’re not always easy to have and a lot of players will take feedback as criticism personally,” he said.
“What you need to do as a leader is to try and make sure they understand that it’s not a personal thing.
“We’re all trying to achieve the same thing and I want them to achieve the same thing, because we are the team. Being able to have that relationship with them and for them to understand that I’m not actually having a personal attack at them, that’s very important.
“I feel like we’ve come quite a long way in the last 12 months in that space.”
The 26-year-old also admitted that receiving feedback is something he himself is trying to get better at doing.
“I still struggle with it and I feel like a lot of people do,” he said.
“It’s definitely not natural to get feedback and be okay with it. It is something you learn and something that if you’re in a position where you give a lot of feedback, you have to open your mind to what it’s like to receive it as well.
“It’s something you do learn within the role and something I’ve learnt within the role.”
Despite the struggles at the club last year, the two-time All-Australian is confident the Saints will climb back up the ladder this year.
“I think we’ve really gotten to work as a group and honed in on a few things that we probably weren’t great at last year in terms of our competitiveness and consistency,” he said.
“We’d have good games and play really well as a team and then the week after we’d get blown out by teams and have a really bad loss.
“There’s a great exciting feel around the club so anything is possible for us.”
Steele and the Saints will get their 2022 campaign underway when they host Collingwood at Marvel Stadium in Round 1 on March 18.