St Kilda eye Auckland fixtures

St Kilda chief executive Matt Finnis says the club would like to take matches to New Zealand again from 2018.

St Kilda want to return AFL games to New Zealand after abandoning their Wellington experiment last year.

The Saints will reportedly hold talks with government, tourism and stadium officials from Auckland later this month, with the view to take one regular season match and one pre-season fixture to the city from 2018.

The club will look to make use of a proposed new 23,000-seat oval stadium, with club director Liz Dawson also sitting on the board of Cricket New Zealand who are pushing for the ground.

"We'd like to think that can happen, assuming the stadium redevelopment proposal is successful," St Kilda chief executive Matt Finnis said.

"Auckland remains the commercial centre of New Zealand with AFL New Zealand based there and we'd have to really ramp up our development work in that area if this proposal is successful."

The Saints took the first AFL match to be played for premiership points to New Zealand when they hosted Sydney on Anzac Day 2013 in Wellington, but cancelled the plans after crowds dropped by 10,000 in 2015 when they lost to Carlton.


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Source: AAP


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