FOR Essendon, it has already become the story of its season. The Bombers scored six goals in a hurry in the third quarter of Friday night's match. They were quick, and bold, they took big marks and they provided the most exciting patch of the match.

But like last week, when the Bombers were overrun by the Western Bulldogs, it wasn't something that could last. St Kilda started the game better, kicking three goals to one, and then finished it better, scoring the last four goals to win by 36 points.

Even when Essendon took over, the Saints knocked and bumped and threw whatever tackles they could. The Bombers ran out of puff partly because they are a young side still learning to piece things together, but also because when things weren't going their way, the Saints at least tried to do a bit of battering. "That happens in a game," said Lenny Hayes. "They're a good, hard-running young side and we knew they'd come at us at some stage.

"Things happen in footy, any team can pile on three or four quick goals and you have to take what you can out of it. It was a bit disappointing, the third quarter, but we came back and settled down and went again in the last quarter, which was the pleasing thing."

Before the Bombers switched on, the Saints dictated play — axed forward Fraser Gehrig was replaced with smaller, more nimble opponents they tried to force Dustin Fletcher to take care of, Xavier Clarke and Jason Gram among them.

St Kilda held a two or three-goal lead for most of the first term, then tore away in the second.

As the Bombers struggled to get the ball into their forward line, working desperately hard for the goals they did score, the Saints found more organised ways to goal, and scored.

Their bright lights in the third term were Kyle Reimers, who turned Steven Milne into a fumbling mess, David Hille, who is playing with some real presence, Henry Slattery, who played with some composure and Paddy Ryder, switched to the forward line after half-time.

The gap was narrowed to 16 points when Ryder marked and scored Essendon's sixth goal in a row, but Nick Riewoldt broke the run just before the three-quarter-time siren and Milne redeemed himself twice in the first five minutes of the last term, snapping a pair of goals, to keep the Saints safe.

Hayes was good for St Kilda, as was Luke Ball. Max Hudghton made a shocking night for Matthew Lloyd even worse and Robert Harvey had 29 possessions, in a performance Matthew Knights wanted his players to consider as they tried to find some consistency.

"I played against Robert and I said to my young players, 'If you want an education on how to run out games for four quarters, you'll find no better example'," Knights said. "That's where our young players, Alwyn Davey, Ricky Dyson, Jay Nash, Kyle Reimers, Brent Stanton and those sort of boys, that's what we want them to get to.

"I think they will in time, but it's going to take some time. You look at St Kilda and they had about 18 or 19 experienced men out there and we had about nine or 10. That consistency is a concern because we'd like to play four quarters and, if we do play four quarters, we're capable of winning.

"But you can't consistently play two, two-and-a-half or three quarters and win footy games. That's what we are going to have to work on."