St Kilda great and current forwards coach Robert Harvey has been around the game for almost four decades, but in that entire time he’s never met anyone quite like Jack Higgins.

Affable antics, side-splitting laughs and inimitable gaffes (his top-tier “a thousand minutes per second” acceptance speech for the 2018 Goal of the Year Award chief among them) comprise a lot of the picture for the pocket-rocket forward, however there’s a whole other side to the Saints’ No. 1 that probably doesn’t get the credit it should.

For all the quirks, zaniness and passion that has endeared Higgins to the faithful over the past four seasons, the on-field talent and reliability can easily be overlooked among the wider football community. That’s certainly not the case in Harvey’s – or the Saints’ – eyes.

“I’ve been in the game a long time so you come across so many different types, but he’s unique in his own way. In a great way, I reckon,” Harvey said.

“Stephen Milne was the same. He had that cheek but there was great respect for what he did, and Higgo certainly gets the same for what he brings to the table with his attitude, enthusiasm and work ethic.

“Higgo’s just his own person, we love him for it. He brings so much energy to the players and the forward line.”

In a season where goals haven’t flowed as readily for the Saints, it’s been one of their smallest forwards who has packed the biggest punch.

With 28 goals from his 15 outings this year, Higgins is in pole position to clinch consecutive leading goalkicking awards for the team he supported growing up, with only injury, suspension or a come-from-the-clouds scoring frenzy from those behind in the tally precluding him from going back-to-back.

Similarly in the absence of tall timber, the 25-year-old has stepped up to the plate.

With Max King sidelined for two separate stints last season 2023, Higgins fired up in the big man’s absence to clinch club leading goalkicking honours (36), despite King hot on his hammer after netting 14 majors from his last four matches to propel the Saints into September. It’s similar circumstances once again in light of King’s season-ending PCL injury last month, with Higgins looking to push towards the 40-goal mark with five games left to play in 2024.

Higgins’ reliability to keep the scoreboard ticking over and step into a starring role in the absence of a leading man has been a particular highlight since trading in Richmond sash for St Kilda stripes. From his 74 games, he’s netted three five-goal bags, has netted multiple goals on 33 occasions and – incredibly within that timeframe in Saints colours –  has only been scoreless four times.

“Because it has been a younger forward line and a lot of guys in and out through injury, he’s probably been a bit of a mainstay for us,” Harvey said.

“If you ask him, I reckon he’d say it’s been on the back of his pressure, working and tackling and as a result goals have come. It’s a credit to him. Even with the goals that he’s missed he could have had so much more, but he works so hard on his game and his craft.

“We really celebrate the unique gifts that he has, especially as a forward. He’s got a lot of talent obviously, but he’s learned how to combine that with great pressure as well and I reckon that’s part of what he brings consistently.

“He can do that freakish stuff and we love it, right? When you need a goal he can pop up and snap one or take a mark, and he’s got that X-factor about him which makes him who he is.”