St Kilda coach Ross Lyon has described the situation surrounding the uncertain future of in-demand young gun Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera as "healthy", pouring cold water on some of the speculation surrounding the defender's future.
Wanganeen-Milera, who is midway through a career-best season in red, white and black, has garnered reported interest from Adelaide and Port Adelaide, who are keen to lure the 22-year-old back to his home state.
The Glenelg junior is off-contract this year and is said to be weighing up whether to re-sign at Moorabbin or explore his options elsewhere, with mouth-watering deals expected to be on the table from all interested parties.
His coach is just aiming to help him "become a great player" for the club and into the future, with Lyon giving little attention to the outside noise.
Questioned on Wanganeen-Milera's pending call, Lyon said reports surrounding the young Saints star should be taken as "opinions" instead of "facts".
"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.
"It's healthy, I don't want to get caught in that week-to-week narrative of 'gettable'. 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 ranks third for MVP votes at the Saints so far this year, polling in eight of his 11 appearances this year.
The Saints also have contract calls to make on Marcus Windhager, Dougal Howard, Zak Jones, Arie Schoenmaker, Liam Stocker and Jimmy Webster, among others, who are all unsigned for next year.
St Kilda have managed to retain Hunter Clark (2027), Hugo Garcia (2027), Angus Hastie (2027), Jack Higgins (2029) and Mitchito Owens (2029) to new deals this year.
