St Kilda coach Ross Lyon admits the ship has probably sailed for Andrew McQualter to join the club’s coaching ranks.
McQualter, who coached Richmond on an interim basis in 2023 after Damien Hardwick quit, narrowly missed out on landing the top job at Tigerland with Adem Yze winning the role last week.
Lyon attempted to lure McQualter to the Saints upon his return to Moorabbin last off-season, but he doesn’t expect to be able to do the same this time around due to soft cap restraints.
While he doesn’t think McQualter will land at Moorabbin, he does expect the highly-rated assistant to have plenty of options around the league.
“Probably that ship has sailed, to be honest,” Lyon told SEN Sportsday.
“The soft cap is really limiting. We've got great people there (already).
“I ran him, his manager Paul Connors at the VFL grand final and under-18 (Coates Talent League) Grand Final and he'll have plenty of options.
“He'll be well taken care of.”
While Lyon thinks McQualter is probably licking his wounds after coming so close to landing the full-time gig at Richmond, he believes he should see it as the beginning, not the end - particularly as the likes of Yze and Adam Kingsley landed jobs after coming close previously.
“He's certainly got nothing to be embarrassed about,” Lyon said.
“He's probably licking his wounds a little bit, but that's the model of just asking for the feedback, ‘Where can I improve?’.
“Ultimately, Yze has gone for a couple and missed, much like Kingsley.
“So he should see it as a beginning, not an end.”
In terms of the playing list, Lyon was asked whether he’d spoken to reported St Kilda trade target Dylan Shiel.
While Lyon didn’t deny that the club was interested in the Don, he refused to admit any talks had happened and pondered where the noise of a potential move had come from.
“Well as a club, we don't sort of conduct our business in the media,” Lyon said.
“There's a lot of noise around it.
“I know he missed the last 10 rounds with quite a few injuries.
“It (the noise) certainly wasn't generated from us.
“So I'm not sure where that's all come from, to be honest.”
Shiel played 12 games in 2023 but was the activated substitute on two occasions. He missed much of the back end of the season with a foot injury.