COMEBACK ruckman Michael Gardiner looms as a trump card for NAB Cup champion St Kilda as it attempts to finally turn potential into a premiership, according to former Western Bulldogs champion Luke Darcy.

Gardiner, a steady improver throughout the NAB series after missing most of the past four seasons of the AFL, had retained much of the athleticism that made him a great player, Darcy said.

The 199-centimetre ruckman, an All-Australian in 2003, still had the capacity to move well around the ground and the football smarts to get to threatening positions.

Gardiner was solid in St Kilda's NAB Cup campaign but saved his best quarter of football at AFL level for some time for the tense final quarter against Adelaide when he repeatedly won the ball in defence and distributed it to teammates.

His form, and Geelong premiership ruckman Steven King's support, are seen as major reasons why the Saints, without a recognised ruck battery since Peter Everitt left for Hawthorn in 2002, are second favourites behind Geelong for the flag.

Gardiner, 28, played 129 games for West Coast between 1997 and 2006, with his career peaking in 2002 and 2003 when he averaged 15 touches and almost a goal a game.

But his latter years there were marred by injury and controversy. A central figure in the club's off-field scandals, he battled foot and knee problems and played only 18 games in three seasons before being banished to Claremont in 2006 and then traded. He had to be persuaded to go to St Kilda, and he had to be persuaded to continue this season after foot problems prevented him from playing a game in 2007. The Saints urged him to have surgery one last time.

Sources close to Gardiner say he is now settled, happy and in better physical condition than he has been since his All-Australian year.

Darcy agrees. "His touch and his awareness is probably where you would expect from someone who has missed so much footy but just looking at him recently I have been amazed by his movement," he said. "He looks like he hasn't lost his athleticism and that was the thing that made him such a good player. He was very quick for someone his size. He looks like he has still got a fair bit of that in him.

"Once he gets a bit more game time under his belt and a bit more game touch, I think he can actually be a really, really good player for them."

Darcy warned that the biggest danger for Gardiner was another injury. "It is hard enough missing a whole year of footy," he said.

"You really do need to get a good, injury-free, clean run and that is going to be the key.

"If he breaks down and misses a month of footy that is going to be really hard.

"At the moment, he and St Kilda would be rapt with the way things are travelling. His centre-square stuff is good. He knows when to run forward, he understands the game well and it just comes down to keeping him sound and him getting out there week after week. I hope that happens for him."