The 21-year-old starred for home club Leeton-Whitton in the short AFL Riverina Championship in 2020, and started last year in the SANFL reserves with Woodville-West Torrens.

But after kicking ten goals in effectively three-and-a-half games, the agile, high leaping forward was rewarded with a two year deal at the Saints after he was initially selected in the mid-season draft.

Coincidentally, an injury to Wagga product Howard allowed Sharman to come onto the field as a medical sub against Carlton, and he grabbed his chance from there.

Howard said Sharman's impact last year without a pre-season under his belt, and little time to work out how to compliment how his teammates play, means he can improve markedly again in 2022.

"Coops is flying. Coming in midway through last year and coming off no senior AFL footy yet, to have an impact in the last few games of the year was great," Howard said.

"I don't think I'd even heard his name before (he arrived at St Kilda), so I was shocked when I heard he was from Leeton. It's good to have another Riverina lad on the list.

"He just has to build on what he did show last year. it's his opportunity to step up again and show what he can do with a full pre season under his belt, training alongside (fellow forwards) Tim Membrey and Max King and building more chemistry there."

Sharman has always been a lean player who struggles to put on weight, but Howard believes he doesn't need to be bigger to establish himself in the AFL.

"He's probably put on a couple of kilos since he's been here, but one of his best attributes is how he moves," Howard said.

"He's quite a smooth mover and can run and jump at the footy, and take it at its point. That's something they'll want to keep with him, they don't want him too heavy."

After breaking their finals victory drought the year before, St Kilda were made to pay for a poor first half of the year and didn't play in September last year.

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They managed to turn things around with promising wins against strong opponents in the back end.

"It says a lot about Coops' character that when he first rocked up we were in Sydney in a hub, we had just come off a loss to the Swans and we went through some tough conversations of where we want to go as a club," Howard said.

"He's got a lot of talent and talent only gets you so far, but what we've seen of Coops he's got the work rate to go with it.

"We did show a lot of growth after the conversations we had, just about what we want to stand for as a group and what we value being a team first footy club, and being competitive week-in week-out.

"That was probably the most frustrating part about it, to win a few on the trot against the likes of Brisbane and Richmond and see we can put it together, we've just got to do it more consistently."

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