St Kilda coach Alan Richardson is confident that he and the coaching staff are leading the team well, despite constant chatter about the future of his job.
The Saints re-signed Richardson until the end of the 2020 season in 2017, but Fox Footy understands a trigger clause in his 2019 contract could mean his tenure could end earlier.
The clause is one or more finals victories, placing him in danger of losing his job, but Richardson says his discussions with the club have been positive.
“I have regular catch-ups with Matt Finnis about the performance of the team, about my performance, about KPIs, I’ll obviously keep those between myself and the footy club, but contact and conversation is ongoing and that’s been really strong,” he told SEN’s Whateley.
“It gives you confidence that everyone’s heading the same way and the biggest focus has really been on the team and that’s my job.”
“There’s a lot of confidence in the coaching team.
“I’m the leader of that, but we made a decision to leave no stone unturned to get in Brett Ratten and Brendon Lade to support myself and Henry Playfair in the roles, Billy Slater working with our young leaders which is so important.
“That’s been good and the feedback in terms of the way the coaching group have been able to get our guys to stay focused has been really positive.”
Richardson also addressed the reality of meeting the clause in his contract.
"The reality is the conversations that are ongoing are with information in hand," he said.
“Whether that be personnel, the age of the team, the experience of the team.
“Everything from our perspective is thrown into the mix.
“How are we going, how am I going as a coach, how are we going as a coaching group in terms of getting the best out of the playing group and having them in an attitude and a space where we can win every game we play or give ourselves the best opportunity to win every game that we play.
“Ultimately that’ll be up to Matt Finnis and Andrew Bassat and the board in terms of which direction we go.
“All we can do as a coaching group is focus on what we can control and our focus is on the performance of the team.”
The Saints will aim to back up their narrow four-point win over Gold Coast when they host Brisbane at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.
Hear Alan Richardson on Whateley in the player below.