SAINTS skipper Nick Riewoldt yesterday lashed out at the scaremongers predicting he will return to captain the new Gold Coast side in 2011, saying his loyalty to St Kilda was rock-solid.
Riewoldt last year signed a new three-year deal with St Kilda but the timing of that contract ending coincides with the projected start-up of the AFL’s 17th side.
While Riewoldt has spoken of his desire to stay at St Kilda he has never emphatically ruled out a return to the area where he was raised.
That equivocation gave the talk some credibility, but yesterday he slammed the door shut on talk he would walk out on the Saints.
"It is a bit frustrating to be honest. I feel like I have answered these questions for the last eight years," he said.
"Ever since I came down (from the Gold Coast) there was all this talk about going to Brisbane and it was basically seen as a formality I would turn around and go home after a couple of years, and I re-signed and then the same things happened last year and I re-signed again.
"So it’s come up three or four times when I have been out of contract and every time it’s been a matter of putting pen to paper and there hasn’t been the thought of ever leaving St Kilda."
"So I am not too sure what else I have to do to prove to people my loyalty to St Kilda.
"No doubt these rumours will persist for the next three years but I don’t take too much notice of them."
Riewoldt said he had never seriously considered leaving, so great was his focus on winning St Kilda’s second flag.
"All my focus is on St Kilda and I won’t rest until they win a premiership and that’s what I am about.
"At this stage it’s just complete pie in the sky.
"Whatever happens down the track is going to happen but it would take something pretty drastic for me to want to leave St Kilda. It’s my home and I love playing there."
Riewoldt was appointed sole captain a fortnight ago after winning his fourth best-and-fairest in seven years at the club.
But at just 28 by 2011 he would be a compulsive package for a new franchise desperate for big-name players to lure supporters.
