TO TAG or not to tag.
That was the question facing Brisbane coach Chris Fagan on Saturday afternoon as the Lions took on St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.
The reigning premier began the match with a hard tag on Saints superstar Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, only to ditch it in the second half, in a move that Fagan felt benefited his team.
SAINTS v LIONS Full match coverage and stats
"First half it was Jarrod (Berry). I thought Nasiah had a fair bit of the ball in the first half, but it wasn't overly effective," Fagan said post-match.
"We just decided at half-time to free our mids up a little bit. Josh Dunkley went to Nasiah at stoppage but outside of that we didn't worry too much about him. I think we played better as a result of that to some degree.
"You've got to give tagging him a fair bit of consideration because he's a damaging and fantastic player. I thought when we just got in there and went after the ball ourselves in that second half I felt like that really helped."
The Lions were down by eight points at the main break before a huge second half saw them notch their first win of the season.
Dual Norm Smith Medallist Will Ashcroft was instrumental to his side's 33-point win, the young star finishing with 16 disposals in a massive final quarter that helped the Lions kick the last six goals of the game.
Fagan admitted that he had a word with Ashcroft at three-quarter time, sparking his midfielder to lift when the game was in the balance.
"He'd probably had a bit of a quiet game up until that point in time. Even his first couple of weeks he'd been a bit quiet by Will's standards," Fagan said.
"I had to give him a little bit of a poke at three-quarter time, I said 'Mate it's about time you got going'. He said to me after the game 'Did I get going?' and I said 'You did mate. Thanks for that'."
St Kilda coach Ross Lyon labelled Brisbane as the "benchmark" of the competition as the Saints slipped to a 1-3 start to their season.
"Challenging day against a pretty good team," Lyon said.
"I thought we were right in it at three-quarter time, did a lot right, and then they overwhelmed us in the end.
"In the end I felt their midfield took the game off us a bit ... they were efficient, they made us pay.
"They're the benchmark over the last two years, with backs to the wall 0-2.
"Typically over the last few years we haven't been at that level of competition with them and they've overwhelmed us early, so yeah there'll be some really good learnings.
"Their midfield in the end, like (Will) Ashcroft got away in the last quarter with 16 (disposals), we hadn't seen that all day, but he got to work."
Brisbane has a short turnaround before its next match, hosting Collingwood on Thursday night at the Gabba.
The Lions will be without defender Noah Answerth who left the ground with concussion in the third quarter and Darcy Gardiner, who injured his shoulder in a huge bump at the start of the final term.
"Noah was a concussion that was a nasty one. We love the speccy marks and it was a great mark and he obviously never meant to knee Noah in the head, but that's the problem with the speccy, isn't it?," Fagan said.
"I think Darcy's shoulder injury is quite significant so I don't expect to have him on Thursday. He might be out for a fair while."
St Kilda also lost Cooper Sharman to concussion and will assess his availability following the Saints' bye next weekend.