THE pre-season cup may have started in the Middle Eastern desert last weekend, but it was 13 minutes into the third quarter of the Richmond-St Kilda match at Docklands last night when a player conjured some of the athletic brilliance that makes the game so great, and the crowd emitted one of those primal screams, and everyone knew that footy was back. Officially.

For the record, it was the first big mark that told us so. St Kilda surged forward, a looping drop punt directed towards the Saints' young centre half-forward, Jarryd Allen. The football floated and Allen was momentarily caught out of position, propping on his heels. His trailing opponent, Kelvin Moore, promptly leapt on to his shoulders, twisting in the air and pulling down a sensational two-grab mark.

It was the first official match in the heartland and it had some familiar themes. Darren Goldspink umpired his final match, looking like he was running in quicksand but forthright and decisive, as ever. Matthew Richardson tried hard all night, but it took just two minutes of football in a new season before a teammate smashed a short pass straight over his head and into the hands of his opponent, Sam Fisher. This would be a metaphor for a night when Richmond's ball use was substandard.

Familiar, too, was St Kilda's emergence at the start in traditional guernsey, at a time of year when experimentation is a byword. By contrast, Richmond had a predominantly yellow guernsey with a few strategic black stripes and butchered the football.

No, it was the Saints who looked the more serious, right down to the presence of 36-year-old Robert Harvey, Old Man River himself. Harvey surely has earned the right to sit out a NAB Cupper in summer, but that is not the way he operates. Beginning his 21st season at this level, he rollicked into space like he always has; he hunched over and grabbed his shorts and looked spent at the stoppages, as he always has.

St Kilda, with half its best team in absentia, gave a passable imitation of the finals chance it is expected to be. Even without Lenny Hayes and Nick Riewoldt, the captains, without Luke Ball, who was one of the skippers last year, and without Matthew Maguire, Leigh Fisher, Jason Gram, Steven Baker, Brendon Goddard and recruit Adam Schneider, the Saints began with a slickness that you would not have expected so early in the season. Xavier Clarke instigated much of this, and watching this young man from Darwin, you had to wonder how much he had gained from a week in which Australia said "sorry" to its indigenous people. Clarke has an acute sense of where he has come from and a lethal left leg which he used to dynamic effect last night.

Last night, Clarke started in an on-ball position, ran harder than he has in the past and looked like a potential superstar of the competition.

St Kilda was impressive, playing with thin stocks and against a team that was close to full-strength. Steven King and Michael Gardiner were serviceable without being brilliant in ruck, Gardiner finally donning the red, white and black a full year after West Coast traded him.

The more impressive recruit, though, was former Geelong half-forward Charlie Gardiner, who presented nicely all night. Allen, a rangy forward from Calder Cannons who is yet to play a senior regular-season game, booted two goals and also showed up nicely.

The Tigers applied no defensive pressure, took the ball around in circles when they got it and could scarcely have been less impressive. What were those wooden spoon odds?