Saints coach's startling admission about shocking Saad hit

Alan Richardson has made a startling admission about his role in Nathan Brown’s shocking late-bump on Adam Saad.

Nathan Brown will face the AFL tribunal tonight for the hit on the Essendon speedster, which saw Saad stretchered from the field to receive medical assistance.

The St Kilda coach has since said that he probably had a role in the incident, after asking his players to go close to the line physically – and to explicitly target Saad and teammate Connor McKenna.

“You do ask players to go close to the line physically,” Richardson said on Fox Sports’ AFL 360.

“Did you target Saad and McKenna, in a speech?” asked 360 host Mark Robinson.

“Absolutely, in terms of our planning,” Richardson responded.

“These guys in terms of their run and their rebound are really significant to the way the they (Essendon) play.

“And we want to make sure when we can, we look to body and check.

“You do ask yourself afterwards, when somebody does something that is out of character, ‘Have I had an influence on that?’

“And the reality is I probably have, cause he does what the coach tells him to do.”

Saad was knocked out from the nasty incident, and ruled out for the remainder of the match due to the hit.

There has been much debate over Brown’s late shot, particularly around the timing of the incident and the intent of it.

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Speaking on Channel 7’s Talking Footy, Campbell Brown said that modern players need to have a greater peripheral awareness given they are involved in a “360 game”.

“You should have some sort of awareness about you,” said Campbell Brown.

“I’m not blaming Saad, but what I’m saying is, players today need to have awareness.

“Because people can come from anywhere, and you can potentially prevent yourself getting concussed or injured by have a little bit of awareness.

“Everyone will jump up and down saying that I am defending Nathan Brown there, I am absolutely not.

“If you prepare for contact all the time and it doesn’t come, great.”

Despite the match-ending injury to Saad, the Bombers were simply too good for the Saints.

The Bombers led by 51 points early in the last term, giving them plenty of breathing room – and they finished off the match as 18.14 (122) to 11.13 (79) winners.