St Kilda co-captain Nick Riewoldt started his AFL season with a bang as the Saints cruised to a 17.14 (116) to 9.12 (66) thrashing of the Western Bulldogs at the Telstra Dome.

Riewoldt, who had missed the first two rounds after injuring his hamstring in the pre-season, starred with four goals, seven marks and 10 disposals.

His haul included two goals in the first term as the Saints outscored the Bulldogs 6.3 to 2.2 for the quarter, with the 'Dogs never recovering after the early onslaught.

The damage started in the centre square, where veteran Robert Harvey was on fire early, along with Saints' hard man Steven Baker and Andrew Thompson.

Baker set the tone for his side in the physical stakes, laying a crunching tackle on Bulldogs' star midfielder Scott West in the opening passage of play, with the subsequent turnover setting up an easy goal for Fraser Gehrig 30 seconds into the match.

Harvey, 35, continued to gather touches throughout the night, also kicking a strong goal from 50 metres to start the second half.

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon was full of praise for Harvey's performance, saying it was particularly important given the absence of fellow midfielder Luke Ball through injury.

"He's one of the game's great runners isn't he, you talk about Judds and Kerrs and Lappins and Bradleys, but he's up there with them," Lyon said.

"I thought his first quarter, he had 10 (disposals) in the first, but it's what he did without the ball, he chased and tackled and set the tone, he was fantastic."

The Saints had 11 goalkickers, with Riewoldt and fellow key forwards Gehrig and Justin Koschitzke constant dangers, although all three of them let themselves down with some poor shooting for goal.

Lyon was happy with the way Riewoldt slotted in alongside Gehrig and Koschitzke.

"The three of them are very talented clearly, you come in and you can't tighten the reins on them too much, you've got to say basically work together," he said.

"John Barker our forward coach, he's done a pretty good job working with them, but there's no substitute for talent, is there."

While the Bulldogs fought their way back into the match in general play in the second quarter, with West, Daniel Cross and Matthew Boyd exerting an influence, their lack of presence in attack meant they were unable to cut the margin.

The Saints again took over in the midfield early in the second half, with Nick Dal Santo taking a starring role in the centre square after a relatively quiet first half, as his side piled on the first three goals to build their lead to 44 points.

Bulldogs' half-forward Sam Power kicked his side's first goal of the third quarter at the 20-minute mark, the first time in the match a Bulldog other than Brad Johnson had goaled.

He added his second a minute later, but it was a short-lived rally, with the Saints going into the last quarter six goals up and running away with the match with a string of easy late goals.

St Kilda's win was their fourth straight over the Bulldogs and gave them two wins from three rounds this season.

Another positive for St Kilda was the form of first-gamer Clinton Jones, who was tenacious in his attack on the ball and his opponents and also kicked a goal in the final term.

The 'Dogs, who came into the season highly rated, have lost some of their gloss, with the 50-point defeat following last weekend's poor 38-point loss at the hands of Adelaide.

Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade was at a loss to explain his club's poor showing in their past two matches.

"I'm not too sure of the answer, the good thing about this game is you can get back on the bike pretty quickly," Eade said.

"It's no good harping too much on the negatives, we'll have our review and certainly address some things, but what happened from round one to the next two rounds I don't think you would have seen coming.

"Obviously it has been against two good quality teams, but that's no excuse either.

"We were pretty poor in quite a few areas and quite a few guys are obviously down in confidence."

Eade was puzzled by the high number of errors his normally slick team made in low pressure situations, with some poor shooting for goal as well as missing teammates by hand and foot.

"Once we made those errors which were unforced ... I think they seemed to maybe lack a bit of confidence, we seem to not take as many risks, we seem to play conservative and that probably gets us into a bit more trouble as well," he said.

"Obviously we've just got to work on that, we've got to hopefully correct those errors, but at the same time mentally be able to persevere with it."

© 2009 AAP
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