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Find your frequency hereRoss v Rucci: SEN host responds to St Kilda coach’s sledge
SEN • August 13th, 2025 6:18 pm
SEN SA’s Michelangelo Rucci has responded to Ross Lyon.
The St Kilda coach fired up at Rucci on Nine’s Footy Classified on Tuesday night after the veteran journalist stated that he felt Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera would leave while also mentioning Callum Wilkie, Jack Steele, Marcus Windhager and Rowan Marshall as potentially wanting out this off-season.
Lyon said that there was ‘no substance, no rigour’ to claims that Wilkie and Marshall aren’t happy at the Saints as well as needing to trade Jack Steele ‘to free their cap’.
The St Kilda coach also labelled Rucci as a ‘Port Adelaide nuffie’ as he felt the SEN host was trying to cause unrest at Moorabbin to help the Power recruit Wanganeen-Milera.
In response to Lyon on SEN SA The Run Home, Rucci put his response down to diverting and redirecting the storyline away from any kind of unrest at the club.
Rucci also refused to step away from his original report, still believing that all five of those St Kilda players are considered gettable by rival clubs.
“Players know what other players are getting paid, and it causes unrest…. and it's the way Ross operates,” Rucci told SEN SA The Run Home.
“We know what Ross is famous for, and we know what Ross is like at a press conference. We know he's a psychological animal at press conferences, he stares down people.
“As he did in that press conference, he deflects. He doesn't answer, he deflects.
“He's used all year this term of ‘pantomime’. If you go through the classic English pantomime characters, you would cast Ross Lyon as Herman the Henchman, because that's what he does. He cuts down people rather than deal with the issues.
“As a good, good friend of mine once said, ‘When people start throwing insults your way, they're losing the argument.”
Listen to Rucci’s extended response to Lyon here.
