JESSE Smith says St Kilda's recent success with injuries will give him some much-needed confidence to enter the next stage of his AFL career.

The Saints selected the former Roo with pick No.60 in Thursday night's NAB AFL Draft, throwing a lifeline to a player who has been ravaged by hamstring and ankle injuries for the last two years.

Before luring strength and conditioning manager David Misson from the Sydney Swans at the end of 2007, St Kilda had a raft of key players sidelined including Aaron Hamill, Luke Ball, Justin Koschitzke and Matt Maguire.

That season they finished ninth but on the back of Misson's program rebounded strongly to play in a preliminary final in 2008.

In making the grand final this year, they used just 30 of their 48 listed players.

Smith, 23, spoke with St Kilda coach Ross Lyon and his assistant coaches last week and said he was impressed with the structure the club had in place.

"I'm very confident the Saints can help with my problems," he told afl.com.au. "They have had a decrease in a lot of their injuries over the last couple of years since David Misson has got there.

"It's good to go to a new club with a clean sheet and some new ideas. I'm really excited. I can't wait to get down there and see what plans they have for me, because I really want to get into it and try to get my body nice and strong again."

Smith, who was delisted by North Melbourne at the end of October after unsuccessfully seeking a trade, trained with Hawthorn for almost three weeks but knew other clubs had some interest in recruiting him.

The Brisbane Lions were first to make contact when he looked to leave North but the defender never had  a formal commitment from them.

"I didn't know what was going to happen there," Smith said.

"They had a couple of picks after where I went so I'm not sure how that would have panned out. I'm just happy to be at St Kilda so it doesn't really matter in the end."

Smith added that the Hawks' current injury issues - Trent Croad (foot) being the highest profile of them - may have counted against him, even though his father Ross is an assistant coach there.

After 27 games in five seasons, Smith felt he had no choice but to continue his career elsewhere and even knocked back North's offer of new contract.

He re-injured his hamstring in the second of two reserves games with the club's VFL affiliate North Ballarat in July and has not played a senior game since round five of 2008.

Smith saw that the draft offered a clear opportunity for experienced players looking for new homes but was a bit worried come the fourth round.

"Being a supposed weak draft, I thought it was probably the year to put myself out there," he said.

"[But] it probably didn't even pan out that way in the end because a lot of the clubs didn't end up using all of their picks.

"That's why I was starting to get a bit nervous, because there were young players who had been talked up who went later than they should have and [I thought] maybe there wasn't the room for me.

"I'm just happy now it's all over."