COLLINGWOOD beat St Kilda by nine points last night in a high-intensity match in which both teams ran themselves to a standstill.

Like two tired marathoners trying to raise a final sprint, the two teams slugged out the dying minutes after a Shane Birss goal with just over four minutes left to play had narrowed the margin to 10 points.

Both teams were plodding, Collingwood was merely plodding a little less slowly.

Robert Harvey, the oldest man on the field but one of the few who could still muster some run, had two bounces through the centre of the ground and put the ball on Stephen Milne's chest with three minutes left.

But the small forward pushed his shot wide and there was no further score.

The Saints had one more chance, pushing the ball forward but Milne could not out-mark Harry O'Brien and when the ball bounced out of bounds on the full off Steven King's foot, Collingwood were able to clear it out.

With Collingwood leading by 11 points at the start of the final quarter, the first goal was vital.

Luke Ball had a shot for the Saints which missed, but then Alan Didak pushed off Sean Dempster to create some space and snapped accurately to give the Pies a vital 17-point break.

Ball, Nick Dal Santo, Lenny Hayes and Leigh Montagna were all high possession winners for the Saints, but halfway through the final term none of them could raise a gallop.

Their Collingwood counterparts — Dane Swan, Leon Davis, Scott Pendlebury and Scott Burns out-lasted them by a vital couple of minutes and, in the end, that was about the difference in an entertaining match.

A goal to Tarkyn Lockyer from a contentious free kick gave Collingwood an 11-point lead at three-quarter time.

St Kilda defender Brendon Goddard looked desperately unlucky to come out on the wrong end of the umpire's call as he and his opponent locked arms under a high ball. At best, it appeared a 50-50 call.

But Collingwood deserved the lead. It had fought hard to get on even terms in the centre clearances where it had been smashed by a Ball-led St Kilda in the first half.

As in the first term, Collingwood did its best work early in the quarter.

Davis produced a bit of magic, keeping the ball in play near the behind post and snapping a miraculous goal around his body to open the scoring for the term, then Ben Johnson snuck forward to mark just inside 50 and extend the margin to 18 points.

A goal to Justin Koschitzke midway through the quarter finally broke a run of five unanswered Collingwood goals.

Jason Gram immediately scored another as he got the ball in space just outside 50 metres on the flank.

Just as in the second term, Collingwood got a goal in the last seconds, only this time it was with the help of a hefty slice of luck. From the re-start, Anthony Rocca was paid a free kick just as the siren sounded.

He took an optimistic shot from just on the attacking side of the centre circle, but it never looked like making the distance.

Collingwood took a four-point lead into half-time when Dale Thomas goaled from a mark 30 metres out. His kick was taken after the siren. It had been an entertaining first half, with Collingwood getting an early break and then St Kilda having the upper hand for the rest of the half.

That edge was not reflected on the scoreboard, however, illustrated by Hayes' miss from a set shot 40 metres out from goal just a minute before Thomas put the Pies back in front.

The game opened at a great rate, most of the players presumably refreshed after the break for the Hall of Fame tribute game.

For a while, it seemed both sides were intent on emulating the speed and skill level of that game as the ball flashed quickly and cleanly from one end of the ground to the other.

The pace lasted, but the skill level didn't.

Ball was brilliant for St Kilda early, amassing 12 possessions and, more tellingly, five clearances in the first term. Despite that, Collingwood had the early ascendancy.

Rocca ignored a lead from Thomas and then roosted a long goal from 60 metres out to cancel out Montagna's opening major for the Saints.

O'Brien then dispossessed Milne in Collingwood's forward pocket and drilled a laser-like shot from the boundary line for the Magpies' second.

Pendlebury got the third and when dead-eye Didak duped Dempster to snap another from deep in the pocket Collingwood had a two-goal break.

David Armitage kept the Saints in it with their third, but when Didak got his second, it was again Collingwood by 11 points.

The ball had come his way after Milne left a mark for Fraser Gehrig only for the Collingwood defence to sweep the ball away via Davis.

The Saints hit back to score four goals in a row from there, Birss, Milne and Armitage booting them eight points clear at quarter-time and then Dal Santo taking a handpass from Goddard for the first of the second term.

Now the Saints led by 15 points.

Paul Medhurst got involved for the Pies, setting up a goal to Chris Bryan with a cross-traffic pass in the forward 50 and then kicking one himself.

Goddard and Dal Santo again put the Saints 15 points up, but Scott Burns and Sharrod Wellingham pegged the lead back before Hayes' bad miss and Thomas' accurate conversion gave Collingwood a slender advantage.

COLLINGWOOD 5.1 10.3 14.5 16.7 (103)
ST KILDA 6.3 9.5 12.6 14.10 (94)

GOALS — Collingwood: Didak 3, Burns 2, Medhurst 2, Rocca, O'Brien, Pendlebury, Bryan, Wellingham, Davis, Johnson, Lockyer, Thomas. St Kilda: Milne 2, Dal Santo 2, Armitage 2, Birss 2, Montagna, Gehrig, Goddard, Gram, Koschitzke, Harvey.

BEST — Collingwood: Didak, Davis, R Shaw, Thomas, Burns. St Kilda: Ball, Hayes, S Fisher, Armitage, Dal Santo.

UMPIRES: Rosebury, McInerney, Stevic.

CROWD: 48,417 at Telstra Dome.

THE UPSHOT After a brief encounter with a state representative game, footy, as we usually know it, was back.

TALKING POINT Three yellow lines were drawn around both interchange benches and, for the first time, officials dressed in orange were charged with monitoring the rotations of both sides.

HOT AND COLD Fraser Gehrig made a promising start — providing several goal assists to teammates in the opening term and nailing one himself. But when the game was on the line in the final term, the veteran spearhead was on and off the bench.