LANCE Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Nick Dal Santo. This game did not lack for players of class. It just lacked class.

Dour strangulation football that seeks to frustrate into submission claimed another victim last night, though fortunately, it also ultimately fell short of victory.

St Kilda fans left the MCG last night saddened by a loss, but more dejected by the method of it. Fans booed the teams as they left the field at half-time with the scoreline reading two goals apiece — seemingly a precursor to the FA Cup. The conditions were not averse to football, but the manner of the game was.

Three players made their debuts for St Kilda last night — David Armitage, Brad Howard and Justin Sweeney. It was, for them, memorable. It was not for many others.

It was a grim contest but intriguing in a morbid sort of way. St Kilda played Leigh Fisher behind the ball to clag the Hawks' forward line. They then sought to hold the ball up through the middle of the ground.

The result was that Fisher threatened Nathan Bassett's record of 22 marks in a match. He had 13 touches in the first quarter and 22 for the first half, which was a significant feat until it was recalled that he didn't actually have an opponent.

Hawthorn was surprised at St Kilda's pessimistic approach in refusing to open the game out, even when the Saints boasted raw tall talent that potentially would unsettle any team.

As one official said after the game: "Our bottoms would have been twitching in the box if they had opened the game up and thrown Riewoldt, (Fraser) Gehrig and Kozzy (Justin Koschitzke) forward. We were waiting for them to do it."

St Kilda, in fact, did push the tall players forward in the third quarter, but it didn't open out its game further up the field.

Hawthorn was playing the bigger gamble. Campbell Brown, who of recent times has played taller than his 177 centimetres — most notably against Scott Lucas — found himself this week against Riewoldt, who stands 194 centimetres.

Brown was photographed in a newspaper yesterday wearing a gladiator's outfit and he wore the ribbing of Luke Ball before the game that he was Maximus Aurelius. The Riewoldt match appeared a contest of similarly lopsided odds, if a more virtuous pursuit.

"He works so hard and he blew me up in the first half, he really did. He works super hard and I know now I have a long way to go with my fitness if I want to be a good player," Brown said.

Surprisingly, Riewoldt was rarely isolated forward to exploit the height advantage over Brown. "It was a pretty tight tussle, it was a real arm wrestle and we knew the longer the game went on, we might be able to open it up a bit by taking a few more risks and with our leg speed, which is what ended up happening in that last quarter," Brown said.

"They did their homework. I think Johnny Barker being at St Kilda knew some of our set-ups and leaving that man down the back kind of clogged us up a bit in the first half. But we found in the second half when we took the ball through the corridor … that was when we got the ball in a bit quicker and blokes like (Tim) Boyle and (Jarryd) Roughead and (Lance) Franklin got a few more opportunities."

It was only once the game was lost 12 minutes into the final quarter that St Kilda pulled the loose man out of the back line and went man-on-man around the ground. Interestingly, the Saints doubled their goals scored from that moment on.

"They haven't just beaten us in the past, they have absolutely killed us by 10 goals and 90 points," Brown said. "So to have a win today and get the monkey off our back was terrific."