AS THE rebuild continues at St Kilda, club insiders point to several events over the summer as evidence that the Saints are on the right track towards climbing up the ladder and strengthening their business.

Bringing Danny Frawley and Ahmed Saad back to the club, and the veil of secrecy surrounding the selection of Paddy McCartin are regarded as signs that the Saints are starting to get their processes right after several wayward seasons since the 2009-10 Grand Final appearances.

Frawley, a former Saints skipper and champion defender, has had no involvement with the club since retiring in 1995. His football journey has included coaching Richmond, assistant-coaching stints at Collingwood and Hawthorn, running the AFL Coaches' Association and several media gigs.

He was set to sign on with the Hawks once again before being lured to the Saints by coach Alan Richardson at the 11th hour.

In the AFL Record this week, Richardson said he was keen to rekindle a relationship with Frawley that goes back to their days together at Collingwood and the Richmond.

"People forget what a good coach Danny was," Richardson said. "To have someone with his quality and experience support (defensive coach) Rohan Welsh and our defenders is outstanding. And for me as a relatively inexperienced AFL senior coach to be able sound him out for a coffee and bounce ideas off is a real positive.

"He's an outstanding person and coach and I'm really pleased he's on board."

The olive branch was extended to Saad, who missed all of last season after testing positive to taking a banned substance.

There would have been few raised eyebrows had a club undergoing massive change like St Kilda chosen not to give Saad another chance.  But instead the club backed itself and its processes.

"We're not in the charity business, but in our opinion it was simple. He made a mistake and he acknowledged he made a mistake," said Richardson.

"He paid his penalty and you can argue whether that was fair or unfair, but he wanted to do the right thing by St Kilda and his teammates. He had brought some undue pressure to the footy club and wanted to do something about it."

Richardson also revealed that only six people at St Kilda knew in the lead-up to last year's NAB AFL Draft that McCartin, the key forward from the Geelong Falcons, would selected with the No. 1 pick.

There is usually little intrigue ahead of the draft about the identity of the first selection, but the Saints kept everyone guessing right up until they read out McCartin's name.

"We showed good discipline," Richardson said. "The draft can be unfair on the kids. There wasn't a conversation we needed to have with Paddy immediately before the draft, so he didn't know. We held our nerve and it was a good test for our group, not to say anything." 

Read the full story about St Kilda’s on- and off-field rebuilding in the round one edition of the AFL Record, available at all grounds.