By Michael Whiting
Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna says Nick Riewoldt's absence from Saturday night's match at Metricon Stadium is making St Kilda harder to plan for.
Riewoldt, who grew up on the Gold Coast, was denied the chance to play in front of a home crowd after accepting a one-match suspension for rough conduct on Adelaide's Brad Symes in last Friday's 103-point win over the Crows.
McKenna said although the GC SUNS did not spend much time on opposition planning, they had to dig out some vision of the Saints from 2010 to prepare this week.
He said they had viewed matches from the first half of last season when Riewoldt was missing with a hamstring injury to see how the Saints might play without their captain and forward focal point.
"I'm not hurting as much as St Kilda would be but let's not forget they made a Grand Final last year on the back of him missing 14 games," McKenna said.
"When sides miss their better players it's harder to get a feel for what they're going to do. Instead of watching their last three or four games, we're madly watching last season's games to see potentially what could happen."
McKenna said he would not be surprised if regular defenders Brendan Goddard and Sam Fisher moved forward.
St Kilda has now won four straight matches to move into eighth position, and the GC SUNS coach said there was a simple reason why.
"It's just their mindset," he said. "When you win a few games, you get confident, you start believing in the game plan and what the coach is saying and you can see that being very evident.
"The stats back that up and they have their defensive hunger back again and really having that press again and they're one of the best sides at it, that's why they made the Grand Final the last couple of years.
"For our development it's more about what we do and what we're trying to do. We have to respect the opposition, we still look at the opposition, but the most important thing for us to develop quicker is about how we want to play."
Although the absence of Riewoldt is a major blow for St Kilda, one problem McKenna has to solve will be stopping livewire forward Stephen Milne.
Milne kicked eight goals in the win against Adelaide, and the GC SUNS coach said he was likely to give the job to a youngster rather than the more experienced Jarrod Harbrow.
"It could be a great opportunity for a (Joel) Wilkinson, Josh Toy; I think we've got some good young defenders down there," he said. "The chance of some of our young small defenders playing on Milne will be fantastic."
