SINCE slipping to 1-3 after month one of the 2025 AFLW season, St Kilda has racked up four consecutive victories to move to 5-3 after month two. Though Saints coach Nick Dal Santo conceded the 4.6 (3) to 2.4 (16) win over the Giants was “not the best spectacle”, he said it was a “great contest”.

“I don’t know if either team would be really pleased with the way that they played,” Dal Santo said. “I felt like we had some really good looks once again forward of the football, which is something we continue to work on about our ball movement and making really good decisions.

“That’s a journey that we’ll continue on, and I reckon if you ask the Giants, they probably feel the same. I think they won the inside 50s by 13 roughly off the top of my head (40-27), and I thought they really challenged us in some areas. They clearly had a big trip back from Perth last week and I thought overall it was a great contest, maybe not the best spectacle.”

One pleasing element for Dal Santo’s side was the ability to gain scoreboard pressure from the Saints’ midfield with star forward Jesse Wardlaw restricted to a scoreless 11 disposals and three marks. Instead, Jaimee Lambert (two goals), Tyanna Smith (one) and Charlotte Simpson (one) were the ones to split the big sticks.

“I think that’s a great positive for us,” Dal Santo said. “I get asked about Jesse every week and she’s a good player. I thought she had some good moments today and looked threatening at times and probably just didn’t capitalise on some of those opportunities.

“But I think our four goals that we kicked today were all from midfielders, and that’s something that we’re trying to evolve, other avenues to goal. Clearly more forwards, but some of our mids with the ability to push forward.

“I thought T Smith did a really good job to work through a really close tag, and I thought she had an impact on the game by the end of the game, and I thought Jaimee Lambert had a really solid game throughout the course of the four quarters.”

The Giants have a distinctive fast, handball game, and while the orange team did manage to break through on a number of occasions, the Saints’ pressure forced mistakes and were able to restrict the amount of damage.

“I’m a lover of football, so when it works, it looks fantastic, it’s a great brand and it’s an exciting brand,” Dal Santo said. “On the other side when you’re playing against it, it challenges you in slightly different ways. They are high handball, but they actually kick the football a lot as well, they had almost 300 disposals today.

“I thought they challenged us in different ways and it was a challenge we wanted to accept. I thought sometimes we did it really well to slow it up or be able to turn it over, and I reckon we’re going to get some really good learnings on how we can stop it more often, or that style of play more often. Overall I was pleased.”

St Kilda returns home for the first of two Pride Rounds, tackling 16th placed Collingwood on Sunday before a huge battle between two finals hopefuls in Round 10 when the Saints head to Ikon Park to face the Blues. The Saints’ win against the Giants was soured by injuries to Bianca Jakobsson (ankle) and Nicola Barr (knee) in devastating scenes for both teams with Barr a former Giant.