St Kilda coach Brett Ratten has backed in young forward Max King, despite kicking 0.5 in the Saints' loss to Brisbane on Friday night.
The Saints' final hopes are now all but extinguished following the 15-point defeat, set to take an early holiday for the second season in a row.
King had four shots at goal throughout the close affair, but didn't manage to kick a major. The 22-year-old's goal tally for the year sits at 47 goals, with 41 behinds to his name too.
Speaking to media on Friday night after the loss, Ratten was confident the young gun could turn around his wayward goal kicking.
"The pleasing part that we know about Max is Tuesday was a day off for the players and he was at Marvel Stadium for an hour and a half having goalkicking practice," Ratten said.
"Every day we're at the footy club or we're not at the footy club he's there having extra goalkicking and rehearsing and finetuning his game to make sure he gets his opportunity to score on game day.
"He's doing a power of work. What I do know is I want Max King in my corner. He'll be at our footy club for 10 years.
"When we look back we'll be saying what a great player he is and what he's done. Tonight he had a night where it didn’t work for him. He did everything right bar the finish and for great forwards in the game that's happened.
"We know he's doing the work and sometimes you don't get the reward all the time but he'll keep doing that and you watch, he'll turn it around.
"Goalkicking has so many elements to it – it's the technical aspect, the mental aspect, the fatigue, what part of the ground [you're kicking from]. I wouldn't say it's high pressure. I want to go to war with Max because he delivers and he will deliver."
Following last season's Round 9 loss to Geelong, in which the young forward kicked 1.5, the club didn't allow King to work through his goalkicking with superstar forward Matthew Lloyd. Lloyd, who kicked 926 goals across his career at Essendon, coached King as a teenager.
Ratten echoed the sentiments of 2021 post-game, saying that the key forward "doesn't need" help from outside the four walls of the footy club, backing in his staff to do their job and help the forward.
“He won‘t be seeing anybody outside the club, he doesn’t need to. We’ve got people with the skillset to keep working there,” he said.
“As I said to you, it’s not just all about the technical aspect, there’s a mental aspect to it as well. With goal-kicking, it’s a closed skill and there’s different elements to it.
“It’s not just we bring somebody in and they fix up the hand drop or anything like that. He hasn’t got many flaws, but sometimes it can go against you.”
The Saints have one game remaining in the home and away season, set to face Sydney in Round 23 at Marvel Stadium.