Not for the first time, Nick Riewoldt saw two large opponents blocking his way.

This time, they weren't on-field.

They were the elephants in the room at St Kilda's 2007 best and fairest presentation.

One was the potential shutting of the club's premiership window after an AFL season in which the Saints missed the finals for the first time in four years.

The other was the messy boardroom struggle in which Greg Westaway had ousted Rod Butterss as club president a week earlier.

Riewoldt used his best and fairest-winning presentation speech to tackle both head-on.

"You've talked the talk, now it's time to deliver on what you've said," Riewoldt told Westaway and his board, saying they needed to spend more money urgently on an under-resourced football department.

Then he turned his attention to his teammates.

"We've really come to a fork in the road. We can go one of two ways - we can be a competitive football team and hover around the mark, or we can go down the road to a premiership.

"Too often we let our mateship get in the way of the truth and it gets in the way of us doing and saying the things we need to do and say to win a premiership.

"Until we have everyone asking themselves honestly the question 'am I doing enough' and challenging each other on it, then we're not going to achieve what we want to achieve."

There's never been any doubt about Riewoldt the player.

If there was any doubt about Riewoldt the leader, it was dispelled there and then.

Three months later, he was named sole captain for the 2008 season.

Since then, St Kilda have been preliminary finalists and twice grand finalists.

A strong-marking, goalkicking key forward with phenomenal endurance and courage, he is one St Kilda player who can turn a game off his own boot.

Look no further than last week's preliminary final win over the Western Bulldogs in which Riewoldt reversed the Saints' halftime deficit, single-handedly breaking the match open in the third quarter on the way to another best-on-ground performance.

Riewoldt's strength is that he hits the ball at full pace on any of his multiple gut-busting leads.

Stopping him is like trying to slow a fast car by hand.

Use one defender, and he's most likely to become Riewoldt's speed bump.

Multiple, well-positioned defenders are usually the only way to obstruct his course and limit his effectiveness.

So good is Riewoldt, that even outnumbering him isn't always a guarantee of success.

Born in Tasmania, Riewoldt grew up on Queensland's Gold Coast and came to the Saints only thanks to an AFL rule change which limited Brisbane's recruiting zone from 100km to 50km.

That excluded the Gold Coast and Riewoldt, and opened the way for the Saints to take the raw, blond-headed kid at No.1 in the 2000 national draft.

Now 27, he has blossomed into all St Kilda hoped he would be. Perhaps even more.

But while the five-time club best and fairest is all about leading by example, he speaks enthusiastically about "Saints footy" - the buzz phrase all at the club use to explain their team-oriented, smothering style of shutdown football.

"We've got a pretty strong set of values we like to live by," says Riewoldt.

"We're not about any individuals.

"It's just about the guys who are in the team playing their role and we know that if we do that, regardless of who's out, we're going to be competitive."

Team focus is all well and good.

But for St Kilda to deliver the premiership Riewoldt wondered aloud about three years ago, the man himself will have to fire.

He has booted 38 goals in the 14 finals he's played in, including two three-goal hauls in this year's finals.

Held to just one in last season's grand final by Geelong's Harry Taylor, the Saints couldn't find a way to win.

If St Kilda are to break their 44-year flag drought, nothing is surer than that Riewoldt will need to lead from the front against Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday.

Just as he did at that club function three years ago.

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