“We’ll all play for free, and he can have all the money.

“He’s a family kid, and he loves his family, which is why the pull home is so strong, obviously. But he also loves this footy club … hopefully, [a new contract] gets done at the end of the year.

“He has to do what’s right for him, but he’s super talented and just wants to get better. I can’t wait, if he stays, because he’s going to drive the standards for this football club for the next 15 years.

“He executes under the most amount of pressure and demands high standards of others, and that’s only going to build, and … he’ll have a really strong, positive impact on the group.”

Lyon admitted afterwards that his typically stoic persona broke in the final minute as Wanganeen-Milera took over.

“Underneath the exterior, I can get emotional,” Lyon said.

“I was a little bit watery [in the eyes] when Nas took the mark. I think it’s just that emotion of, just for the players, just for them.

“I think our last five weeks have been really, really solid because we easily could have got one or two others. It just gives us a fillip [of] confidence – you get confidence from quarters and performances like that.

“They started to get that automatic reward [for their efforts] … it just sort of builds and builds, and it pops like a souffle, so I’m really pleased for the players.”

St Kilda kicked nine goals to shell-shocked Melbourne’s four behinds in the final term to steal victory, but would have fallen short if not for Wanganeen-Milera’s heroics.

“[I’m a] bit speechless,” Wanganeen-Milera told Channel Seven after emerging from underneath a pile-on of teammates.

“[I] flew for it [the mark] … [my] teammates were great in the last quarter. Pressure unreal and we just kept fighting. Yeah, it was great.

“The boys dug deep, and, (the) last month of footy has been … we’ve done what we could, but unfortunately couldn’t get the win. It was great to come out and do that.”

He said the final passage of play was not a set play, but he did tell his fellow forwards to create space.

“I just told the forwards get out of my way and told another to get me on the left side. Yeah, it was lucky,” the matchwinner said.

The 22-year-old’s direct goals were not his only crucial interventions in the dying minutes.

He also laced out Jack Higgins minutes earlier after bursting out of the centre in a somewhat controversial moment.

McVee dumped Higgins to the ground in a tackle and conceded a 50-metre penalty after believing the ball was touched, then watched as the Saint raced to the goal line to kick the Saints within five points.

A Melbourne behind at the other end stretched the margin back to a single goal.

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Clayton Oliver then had a gilt-edged chance to put the Demons further in front, but fluffed a kick on the run within range and failed to even score.

That proved Melbourne’s final chance to seal victory before Wanganeen-Milera’s incredible pair of goals.

The defeat added to a season of despair for the Demons, who slumped to their 13th loss of the year – against only six wins – and they are only percentage from dropping into the bottom four.

Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin conceded post-match that his players panicked with the game on the line.

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“We didn’t handle the pressure, we didn’t handle the moment, and we didn’t handle the tight-game scenarios like we should have – and that’s on all of us,” Goodwin said.

“We’ll own that together. We’ll review it, but clearly it’s a devastating loss, in a game that was there at three-quarter-time for the taking.

“It’s really about developing that ruthless mindset that you need to be a really good side, and right now, with that last quarter, that’s what we haven’t got, and that’s what we’ve got to get.

“Sometimes, in your darkest moments, that can be your biggest growth. It’s a pretty devastated [playing] group in there. It’s a pretty devastated group of coaches [too] because we’re here to win, and we didn’t get that today.”

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