Glen Quartermain: Willem Duursma’s battle with Nasaiah Wanganeen-Milera a head-to-head for the future

Will Duursma is the sort of apprentice all bosses desire: Completes all homework, turns up early and has a mastery of the tools. He’s only seven games into what is, hopefully, a long and illustrious AFL career, has a Rising Star nomination and early favouritism for the award, and already shown on a small sample size he is a worth No .1 draft pick. Sunday’s encounter with St Kilda at Marvel Stadium was his version of a first-year workshop theory test. The day the apprentice met the master. And while his opponent, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, unleashed all the weaponry of his football sorcery in a full-game three Brownlow vote press, Duursma had his own set of tricks. Duursma, who was one of the Eagles’ few four-quarter performers on an ugly day for the visitors - another first-year player Josh Lindsay was another – he will look back at the end of his playing days and rate round seven, April 26, 2026, as worth game 10 in learnings. Super Saint Wanganeen-Milera displayed all the tricks: Lace out passes to gleeful forwards, silky clearances and even a Michael Jordan around the back special. His stat sheet read: 34 possessions, five marks four turnovers, four intercepts, 750 metres gained and eight inside-50s. His distribution was first-class, including a gather and pass to Jack Higgins in the second term for the Saints’ sixth goal, quickly followed by a centre clearance, bounce and kick to Liam Ryan and another to Matteas Phillipou. But Duursma not only hung in there, but showed Wanganeen-Milera what he was capable of too, an early peak at what will be a head-to-head worth salivating over beyond this season. He was the Eagles’ highest-rated player on the ground: 25 disposals, 11 marks, five turnovers, four intercepts, 631 metres gained, and five inside-50s. It’s why Eagles coach Andrew McQualter left Duursma on Wanganeen-Milera for a large portion of his 79 per cent of game time. What the stats won’t show about Duursma are the footy smarts beyond his dancing feet that normally come with 100 games of experience. Like having such an advanced read of the play so early in his AFL career that he was willing to leave his man in the second term to intercept and pump the ball back inside 50. It resulted in the Eagles’ first goal of the match – to Harley Reid – a No. 1 pick to a No. 1 pick.