DURING a long period of fallow football in the second quarter at Telstra Dome last night, just two goals were scored. Both were instructive, about the match and about modern football.

The first was minutes that seemed like hours in the making. As Sydney worked forward, St Kilda worked back, until a point arrived when Robert Harvey was the only Saint outside Sydney's 50-metre arc.

Patiently, patently, the Swans kicked the ball back and forth, awaiting a lull in concentration and an opening. Stalemate ensued.

The impasse was broken by serendipitous accident. Darren Jolly's pass fell short of the leading Craig Bolton, who upon gathering was forced to turn and kick hurriedly on his left foot.

The ball bobbled and floated on unseen air currents, bounced in the goal square and trickled over the goal line. It was a classic of contemporary football: functional, labour-intensive, effective, but not in the least rousing.

From the centre bounce, St Kilda rushed the ball to a forward flank, whereupon the inimitable Nick Riewoldt scooped it up, swerved away from all-Australian half-back Bolton and kicked with his left foot to the top of the goal square.

Leo Barry spoiled Fraser Gehrig, but Nick Dal Santo, closing at just the right speed and angle, collected the crumbs on the full and drove the goal home as if it were a nail. It was a model of simplicity, but deceptive, too, for it takes skill and vision to make the unfolding of the game appear so pre-destined.

The Saints did not win the game in this moment, but they flagged that they would not easily lose it.

This match was Roos v Ross, Sydney v St Sydney, a Swans intraclub played for premiership points. The Swans revel in this nerve-racking style of football, and why would they not? It gained them one premiership, and very nearly two.

But last night, St Kilda beat them at their own game, which was not such a shock twist, since the Saints were in the custody of one of the men who developed it. Paul Roos was at pains pre-match to say that simply to know how the Swans played was not necessarily to overcome them. Shane Warne said much the same of his leg spinners. Ross Lyon said as much, too: perhaps it was a feint.

This night, the Saints played the Swans on their terms and upped them. At one end, they double-teamed Barry Hall, successfully.

At the other end, technically, but in fact all over the ground, they had Riewoldt. He took 14 marks — the best by launching himself with the flight of the ball into the path of the oncoming Hall and living to tell the tale. He also laid a tackle on an opponent that had the effect of a tranquilliser dart on a rhinoceros.

Also at Riewoldt's end was Gehrig, who on the night kicked 4.1 and a plastic chair that sat inside the boundary line. It did not count.

The Saints improved on Sydney's blueprint. Early in the third quarter, they clogged up the Swans' forward line, forcing Hall to kick intemperately, then seized the chance to run the ball at breakneck speed to the other end of the ground for Xavier Clarke to goal.

St Kilda showed one other sign of the sort of mental fortitude that is the Swans' hallmark. It kicked six goals to two in the night in time-on. Three were at the end of the third quarter, and they broke Sydney.

The Swans this night were uncharacteristically and unaccountable sloppy, especially in their kicking, and it hurt them. They lost by 26 points, about as badly as they ever are beaten.

"Red time" goals are a specialty also of West Coast. They suggest a team strong enough in mind and body to play the opposition to a standstill. When that opposition is the famously zealous Swans, the Saints can dare to hope. St Sydney? Why not.