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Time for Youngsters to Step up: Riewoldt

21 Sep 2008

ST KILDA captain Nick Riewoldt has conceded retiring champion Robert Harvey will be hard to replace.

But Riewoldt says the challenge has been set for the club’s younger midfielders to step up in the absence of the retired no. 35.

“He’ll be tough to replace. Even at this stage of his career he’s been a terrific contributor for us every week,” Riewoldt said.

“It’s up to some young guys now who’ve had the privilege and opportunity to train and play with him and watch the way he goes about it. The challenge is there for someone to take up that mantle. Not just with respects to playing but the way they work, and we’ve all got a bit of improving to do to match up with 'Harves' in that area.”

Riewoldt said a handful of players had been blooded in the past two years with a view to replacing Harvey in the midfield.

“We had a sprinkling of those guys come through later in the year and perform well at different stages; guys like Rob Eddy, David Armitage, Clint Jones and Jarryn Geary,” he said.

“Guys like 'Dal' (Nick Dal Santo) and 'Joey' (Leigh Montagna) have still got a lot of improvement in them as well.”

Riewoldt conceded he and his fellow forwards would find life a bit harder without Harvey’s crisp and clean delivery from the midfield.

“My goal tally will probably halve next year. As a forward, you always hear about (the days of) Harvey to Lockett. He’s one of the best guys to play with,” he said.

“He racks so much of the ball up, and his delivery is the best in our team and it has been for a long time. I’m going to miss him from that perspective.”

Riewoldt said that while the Saints had done well to reach the preliminary finals stage, there was a bit of space between it and the elite teams of the AFL.

“We’ve got to continue to build and improve our list, and (there are) obviously a lot of areas that we need to improve in so we can stand up in preliminary finals,” he said.

“We’re in the business of winning premierships, not coming fourth. It’s been a good effort in a lot of respects to turn our season around the way we have, but we’ve still got a long way to go to bridge the gap between the top two teams.”

Nick Riewoldt says he'll miss Robert Harvey's delivery of the ball into St Kilda's forward line next year

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