NASIAH Wanganeen-Milera felt all the noise vanish when he made his decision last August. He wasn't going anywhere. After months of speculation – and a long, ferocious chase from the two South Australian clubs – he was staying at the Saints.
The noise wasn't replaced with silence. The eruption was deafening, just a different genre of noise.
This time last year, Wanganeen-Milera was already one of the best Indigenous players in the AFL. But by the time he put pen to paper, the 23-year-old had elevated his status to one of the finest players across the entire competition.
First, he earned All-Australian selection for the first time at half-back, then collected a maiden Trevor Barker Award after two consecutive top-five placings, before a top-10 finish in the Brownlow Medal.
Everything changed in 2025. So how did Wanganeen-Milera handle the intense media gaze and carry the weight of a success-starved supporter base praying for him to stay?
"It was obviously a lot of noise. But you know, at the end of the day, footy is the best three hours of the week. When you're out there, you just feel so free, no stress, no worries from the world," Wanganeen-Milera told AFL.com.au at a fashion shoot for Men's Health last month.
"You know, I take myself back to my younger self when I was a little kid and how obsessed I was with footy and I just loved playing the game, so I think that held me in good stead.
"It didn't get me distracted. I had a good manager that looked after all that stuff for me, so I didn't have to worry. I had great family members who were there for me, you know they're only a call away if things are getting tough. And then I had 'Hilly' [Brad Hill] and some of the Indigenous players I'm pretty close with, if I needed to have a talk, I'd talk to them and let it all out. But yeah, last year was pretty special."
Wanganeen-Milera's decision to stay loyal to St Kilda, also known as Euro-Yroke throughout Sir Doug Nicholls Round, and lock in for two more years was a moment that generated not just an outpouring of relief and joy for those of the red, white and black persuasion, but was almost universally viewed as great for the soul of the sport.
"I felt like everyone was pretty happy, even like opposition fans," Wanganeen-Milera said. "I'd hear them say how happy they were for me to stay at St Kilda, which is strange. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty strange. And honestly, pretty crazy. It was pretty special as well."
Wanganeen-Milera has become a leader, not just at the Saits, but more importantly, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. At a time when the number of First Nations players in the AFL sits at just 62 across the 18 teams – the lowest figure in two decades – the proud Kokatha and Narungga man is now an idol to many.
When he was growing up in Adelaide, Wanganeen-Milera worshipped Cyril Rioli and Buddy Franklin. He loved the Jettas, both Leroy and Lewis. "Growing up I just wanted to be like them when I was older," he says. Now he is just like them, inspiring the next generation. It's why the superstar Saint believes Sir Doug Nicholls Round is so important.
"When I was a kid I used to just watch all the Indigenous players playing and I wanted to be like them when I was older. There's a lot of Indigenous kids out there that love football, who are obsessed with it, and you know, they come from disadvantages or whatever it may be, but I just hope to inspire them to get to where I am at the moment," he said.
"Everyone loves all the Indigenous kids. They love footy, they're obsessed with it. Everyone's dream when you're an Indigenous young kid is to play AFL. Obviously you put a lot of hard work, but yeah, it's pretty inspiring when you get there.
"Even when I go back to Adelaide and see all the little kids, they run around kicking the footy coming up to you. I sort of think, 'that was me once upon a time'. It's pretty cool."
Wanganeen-Milera and Kysaiah Pickett are two of the brightest stars in the game, but now there is another Pickett on the scene, capturing the attention of the nation by the week after rising from the SANFL reserves to pick No.12 in the Telstra AFL Draft last November.
"Latrelle's obviously exciting and I think Melbourne's ball movement, with him and Kozzy, it's pretty fun to watch," Wanganeen-Milera said. "You see them run and taking bounces on the wing. Latrelle's going to be a special player, he's already got the speed and skills. Obviously he's still got a long way to go, but he's already going to be special."
Latrelle Pickett grew up back in Port Lincoln wanting to be like Adelaide and Carlton great Eddie Betts. He used to go to the park and pretend to be the champion small forward. "I just loved Eddie Betts. Done it just like him from the pocket and stuff. I just used to go to the oval and just recreate his goals," he said.
Now the 20-year-old, who made his debut for the Demons in round one and has played the first nine games of the season under Steven King, is part of a fresh wave of Indigenous players showing what is possible when you put your head down.
"That's something I've always wanted to do," Pickett told AFL.com.au. "Obviously growing up, I wanted to be one of them, just inspiring the next generation and all the communities, I guess. I've always had someone to look up to. So yeah, I hope I'm doing that for the rest of the kids growing up."
Kozzy used to serve as motivation from afar, across the border, but now they share the same address. Latrelle's older cousin instilled confidence in him over the pre-season and has shown him how to handle the step up in demands at the highest level.
"He's had a huge impact. Last year before watching him, you know he's inspiring to everyone, especially me. And it was heaps good," he said. "But coming into the club, he just made me feel so comfortable straight away. And him taking me in, letting me stay at his house. I live with him, like basically underneath his wing, just telling me, do this, do that. It's been great."
TOBY Bedford grew up in two different worlds. He spent the first seven years of his life back in Fitzroy Crossing, 400km east of Broome and 2500km north of Perth. Then he moved to the Mornington Peninsula to live with his mum during primary school, but when she moved back to the remote Kimberley town in Western Australia, he stayed.
That's when Bedford moved to Melbourne Grammar and boarded at one of Australia's most prestigious schools from Year 7 to 12. Life in Victoria was drastically different to back home.
"When I first moved down here, obviously I was pretty young, so I can still remember a few little things, like my siblings kind of made fun of me a few stages there because I was the only one that was kept down a year because they couldn't really understand me," Bedford said.
"I spoke broken-down English, but in the Kimberleys, (we spoke) Kriol, I guess. The teachers couldn't really understand me, so I was kept down for a year, which worked out to be my actual right age group. That was probably one of the biggest shocks when I first got here.
"And then I guess just looking around, you know, everyone back home is quite dark-skinned and I was kind of, I guess, a minority and being fair-skinned. But then here, like there was barely any dark Indigenous people and that was a bit of a shock when I first got here."
Fending for himself at boarding school helped Bedford develop the discipline and dedication that helped him get drafted and now make a career out of a cutthroat code that can chew you up and spit you out. Bedford was selected at pick No. 75 – the fourth-last pick – in the 2018 draft. He played 18 games in four seasons at Melbourne and struggled for opportunities.
That's when Greater Western Sydney came calling. Since making the move to NSW in 2022, Bedford has played 68 games for the Giants. Last year he inked a four-year contract through to 2029.
"Boarding school definitely helped in taking control of my own career," Bedford said. "I guess that helped from a young age I had to be independent. And then also moving away from family and friends, like I feel as if I've done it from a young age, so when I first moved to the Giants, it's obviously something pretty tough, but also I felt as if I could do the move, and I feel as if I fit in pretty well."
Bedford will return home this off-season, and he might not be coming alone. A few senior Giants have expressed interested in seeing Fitzroy Crossing. Last off-season, Tom Green and Brent Daniels joined Connor Idun when he went to Ghana for the first time to see family. This off-season, Bedford will head home again with lots of Giants gear.
"There is a lot of orange in Fitzroy Crossing. The club gives me a lot of gear to give back to the community. You can walk around and you see someone wearing Giants stuff everywhere. It's pretty cool to see."
Bedford, like Wanganeen-Milera and Pickett, is inspiring the next generation of First Nations players back home, just a long way from home.