The comedy of errors rolls on

St Kilda’s admission, during talks with Andrew Lovett’s representatives yesterday, that they’d sacked Lovett due to the accusation, and subsequent charge, of rape against him further exposes the Saints’ management team as a bunch of hopeless amateurs. And AussieRulesBlog is beginning to acquire the aura of a seer, having predicted the rape charge was the prima facie justification back in February.

 

In short order, the Saints have managed to turn a situation fraught with danger into a litany of misjudgement. How they must look back to 2008 and wish they’d drafted Ben Cousins who has ticked all the boxes at Richmond.

 

Cousins brought so much more than his silky football skills to Punt Road, providing a role model that that club’s favourite son, Matthew Richardson, could not. Damien Hardwick’s decision to nominate for the Richmond job must have been made substantially easier knowing Cousins was on the roster.

 

It’s hard to imagine that Ross Lyon and his recruiting staff could have seen Cousins’ Rolls-Royce pedigree in Lovett’s precocious talent, or that they could so comprehensively have misread Cousins’ determination to return.

 

We cannot think of a single positive for the Saints since Preliminary Final weekend last year. It really has been five truly awful months.