LUKE Ball's assessment of his achievements at St Kilda have never seemed as high as the benchmark the industry set for him early on. The young captain reportedly said as much when he first met his new coach.

Others at Moorabbin recall that Ross Lyon thought it significant when Ball's self-analysis suggested that he didn't consider he had yet achieved anything much as a footballer, which says plenty about the player's humility as well as his football dreams. Clearly, those dreams are lying frustratingly and mysteriously out of reach. When Lyon met Ball, the midfielder was just 22 and had completed a season as the Saints' on-field leader, a season plagued by the threat of osteitis pubis, a condition he brought with him to the club.

But Ball also had won a best and fairest aged 21, finished runner-up in the club championship the previous season and won All-Australian selection. When he completed most of the 2007 pre-season and came through unscathed, Lyon certainly thought enough of Ball to endorse the playing group's selection of him as co-captain.

Now, as St Kilda's season lies suspended between relative success and failure — a loss tonight to the resurgent Adelaide at Telstra Dome almost certainly would rule the finals out completely — Ball's own story seems almost symbolic of the club's disappointing year.

While Lyon again insisted yesterday that his young captain was not playing hurt, the truth is that the question marks over Ball's injury and rehabilitation management are endemic to the question marks hanging over the club's medical team — a team that has been questioned not only by the coach but also by senior players including, on Channel Nine's The Footy Show, Aaron Hamill.

Lyon, who pointed out that the Saints had had four strength and conditioning chiefs over the past five seasons (Peter Mulkearns replaced Craig Starcevich at the start of the 2007 season), said the lack of consistency in preparation "had stunted the players' basic conditioning".

Continuing tension with the club's medical team has continued this season, with the coaching staff continually frustrated by injuries occurring or worsening during the week. A big review is taking place, overseen by St Kilda Brownlow medallist Ross Smith, who in turn has enlisted former Brisbane physiotherapist Peter Stanton. Smith, who is heading the Saints' sports innovations committee, updated club president Rod Butterss at ameeting yesterday and clearly a restructure and perhaps personnel changes will occur in the forthcoming months.

Just as St Kilda's game style has been more defensive formost of 2007, so has Ball's role changed. In the past three weeks, he has tagged the opposition's most effective midfielders of the moment (Daniel Kerr, Nathan Foley and Scott Burns) and, according to Lyon, done amore than serviceable job.

And just as injuries have crippled St Kilda's season, Ball's received an almighty crash, in round one, courtesy of Melbourne's Matthew Whelan, yet another knock to the head, which frighteningly gave him some late diagnosed swelling of the brain. The impact of that hit, according to Lyon, had an effect on the player not appreciated by the football public.

"I just think people underestimated that high hit," said Lyon simply, when first asked about Ball's form. But he added: "Luke Ball isn't injured and he hasn't got osteitis pubis. Not everyone's thrilled with the way he is playing at the moment, but I think the scrutiny is out of proportion to where he is at with his playing.

"I think he overachieved at an early age. When you look back to 2005, he was averaging 22 possessions, not 40. I couldn't tell youmuch about comparisons between now and then because I was coaching another team. When we played St Kilda, we weren't concentrating on Luke Ball, we concentrated on Robert Harvey.
 
"Look, he's not at the top of his footy but he's had a solid year. I'm not going to lie to you and say he's in scintillating form.Would we love him to
return to some scintillating form? Of course we all would."

Ball, articulate and professional though he is, rarely grants newspaper interviews and refused to discuss the controversial issue of his disappointing form with The Age this week. Lyon stressed that it was not the negative attention that would be plaguing Ball mentally but the standards he set himself and was not reaching.

In a rare pre-season interview, Ball's comments provided some key to the fragile nature of his long struggle with groin and stomach ailments, along with hismental doubts and the responsibility weighing upon him. "I felt like it wasn't bad enough to sit out," he said of his injury problems in 2006. "I wanted to get out there, albeit not at 100 per cent, to try to contribute in that role I had been voted into."

Back in February, Ball also downplayed his prospects for 2007: "I'm pretty good . . . but I'm mindful of the fact I said I was pretty good going into the season last year, too.

"The major difference this year is I've got the groin symptoms under control, but I've also been able to do a fair bitmore work. That probably wasn't the case last year.

"Probably as soon as I slacken off and forget about it for a while and think that I've got it under control, it might flare up again."

There is some evidence to suggest that Ball's apparent lack of fitness relates to the fact that the club wrapped him in cotton wool for too long in the early part of the season proper. Lyon denied this, saying that it was customary for any player with groin problems to spend at least the first training session of the week on the running track.

Another version is that about a month ago, a decision was taken that if Ball was insisting he had no injury and the medical team insisted the same,
then there was no reason why he shouldn't be taking a bigger role in full-scale training.

In other words, the Saints' medical team had been too conservative with Ball and his fitness had been affected as a result. Either way, anyone who saw Ball wince as he struggled to kick the ball 40 metres against Collingwood six days ago had to wonder about his groin.

"What I want to do," insisted Lyon, "is try to demystify the facts surrounding Luke Ball. I also want to see my players portrayed to the best of their ability. I think he's a work in progress. I don't think we can say just yet, at 23 years of age, that he will be a Michael Voss by the time he's 28.

"You couldn't question his tackling or any of the defensive side of his game.

"He needs to work on applying that speed to the offensive side of his game. Anthony Rock (assistant coach) and I have spoken to him about that.

"The players voted at the start of the year on the characteristics they wanted the club to stand for, and they voted for Luke Ball because of his character, his leadership. He's got a great intellect and he knows what he has to do to get his game to the next level."