St Kilda star Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera stuffed the stat sheet in the Saints' loss to the Bulldogs on Sunday, with his recent move back to half-back helping the cause. But is that his most impactful position?
Speaking on the Six Points AFL podcast, Mark Stevens and Daniel Harford have questioned whether the Saints are using their star correctly.
"I tell you what is hard to ignore, Nas's performance for the Saints yesterday against your Bulldogs, 44 disposals, 900 metres gained. He was a dominant force for the Saints, but sadly, without him, there is not too much else going on," Harford said.
There is no doubt in Nasiah's ability to impact games and impact the scoreboard, but on the weekend, he only recorded five inside 50s and six score involvements from half-back.
“What did it achieve in the end? A lot of it was behind the ball. He got one softish free-kick, then he kicked a goal," Stevens said.
"Do you question the tactics? There was a lot of chip and sharing the ball around. Windhager got plenty of it, if you look at the stat sheet, Saints you think would have won the game, but a lot of it was sort of behind it, Wilkie had 30-odd touches.
"So you don't want that. It's an imbalance, should they have pushed Nas forward? There's no point having 40 plus if this is happening.
“They need to get more out of him, and obviously, if your key forward is Sharman, and that's all you've got, you need some reinforcements.”
Harford believes Nasiah can still impact the game from the back half, and the Saints' issues may be more from their forward-line personnel.
“Well he's one of those players, I love watching him play, and yesterday, he was electric, he's a one-two player, he gives the ball to someone, and then he receives the next handball, going at real speed, he plays the game in fast motion, and I love watching him play, and what that does is create movement up the field," he said.
“Nas takes the game on, and he just changes the way the game is played, which creates opportunity more often than not. His teammates respond first, so they get good looks.
"61 inside 50s they got, so it's not necessarily, I get your point, you want Nas centre-forward kicking the ball in or being the receiving target, rather than the guy coming out of defensive 50, I get that.
"But I think it's more about the setup forward of the footy, for the Saints, and the personnel they have in that area of the ground, that's just not capable of hitting the scoreboard consistently enough against teams that defend well."
The Saints now have fallen to 12th on the ladder, with six wins and nine loses heading into their bye in round 16.
