ST Kilda has recorded its best ever start to an AFL Women’s season after beating Essendon yesterday afternoon to keep their undefeated start to the 2024 season in tact.

But, after an at times scrappy game from his troops, Saints coach Nick Dal Santo was not necessarily overjoyed about how things had transpired.

“It was a bit different to what we’ve probably seen from ourselves and probably even the Bombers to be honest throughout the course of the first two weeks of footy,” he said. “Probably not the prettiest game from both sides.

“We’ve been playing a more mature brand of football. I don’t think we showed a lot of that today, but if you compare this performance to maybe last year where we’re here in round two, I think it was off the top of my head, maybe we wouldn’t have won that game. But by saying that, the Bombers were really good last year and I thought they played a really solid brand of football today.

“We were just fortunate enough to be in front when the final siren went, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. There’s no doubt about that.”

“There’ll be a lot of the contest bit that, because there were so many, and a lot of it was based around layers of defence but once again, we’ve got so much work to do, and we know that. Where some of the really good teams are at, and we played North Melbourne for example in a practice match earlier this year, and they showed us what the best teams are doing and we need to try and bridge that gap.”

This result does see St Kilda remain at the top of the ladder, but ladder position is not necessarily front of mind for those from Moorabbin.

“So, we’ve never spoken about ladder position, and you put that historically, we’ve rarely been in a position where we are happy or proud of where we’ve sat, so we can’t sort of have it the other way now. Yes, we’re pleased that we’ve been winning some games, but I don’t know how many highlights will come out of this one, to be able to go back and actually enjoy passages of play.”