St Kilda forward Hugo Garcia has enjoyed a full-circle moment with coach Ross Lyon, who sat back and smiled proudly when the youngster kicked the Saints’ 12th goal on Friday night, a week after being subbed out and berated against Brisbane.

Garcia became one of the lowlight stories of last weekend when he was subbed out tactically before half-time by Lyon, who had lost patience with the 19-year-old during their AFL drubbing at the hands of the Lions.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Hugo Garcia gets full-circle Ross Lyon moment.

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Lyon headed down to the interchange bench to verbally dress Garcia down in a fiery moment which was caught on camera by a fan behind the benches at Marvel Stadium.

It became a hot topic of conversation within the footy world over the next week — but it clearly had the intended effect, with Garcia among the Saints’ best as they demolished a hapless Fremantle outfit on Friday night.

And when he snapped the Saints’ 12th goal to extend their lead to 55 points with four minutes to go against the Dockers, Lyon had to contain the satisfaction he clearly got from the perfect response he got from his young player.

“Last week, coach roaring at him. This week, fans roaring for him,” Alister Nicholson said, as the broadcast cut to a proud Lyon in the coaches’ box.

“Well, Ross knew what button to push. And that — that’s like the satisfied look of a father when he’s asked a bit more of his son.

“And Hugo Garcia runs to the bench in very different circumstances to last week.”

Matthew Richardson added: “What about the week he’s had, Garcia?

“He deserves that. Ross knew what he was doing.

“Subbed out early in the second last week, and I don’t think Ross is even going to use his sub tonight.”

Asked after the game about the decision to sub Garcia out the previous week, Lyon said the discussion surrounding it was disproportionate with the player’s reaction to it.

“Look, it’s never personal, never trade-based language, never descriptive — it’s all action-based,” Lyon told Channel 7.

“I’ve got form; I remember I subbed a player out at Fremantle in the first quarter down in Tassie.

“The game was going and gone, so you need to do something — why sit on your hands?

“Hugo said, ‘I’m not a victim ... I wasn’t playing that well, I’m OK’.

“I get it, there’s just a lot of noise. Everyone can interpret it their own way, but unless you’re inside and really hear what’s being said, I really don’t understand how they jump to the conclusions that they do.”

Lyon said it was a proud moment seeing him kick that late goal.

“Yeah, a hundred per cent. And we’ve backed him in, we’ve had a lot of young debutants,” he said.

“Can you have favourites? He’s one of ours.

“He’s just so competitive, culturally trains so hard.”