Ross Lyon isn’t panicking over the growing speculation around Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera’s future; in fact, he thinks the entire situation is “healthy”.
The 22-year-old Saint is in the midst of a career-best season and has reportedly attracted serious interest from both Adelaide clubs, who are said to be circling in hopes of luring the Glenelg product back to South Australia.
Out of contract at the end of the season, Wanganeen-Milera’s next move is already a major talking point across the league.
But Lyon has no plans to get drawn into what he sees as an overblown weekly saga.
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‘Opinion doesn’t become fact, does it?’
“All I do is coach him,” Lyon said. “He’s playing pretty good footy.
“I said ‘How about 1,000 metres gained?’ last week, he said ‘No worries, coach’. He delivered 920 and said, ‘They missed me on a couple of handballs’. We’ll try and get the 1000 metres this week.”
Lyon said he was focused on supporting Wanganeen-Milera’s development rather than worrying about contract noise. “It’s healthy, I don’t want to get caught in that week-to-week narrative of ‘gettable’,” he added.
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“I see the headline ‘gettable’. But opinion doesn’t become fact, does it? At the minute, there’s a lot of opinions people are writing as fact. My (role) is just relationship and helping him become a great player.”
Wanganeen-Milera has polled MVP votes in eight of his 11 games this year, the third-most at St Kilda, highlighting just how influential he’s become in Lyon’s evolving side.
The Saints still have several contract decisions to make, with Marcus Windhager, Dougal Howard and Zak Jones among those yet to be signed for 2025. But Lyon, at least for now, isn’t rushing anything.