St Kilda's Jack Steele joins Canberra's AFL elite

His third-place finish in the Brownlow Medal on Sunday night made him the highest-placed Canberran since James Hird won it in 1996.

Not only that, Alex Jesaulenko's the only other footballer from the capital to have finished in the top three of the best-and-fairest award - finishing third in 1967 and '70.

While Steele (20 votes) was well back from Brownlow Medallist Lachie Neale (31), it was still a brilliant season for the Belconnen junior.

Not only was he named All Australian, but he also took out the Saints' best-and-fairest last week.

"That's actually made me smile. That's quite funny. Even as a kid growing up in Canberra you hear those names, James Hird especially, and they were stars of the game," Steele said.

"It's amazing to think kids would think that of my name now. That's crazy hearing you say that. What an honour."

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The only downside to his 2020 campaign was St Kilda released his good mate and fellow Canberran Logan Austin at the end of the season.

After three-and-a-half months on the Sunshine Coast, Steele returned to Canberra on Monday to spend some time with family and friends.

But it won't be long before his sights are set on helping the Saints improve on this year's semi-finals finish.

They were sixth at the end of the regular season and beat the Western Bulldogs to progress to the second week of AFL finals.

He's convinced they're heading towards something special.

"I definitely didn't think I'd finish that high in the count," Steele said.

"I wasn't too nervous going into the night. I was pretty confident Lachie Neale would do what he did, but I spose it's really good recognition for the season I had and the season the Saints had as a whole.

"We took a big step in the right direction and we're building something special. It was just a nice mark of recognition."

Steele grew up playing footy with Austin, with the former heading to the GWS Giants and the latter to Port Adelaide after the 2014 AFL draft.

But a few years later the pair ended up at the Saints, although Logan was hampered by shoulder injuries.

Steele expected his mate to take some time off before looking for the next chapter in his football career.

"He got delisted unfortunately. It's tough because I've been mates with him for a long part of my life," he said.

"He's always been around, but I spose sometimes it has to come to an end and he probably had a difficult run with injuries and never got a decent crack at playing footy.

"These things happen, but he'll bounce back. I know he's still keen to play footy."

Steele opened up on how tough a year it's been for everyone living inside the AFL bubble - although he wasn't complaining too much having spent nearly four months at Noosa.

The Saints headed north thinking they'd only be out of Victoria for five weeks, but it's only now in AFL grand final week that they're heading home.

He said one of the toughest things was never having a break from football - you were in and around your teammates and the coaching staff all day, every day.

"Probably living in a resort for three-and-a-half months - especially when you only thought you'd be away for five weeks and you end up spending the rest of the season up there," Steele said.

"That was definitely stressful at times. Blokes got sick of each other.

"It was tough seeing the same people every day and you never really got that break from football like you do in a normal season where you can do your own thing away from the club.

"But then again we were in Noosa, which is one of the nicest parts of Australia, so can't complain about that too much.

"Just the whole process of the COVID protocols and making sure you're doing the right thing.

"It felt like we always had so much responsibility not to do a breach, which was good the Saints were one of the only clubs that never did.

"Just all round a pretty unique and stressful year, but I'm glad to see it coming to an end.

"Would've liked to go a bit deeper into the finals, but I think we're building in the right direction."