“Petty and immature”: Brown slams St Kilda after telling Battle not to attend best and fairest

Campbell Brown has called out St Kilda for telling departing free agent Josh Battle not to attend Monday night’s Trevor Barker Award.

Battle is set to depart the Saints this off-season having committed to Hawthorn as an unrestricted free agent.

That decision seemingly culminated in the club barring him from attending the best and fairest, with SEN’s Sam Edmund reporting that he was told not to come to the night, while he also wasn’t mentioned by club President Andrew Bassat, coach Ross Lyon or captain Jack Steele despite finishing third.

Brown called the decision immature as he thought Battle deserved to be recognised after his seven years of service and 123 games in red, white, and black.

“We're in a modern world where players are moving around all the time,” Brown told SENTrack.

“While they would have desperately loved to have kept Josh Battle who's been a great player at St Kilda in particular this year coming third in the best and fairest, I think it's very immature of a footy club to uninvite a player (to the award night).

“He's been there seven seasons, he's played 123 games of footy, and he was one of their leaders down back.

“Yes, he's made the personal decision to leave clubs, but you honour the player, you respect the fact that he's put in blood, sweat and tears over a long period of time.

“He's had a bloody good year to run third in the best and fairest and I think for a President, coach and captain to refuse to acknowledge him on stage is pretty ordinary.”

Even if Battle’s decision to depart wasn’t received well by St Kilda for whatever reason, Brown thinks the club should have taken the higher ground instead of resorting to the ‘petty’ decision to rescind his invite to the awards night.

“I can understand they'd be desperately disappointed to lose him because he's a really good player and he's in the prime of his career, but he's made a decision for whatever reason to go to Hawthorn,” Brown said.

“But he's still been a really good servant for a significant amount of time, this is not a guy that's leaving after one or two years, he was there seven years and over 120 games.

“You need to acknowledge the fact that he ran third in their best and fairest.

“Give him a bit of a farewell, I'm sure the supporters would have liked to have seen him … it's petty and it's immature in this professional world of sport where people are moving around a lot, I didn’t like it at all.”

According to reports, Battle accepted less money to move to Hawthorn instead of remaining with St Kilda with his free agency call.