2025 Roundabout, #3
St Kilda's ball movement and Brisbane's commitment to the bit.
Three rounds in, and some soap opera-worthy storylines are already emerging in the young AFL season. Hawthorn, to the chagrin of footy fans whose formative years were shaped by the Clarkson dynasty, slung some well-placed stones to down the Giants and underline their Premiership credentials. A few thousand kilometres away, the Lions asserted their dominance after half-time to beat the Cats at a greasy Gabba. Winning your first three games, including against two of last year’s preliminary finalists, while still playing a fair way below your best is a pretty bullish sign. Carlton and Melbourne officially inherited the Crisis Club baton from Essendon, Adelaide eventually brushed off a spirited – and, to this author’s eyes, rapidly improving – North Melbourne, and Fremantle dispatched West Coast in the Derby.
But this week, as Ross Lyon marked 50 games of his second stint at Moorabbin, I wanted to unpack how the Saints use possession as both a sword and a shield, and the importance of their two outstanding back-half conductors, Jack Sinclair and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera.
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Ross Lyon adapts to the times
Here are some stats from St Kilda’s game against Richmond: it was their highest score since Round 4, 2022. It was their highest score against Richmond since 2017. And it was their biggest win for almost 10 years – since Round 14, 2015.
Normally, an 82-point win against a callow Richmond that, despite their boilover defeat of Carlton in Round 1, almost everyone is still tipping to finish bottom, wouldn’t be worth writing about. However, the performance felt like a punctuation mark on an impressive run of recent form that’s seen the Saints win 10 of their last 15 games.
You probably have a certain perception, based on several years of evidence, of how Ross Lyon sets up his teams to play footy: stodgy, attritional, low-scoring. But that’s not really the case anymore. Certainly, a solid defence remains a feature of a Ross Lyon-coached side. But it’s no longer the main show in town. Instead, what’s really popped has been the way they move the ball and punish opposition turnovers. No side in the AFL has scored more points from turnover in the last 10 games than St Kilda. Yes, it’s a small sample that includes two games against Richmond and a game against West Coast. But it’s arguably offset by a 14-goal defeat to Brisbane in Round 21 last season and a 10-goal loss to Adelaide in their first outing this year.
List builds constrain game plans. In slightly simpler terms: to maximise the potential of your list, you need to play the style of footy that your players are best suited to. That’s what Lyon has done. Consider what he was confronted with when he returned to Moorabbin for his second stint: an average midfield, a promising but underperforming forward line, quality key backs, and… excellent half-back flankers in Jack Sinclair and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera. Furthermore, I suspect Lyon knew, even in late 2022, that the game was trending away from contests and towards transition. The game plan he’s implemented is a great example of why the correlation between winning contests and winning games of footy has never been weaker than it is today.
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An important fact which has shaped St Kilda’s style since Lyon’s return is his side’s clearance weakness. In 2023, when they finished sixth, they ranked 15th for clearance differential. Last season, although the Saints slid down the ladder, their clearance differential numbers rose slightly to 10th. That weakness – partly determined by personnel, partly by tactics – creates an important flow-on effect: the Saints often begin possession chains in their back half. They must be good with the ball. And, thanks principally to the influence of Jack Sinclair and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, they are. Several teams have a designated kicker from the back half; the guy whose reliable hands the coach, his teammates and his supporters will always want the ball in because they can open up high value parts of the ground with their kicking. Think Zorko, Newman, Blakey, Houston. The Saints are one of the few sides lucky enough to have two. Sinclair and Wanganeen-Milera are, aside from Lyon himself, the main architects of St Kilda’s kick/mark-heavy style. Last year, only Brisbane kicked the ball more times per game, and only the Lions and Port Adelaide kicked the ball with a greater share of their disposals.
The presence of Wanganeen-Milera and Sinclair (and other capable kicks, like an in-form Brad Hill) allows the Saints to use the ball offensively and defensively in interesting ways. Although their kicking skills from the back half allow them to change lanes in order to advance through opposition defensive zones, they’re also perfectly content to move the ball upfield via the wings, where it’s easier to turn possible turnovers into stoppages. At this same time last season, I wrote about the effectiveness of St Kilda’s inside-50 kicking from wide positions against Collingwood. Being a good kicking team also allows the Saints to defend with the ball and establish optimal defensive spacing to guard against turnovers. The through-line here is control: the Saints make use of kick-mark sequences to assert and maintain control of possession and tempo. A couple of graphs tell the story:
The correlation between both St Kilda’s ratio of marks to ground balls (a useful proxy for “control”) and their mark differential (their marks minus opposition marks) is striking. In their last 50 games, the Saints have won just six of the 18 games in which they’ve registered more ground ball gets than marks (and two of those victories were by eight points against West Coast and North Melbourne). Similarly, they have won just eight of the 23 games since the beginning of 2023 where they’ve taken fewer marks than their opposition. It’s stark. When the Saints take more marks than their opponents, they’re a top-four team. When they don’t, they’re a bottom-four team. And it suggests that, although it’s easier said than done, the blueprint to nullify the Saints is fairly clear: deny them the ball and force them to play the game on the ground, not in the air. That’s what the Crows did in Round 1, and what the Cats couldn’t do enough in Round 2.
Perhaps this next part is slightly redundant, but if the correlation between St Kilda’s ability to control games and win games is strong, then so is their ability to control the game through marking and score heavily from turnover.
The AFL average for points from turnover was 47.1 in 2024 and 47.5 in 2023 (it’s currently 48.7 this season, but still off a fairly small sample size). Since Lyon’s return to the side, St Kilda have gone 18-7 in the 25 games where they’ve scored more than AFL average from turnover. They have become one of the sternest tests of a side’s ability to maintain possession, and the quality of their defensive structures when they lose it.
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Many, perhaps most sides like to use their best kicks higher up the ground to maximise scoring potential. Think Jordan Dawson, Chad Warner, and the army of high half-forwards that are coming to dominate the “meta”. Sinclair and Wanganeen-Milera are important defensive players who instigate and continue possession chains, but very rarely finish them (Sinclair averages 0.3 goals per game, Wanganeen-Milera 0.1). But they are vital: Sinclair was the eighth-highest rated player in the AFL in 2023 and the 21st-highest last season. It’s a terrible cliche, but he’d surely be talked about more if he played for a more glamorous club. Wanganeen-Milera, meanwhile, is coming from further back, but his growth curve is clear: he was the 186th-ranked player in the AFL in 2023 (just his second year), 95th in 2024, and so far he’s the 75th-ranked player in 2025. He’s not just integral to how the Saints play – because of the speculation about his future, integral to the club’s medium-term future. And I reckon his role is subtly shifting. The chart below records his disposals in the 25 games he’s played since the beginning of last season, and where they’re happening.
An admission: it was my vague sense that Wanganeen-Milera was getting the ball in more advanced areas against both the Cats and Tigers that actually prompted this piece in the first place. I didn’t even know the Richmond game marked 50 games of Ross Lyon’s second stint until I crunched some numbers – although it is a convenient milestone.
The Saints have won just seven of the 16 games since the start of 2024 where Wanganeen-Milera has recorded more than 70 percent of his disposals in the back half – but six of the nine where he had fewer than 70 percent of them there. Perhaps it’s nothing, just fluky variation. Or perhaps it means that he’s pinned back closer to his own goal against better opposition sides. But I think there’s some evidence of a slight tweak to his role, should one care to look: in Round 23 last season, Wanganeen-Milera recorded 89 percent of his disposals in the back half as the Saints beat Geelong by three goals. In Round 2 this season – just three games later – his split was 40/60 between back half and front half. In fact, in all three of St Kilda’s games in 2025, more than a third of Wanganeen-Milera’s disposals have come in the forward half. Clearly, there are risks to altering such an important role. But the benefits seem just as tantalising: he’s a beautiful mover and the potential of his kicking inside 50 is vast. There’s one other small thing which has me convinced that what we’re seeing is more than just variance: Wanganeen-Milera has attended centre bounces in three of St Kilda’s last nine games, after having previously attended just one in his entire career prior to that.
Based on his ability to have constructed a game plan which maximises the strengths of his list and the output of his best players, I think Ross Lyon deserves an opportunity with this side when they’ve narrowed the talent deficit to the best sides in the competition.
A final thought: positional value is something people like me often say to denigrate the importance of rucks. But I wonder if, as the distribution of scoring continues to shift away from stoppages and towards punishing turnovers, our perception of which roles on the footy field are the most important might begin to shift with it. That doesn’t mean powerful mid-forwards will stop being the most sought-after archetype in the game. But I think it means that clubs’ (and, eventually, the media’s) perceptions of the importance of players like Wanganeen-Milera, who can instigate damaging back-half moves and are also mobile enough to get themselves involved multiple times in long possession chains, is shifting.
Actually, I lied: one more thought in this section. Max King hasn’t played an AFL game since a two-point loss to Port Adelaide in Round 16. Since then, the Saints have played 11 games, winning eight. This doesn’t mean that Max King, or his contract, or anything like that is a problem. I think the more appropriate conclusion, on a small sample size, is that his reintroduction to the side could further enhance St Kilda’s scoring power – provided the players further up the field don’t succumb to the temptation to kick it on top of his head if they don’t immediately see a better option. Patience is a virtue.
The Lions do it their way
From one side which likes to control games by foot, to another.
20. 10. 41. 22. That’s the number of marks Brisbane took in each quarter of their game against Geelong on Saturday night.
53. 46. 74. 59. That’s the number of kicks Brisbane had in each quarter of their game against Geelong on Saturday night.
Chris Fagan’s side’s comeback – after a first half that was extremely reminiscent of the 26-point loss to Geelong at a sodden Gabba in Round 6 last year – was a testament to their ability to reassert control in adversarial conditions. Geelong played the first half beautifully, constantly forcing stoppages (especially boundary throw-ins), seeking chaos, creating turnovers, and out-competing the Lions. But the reigning Premiers seized back the initiative by going back to the method that had served them so well: denying their opposition the ball, and punching holes in even the best defensive zones with their elite foot skills.
In comments made to Alastair Lynch immediately after the final siren, Dayne Zorko alluded to the side having prepared for a wet-weather game (where gaining territory and scoring from the forward half would be paramount) and, as a result, conceding too many intercepts and defending too “shallow”. But the conditions slightly improved, the Lions regained their nerve, and they recorded a highly impressive win to go 3-0 in their Premiership defence – and, in the process, demonstrated that it’s important for sides to retain trust in the methods that have proven viable over long periods of time.
Semi-fun facts and figures:
Port Adelaide’s 92 contested possessions against Essendon wasn’t just their worst return since 2008 – it was the lowest number that any side has registered in a decade. Captain Connor Rozee suffered under a hard tag and could only manage three contested possessions, ultimately registering the seventh-lowest rated game of his career.
Two very sobering stats for Melbourne fans:
The first one comes courtesy of Andrew Whelan, keeper of the footy stats bible, Wheelo Ratings. The AFL average for converting first possession into a clearance this season is 75 percent. Melbourne are currently converting just 65 percent of first possessions into clearances, 18th in the AFL (they converted at 72 percent in 2024, also 18th). Melbourne’s opponents, meanwhile, are converting a league-high 85 percent of their first possessions into clearances (the 2024 figure – 79 percent – was also a league high).
The second comes from @azla_ds on Twitter: Melbourne have lost scores from centre bounce by 20+ points just three times since 2021 – but twice in the last two games. Against North, they conceded the fifth-most points from centre bounce of any side since 2021. And against Gold Coast, Melbourne could only convert four of their eight centre bounce clearances into inside-50s. Their opponents went 14 from 16. The Dees might have love this year. But three rounds in, they don’t have a functioning midfield.
From Jake Michaels at ESPN: 54 currently-listed AFL players have registered 40 or more disposals in a senior game. On the podium stand Jack Macrae (who’s managed the feat 12 times), Lachie Neale (13) and Tom Mitchell, who’s had 40 or more a frankly silly 20 times across his career.
And because I couldn’t leave my fellow Thilthorpe heads: according to Champion Data, the hulking Adelaide forward is the highest-rated player in the AFL since Round 21, last season. He’s arrived.
‘Til next week!