Just as he has done for the best part of 15 years, Nick Riewoldt impacted the scoreboard on Sunday, booting four goals against Greater Western Sydney, despite spending the bulk of the afternoon playing on a wing, before pushing deep forward at times to provide a key focal point in attack.

St Kilda looked the most dangerous when the six-time Trevor Barker Award winner played deep inside 50, but with Alan Richardson looking to fast track the development of Paddy McCartin and continue the emergence of Josh Bruce, the Saints commitment to the long-term future will ensure the skipper continues his role on a wing.

Riewoldt finished with 25 possessions, 11 marks (three inside 50), ten score involvements and four goals to be St Kilda’s best performer against the Giants, drawing praise from Richardson for his ability to make a sizeable contribution on a wing and deep inside the arc.

“He was very positive wasn’t he? He looked likely on the wing, he did some good work up there with a reasonable possession count and his use was pretty positive,” Richardson said in his post-match press conference.

“But then he looked very dangerous (in the forward line) what did he end up with? Four goals?

“And then when we went to the deeper play we looked better. ‘Rooey’ showed us if we go deeper we can look promising.”

As has been the case for much of 2016 to date, St Kilda’s forward 50 entry work was poor against the Giants, prompting Richardson to lament his side’s inability to find targets and preference for shallow entries rather than putting the ball in deep towards Riewoldt, Paddy McCartin and Josh Bruce.

“We got smashed again on turnover - that’s been a theme for us. We’re trying to bite too much off on passing the ball in as opposed to just going for the deeper stuff,” Richardson said.

“Paddy looked okay on deeper stuff, we all know that Paddy’s still got a lot of work to do, but he looks likely when we get it in deeper.”

Richardson revealed he held an in-depth meeting with the players following the final siren, addressing each individual’s performance there and then, rather than waiting for the review meetings to take place early in the week.

“We went through every player afterwards. Instead of waiting for the normal review, we went through it so they can do something about it now, they can go home tonight and do what they world normally do but be given some feedback on their performance and what’s expected when they play in the senior team. That’s the way the review went,” he said.