WHEN Nick Riewoldt goalled two minutes into the second half to give St Kilda its first lead of the game, it seemed a tipping point in what had been a tedious, low-scoring game.

It was, indeed, a critical moment, but not perhaps in the manner St Kilda fans anticipated. Hawthorn scored the next five goals to take a stranglehold on the game, going on to triumph by 28 points and take its fifth win of the season.

Not until the final term, when nine of the night's 16 goals were scored, did the game break open. Until then, the only stranglehold on the game was the one putting it to sleep. But when Jarryd Roughead cancelled the St Kilda lead almost immediately, the momentum tipped decisively Hawthorn's way.

First, it was a slight tilt — Roughead got his side's only other goal of the third term to extend the lead to 10 points at three-quarter-time. Then it became a landslide as goals to Tim Boyle, Ben Dixon and Ben McGlynn at the start of the final term stretched the lead to an impossible-to-breach 27 points.

In a game strewn with errors, it was Hawthorn that maintained its intensity and St Kilda that wilted. As the game started to slip away, even the better Saints made errors.

Jayden Attard had made several courageous tackles before he found McGlynn's neck in yet another one, helped by McGlynn's fortuitous slip. Then teammate Leigh Montagna compounded the error, dropping a knee into the prone Hawk and conceding a 50-metre penalty.

Robert Harvey dropped a mark near the 50-metre arc, enabling Boyle to pounce on a loose ball and snap another final-term goal.

In the third term, Justin Koschitzke had gifted Roughead his second goal when his ill-directed kick across goal to David Armitage fell into enemy hands. With two Hawks in the vicinity, even a better kick would have been putting a lot of pressure on a first-gamer.

Hawthorn had plenty of contributors and, eventually, most of the better players in the game. Sam Mitchell was in and under every pack, Jordan Lewis and Shane Crawford both had plenty of it, Roughead was effective at centre half-forward and Lance Franklin constantly threatened, even if he did not deliver in the manner of his last three games.

Trent Croad efficiently smothered Fraser Gehrig, who did not score a goal until the final term.

For St Kilda, Harvey was again tireless, Luke Ball worked hard around the back, Sam Fisher never gave up against Franklin and Leigh Fisher had a mountain of possessions. But the Saints scored only six goals and, in truth, never looked like scoring many more.

The best thing that could be said for the game at half-time was that it still had time to redeem itself. As the teams left the ground after a mercifully brief second quarter, the Hawks led by two points, 2.6 to 2.4. The scoreline suggested a battle of attrition, but that was grossly misleading. Only in front of goals did the game reach stalemate; everywhere else there was abundance.

Playing as a loose man in defence for the Saints, Leigh Fisher had amassed 22 possessions in the first half, 18 kicks, four handballs and a mind-boggling 14 marks.

Hawthorn did not kick a goal in the second term. Chance Bateman, getting on the end of a rugby-style chain of handballs to snap an opportunistic one and Robert Campbell working forward from a centre bounce to mark for another. St Kilda's was evenly distributed — a goal to Aaron Fiora in the first term, another to Riewoldt in the second.

HAWTHORN 2.3 2.6 4.9 10.12 (72)
ST KILDA 1.2 2.4 3.5 6.8 (44)
GOALS: Hawthorn: Roughead 3, Boyle 2, Bateman, Dixon, McGlynn, Franklin, Campbell. St Kilda: Gehrig 2, Riewoldt 2, Fiora, Blake. BEST: Hawthorn: Mitchell, Roughead, Crawford, McGlynn, Croad, Sewell. St Kilda: Riewoldt, Harvey, Ball, L Fisher, Gwilt, Blake.
INJURIES: St Kilda: X Clarke (virus) replaced in selected side by Howard, Gram (virus) replaced in selected side by Sweeney, Gehrig (leg).
UMPIRES: Vozzo, Grun, Ellis
CROWD: 36,063 at the MCG