The hapless St Kilda,who have now won one of their past six matches,did not kick their first goal until the 17-minute of the second quarter when Mason Wood finally broke the run of unanswered goals but the damage had been done by then.
With so much at stake in the week respected former skipper Jarryn Geary announced his retirement St Kilda’s performance was inexplicable. It appeared as though they lost all confidence in their method once they gave up two goals to turnovers after taking kicks into the corridor and went back into the shell. They did not put enough pressure on to create turnovers and their game fell apart.
Instead of threatening the undersized Bulldogs’ defence by getting the ball into Max King,Rowan Marshall and Tim Membrey,St Kilda chipped the ball around their backline to create slow play after slow play and they could not force turnovers to create scoring opportunities.
They look as far away from being a finals team as they looked early in 2021 with the same questions arising about their belief with Callum Wilkie and Membrey their only contributors while King was starved of opportunity.