WHILE admitting to disappointment at his departure from St Kilda as head of football, Chris Pelchen believes the list rebuild at the club is on track for sustained success.
Speaking on SEN on Thursday morning, Pelchen said the club's recruiting and development resources were being well utilised, and that the demographics of the playing list were comparable to recent premiership teams during their rebuilds.
"One thing St Kilda does very well, and it is a credit to the board, is the money it invests into the football program," he said.
"While the club's finances might be in the bottom half of the competition, they spend a lot of money on football."
Pelchen is the latest in a number of senior management to depart St Kilda, following Michael Nettlefold (chief executive), Shane Wakelin (commercial manager) and Terry Dillon (chief operating officer).
However Pelchen maintains the future is bright.
“It is a fluid environment so there will be continual change. Every club goes through it and while the next couple of years will present challenges, I'm confident St Kilda will become a very strong team again."
Pelchen said the current St Kilda list resembles, "with only a 10 per cent difference", the Hawthorn playing list at the end of 2004. Within four years, the Hawks would win a flag and in the next 10 years would win three altogether.
Pelchen joined Hawthorn as its list manager in 2005 and was at the club until 2010.
"That's been done by design," he said.
"We had to deconstruct the (St Kilda) playing list very carefully and with respect because some famous servants of the club have left in the last three years and they've been very difficult decisions to make."
"I can assure St Kilda supporters that if you compare this list to Hawthorn in 2004, which finished second bottom, in terms of age, experience and particularly, talent, they line up very closely and that gives an indication to the timeline we were working to at St Kilda.
"I confidently believe the next 12 to 18 months will be challenging, but things will turn around in 2016 and in 2017 there's a reasonable expectation of playing finals again. From 2018, the sky's the limit."
Pelchen, who said the caliber of the St Kilda recruiting department stacked up to the Hawthorn group he helped oversee, admitted to having informal discussions with Carlton seven weeks ago about their vacant list management role, but said he declined to consider the position seriously.
