LUKE Dunstan opened the No. 7 locker for the first time when he saw the note staring back at him.

If inheriting Lenny Hayes’ famed number wasn’t enough to overwhelm St Kilda’s bull-at-a-gate teenager, the words waiting for him on the first day of pre-season last week almost certainly did.

Hayes, Dunstan’s mentor last season, had snuck in to leave a parting message.

“I hope it’s as good to you as it was to me. Give ‘em hell”, Hayes wrote.

Dunstan, one of 20 young Saints to commit to the club as part of its re-signing ‘Future Fest’, yesterday said he was ready to do his old teammate proud.

“To be given the No. 7 was really special and the more days that pass the more it sinks in,” Dunstan said.

“To move into the locker in the first week back has been pretty big as well. The little note he left, that’s something I hold pretty close.”

Dunstan’s exceptional debut season (16 games, nine goals and a Rising Star nomination) ended a month early when he had surgery to stabilise his right shoulder.

media_camera Recently re-signed Saints (from left) Mav Weller, Eli Templeton, Blake Acres, Spencer White, Jack Billings, Luke Dunstan and Jack Newnes meet at St Kilda’s Luna Park. Picture: Janine Eastgate

He travelled with the team for its final round game at Adelaide Oval as normal, but wondered why he was then told to wear slacks and a club polo.

That much became obvious when Hayes made his farewell speech after the game, presenting his number to the Saints’ contested ball apprentice. It was the exclamation mark on a friendship that blossomed during the 2014 season.

“They set up the buddy system and we got put together because we were sort of playing similar positions and it started from there,” Dunstan said.

“To get that opportunity I just wanted to feed off him as much as I could.”

And he did, with Dunstan’s rugged approach blossoming under the old master.

“I think I’ve probably learned a bit more about myself and the type of player I need to be,” he said.

“Learning from Lenny and those sort of guys, if you’re not tough, well, I don’t think you survive.”

Dunstan’s shoulder is healing well. He won’t take part in controlled contact work until a week before Christmas, but will travel on the Saints’ emerging leaders camp in Canberra this weekend and the pre-season camp in New Zealand.

He’s also benefiting from a discovery about six months ago that he is wheat intolerant after putting on too much weight and constantly feeling sluggish.

A revised diet excluding breads and pasta has seen him drop to a leaner and more explosive 82kg, as well as cop some ribbing from teammates.

They’re tight, the young Saints, something Dunstan believes will become one of the club’s greatest strengths in the years to come.

“We’re all pretty close and played against each other coming through the state carnivals and all that sort of stuff,” he said.

“The club has been pretty clear in what they want the plan to be and we’ve got full belief in that and can already see the improvement after the first week back at training back.

“We’re building something special I think.”