THE 2014 trade period has come to a close, and St Kilda is again well-poised to add a mix of precociously talented youngsters to its list ahead of the 2015 season.Despite over eight weeks of public conjecture, the Saints have elected to keep the first pick in November’s National Draft, notwithstanding an influx of offers throughout the trade period from four separate clubs.List Manager Ameet Bains told SAINTS.com.au in a special video cross on Thursday afternoon that the club is “very content” with picks 1,21,22,41,78,96 and 116.“Obviously we weren’t rapt to finish on the bottom of the ladder this year, but to select the best player in the country with pick one is obviously an exciting prospect for the recruiting team led by Tony Elshaug and for the club in general,” Bains said.“There were offers put to us that had multiple picks, so we looked at what we had at the time versus what we might bring in if we were to do a trade. In the end we felt that retaining pick one and going to the draft was the best thing to do by the club.”

VIDEO: #BainsLive

That's it for the trade period. We're looking forward to welcoming the best young player in the country into our club with pick one. (1/2) — St Kilda FC (@stkildafc) October 16, 2014

(2/2) Our position is very strong with picks 1, 21 and 22. We’re looking forward to the National Draft on November 27. — St Kilda FC (@stkildafc) October 16, 2014

A raft of player and draft picks swapped clubs just minutes and hours before the 2pm deadline, but despite the predictable speculation, the Saints were largely inactive in the latter stages of the trade period.“No new offers were put to us today, so we were left to contemplate some of the discussions we had yesterday,” Bains said.“Given that we didn’t trade pick one yesterday, we didn’t feel that our position changed. We’ve always said that it would need to be something very compelling to do the deal and in the end there was nothing at that level.”In fact, the Saints last meaningful act during the trade period was the Rhys Stanley deal that was lodged early on Wednesday afternoon.The Saints gave the Cats the tall forward and pick 60 in exchange for selection 21 - a deal that ignited plenty of debate on social media in the ensuing hours.“To do the club involving Rhys Stanley yesterday was obviously a good result for us in terms of our list management strategy.”“We are certainly grateful to the six years of service that Rhys gave us.”

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Throughout the trade period, which ran from October 6-16, Tim Membrey has been at the forefront of discussions following his public statement that he wanted to be a St Kilda player.Although a trade wasn’t completed, Bains assured Saints fans that the 188cm forward would be a Saint in 2015 via the pre-season draft instead.“We were very close to doing a deal with Sydney and we should say from the outset that Sydney were fantastic in trying to get a deal done with us,” he said.“However from our perspective… in doing a trade for Tim we would potentially compromise our fourth pick which is pick 41. Given that we can get Tim through the pre-season draft, we were mindful not to compromise our draft position.“We caught up with his manager Matt Bain after the 2pm deadline to re-confirm that we would take him in the pre-season draft.”

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Bains also forecast the unprecedented fan access continuing for Saints supporters ahead of the National Draft in six weeks, while the recruiting team will continue to do its due diligence in preparation for the biggest day in the AFL’s off-season.“Now it’s a matter of fine-tuning our draft order and coming to a consensus on where we see the players relative to the picks in the draft.“We’ll take you behind the scenes with some of our meetings and some of our thought process along the way. It’s really about now focusing on the draft and doing some final evaluations on players and where we see them.”