ST KILDA'S dirty day at Etihad Stadium has been compounded by the potential loss of young midfielder Nathan Wright for up to three months and the possible unavailability of David Armitage for next week's clash with Essendon.
Wright will have scans on Monday after injuring his right leg in the second quarter of the 86-point loss to Adelaide when he collided with Jarryn Geary.
The 11-gamer was on crutches and in a moon boot after the game with the preliminary diagnosis a fibula fracture that will likely rule him out of a large chunk of his second season.
"That's certainly what it's looking like," coach Alan Richardson said afterwards.
"I presume we're talking a big part of the season, 10 to 12 weeks, if that's the case and certainly that's what the docs are thinking at this stage. He'll get scans to confirm.
"It's disappointing for him and it's disappointing for us … but he's here for a career and not just 2014.
"We'd like to have him out there but someone else will get an opportunity."
Armitage had stitches in a nasty laceration on his knee in the third quarter but was cleared of structural damage.
Still, the Saints' on-baller remains in doubt for Easter Saturday night's clash with Essendon at Etihad Stadium.
"It probably looked like he had a little bit of a limp, the tape was such that it probably compromised his running gait to some extent," Richardson said.
"He's a 50-50 for next week with six days until we play the Bombers."
As for the result, Richardson said it wasn't necessarily a step back for his young team, as long as they learned from the outcome of diminished effort.
"That's where we're at as a group. This is a journey we're on as a team and as a club," he said.
"We got taught a lesson today and the lesson was if you don't turn up and give great effort then you're a chance to get badly beaten.
"We just didn't bring the same effort and the same pressure, and that was disappointing.
"They've had same reward for effort, not always has that been victory - we didn't get that last week but we were really pleased with the way we went about the footy.
"This was very different. It's a great opportunity for our guys to review this game really strongly and come out and understand clearly if we don't bring the effort required, we're going to be really uncompetitive."
Richardson acknowledged the peaks and troughs that would come with a young, rebuilding side but remained heartened by the continuing contributions of his leaders, including Nick Riewoldt and Lenny Hayes.
However, he said they wouldn't allow such dramatic troughs to become an acceptable standard.
"With young inexperienced teams – [Billy] Longer (with) 10 games of footy versus [Sam] Jacobs (with) 86, you're a chance to get inconsistent performances," he said.
"That doesn't mean we accept it and move on.
"We challenge really strongly and aggressively in the way we coach the boys to make sure we expedite our development as a playing group."
While Richardson is "not into wielding axes or anything like that", he concedes there will be changes to the team this week after "some guys didn't quite get the job done".
He said Sam Fisher was a chance to return via the VFL after accelerating his training in recent weeks.
