AS THE final siren sounded, Collingwood coach Michael Malthouse removed his headphones, pumped his fists in front of his face and said: "You beauty".

The Magpies had escaped the noose, and he knew it. His reaction was no doubt equal measures of relief and joy.

Twenty-one points down 33 seconds into the last term, when St Kilda's Fraser Gehrig spoiled, crumbed and ran into goal, the sense that they were going to be drowned in the rain that had soaked the MCG all afternoon was as real as the weather was cold and miserable.

Collingwood had worked hard enough to give the impression it had dominated the first quarter and a half. When Josh Fraser goaled to put the team 15 points ahead 15 minutes into the second term, the Pies appeared to be the side most likely.

But in between then and Gehrig's goal, 45 minutes of football had passed without a Magpie major, while the Saints had picked themselves up and smashed Collingwood all over the park.

Such was the Saints' dominance that in the third term the hardball-get count was 14-5 in their favour, inside 50s 17-5 and the result on the scoreboard five goals to zip.

Yet the Pies left the ground nine-point winners.

As if a fire had been lit under them, after Gehrig's goal they kicked the only four further goals of the game, with another — one of the most brilliant goals of the year by Dale Thomas from the boundary — contentiously disallowed on a day when the rules of the game and the umpires marred proceedings with ridiculous free kicks.

It was a true wet weather contest, where the day was decided not so much by the skills of the players once they got the ball, but by the endeavour, courage and hardness they used to get it.

Neither side lacked any of those measures.

St Kilda's Steven Baker taking a nasty knock in a head clash with teammate Lenny Hayes, or Tyson Goldsack and Jason Blake flying for a ball from opposite directions and colliding mid-air were testament to that.

There was no magic as to why the Magpies won. Mainly it was just that when it counted in the last term, they were able to hit the contests harder, get their hands on the ball first, control the play and then belt it into attack.

As St Kilda's Nick Dal Santo was the driving force in the third term, when he seemed to have the football in every forward thrust, Magpie Shane O'Bree was the man of the moment in the last. His hardness and workrate around the stoppages could not be underestimated, and he even ran onto a Ben Johnson handball to drill the goal that began the comeback. He had good company in Dane Swan and Fraser.

Up forward, the wet weather suited the shorter players, and Thomas was outstanding. He soccered the next goal after Sam Iles sent in a long bomb and was the standout Magpie forward.

Of the others, Malthouse was particularly pleased with the young players he considered to have "light bodies" in conditions more suited to blokes with a bit of bulk.

"You go in knowing you've got light bodies (and that) they are going to be knocked around a bit, but these blokes never cease to amaze me with their never-say-die attitude," Malthouse said.

"Don't take anything away from St Kilda — the Saints are a damn good football side and they controlled the ball and we just couldn't get it off them (in the third term).

"And I thought we made mistakes when we got it back off them. And in the last quarter we didn't make those mistakes."

St Kilda's lack of a four-quarter effort — something that has been an all-too-familiar trend throughout the year — clearly cost it the game.

Coach Ross Lyon said the side spoke at half-time about improving its hardness and that showed in its endeavours after the main break.

But with too much being done by too few — Gehrig with his four goals, Sam Fisher, Dal Santo, Jason Gram, Robert Harvey and Xavier Clarke the obvious exceptions — the battle was always going to be tough.

"Any loss is a bad loss, especially when you're 21 points up in the wet. It's a bad loss," Lyon said.

"I just thought (Collingwood's) workrate was enormous and it's something they deserve credit for and it is something we need to aim to match in our next game.

"Playing a quarter or two quarters or three quarters doesn't guarantee you success in the AFL — it's about four-quarter effort."

COLLINGWOOD 4.5 8.9 8.11 12.17 (89) ST KILDA 3.3 6.7 11.8 12.8 (80)

GOALS Collingwood: Thomas 2, Fraser 2, Cloke 2, Davis, Didak, O'Bree, Licuria, Johnson, Swan. St Kilda: Gehrig 4, Milne 2, X Clarke, Hayes, R Clarke, Fiora, Gilbert, Koschitzke.

BEST Collingwood: Swan, Thomas, O'Bree, Fraser, Licuria, H Shaw. St Kilda: Dal Santo, Gram, S Fisher, X Clarke, Hayes, Harvey.

UMPIRES Donlon, McLaren, Chamberlain.

CROWD 57,247 at the MCG.