Another top-four opponent, another walk in the park for the Saints.

Just one week after thumping Adelaide by 10 goals, St Kilda has treated yet another premiership contender with contempt as it defeated the Western Bulldogs by 45 points at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.

The victory was the Saints' 17th in a row and it has reaffirmed that Geelong appears to be the only meaningful obstacle standing in the way of its second AFL premiership.

For second time this season St Kilda has proven to be far too strong for the Bulldogs and the 16.10 (106) to 9.7 (61) result means Rodney Eade's men are now 0-4 against fellow top-four teams this season.

Capping off a bad night for Dogs, Shaun Higgins appeared to suffer a serious hamstring injury and Robert Murphy stayed off the ground for a large portion of the match with what also looked like a hamstring complaint.

The most worrying sign for the Bulldogs, who are renowned for their slick and precise ball use, was that they made an uncharacteristic amount of skill errors under the enormous pressure that the Saints applied.

St Kilda's first 10 goals were scored as a direct result of Bulldogs mistakes.

Brendon Goddard (37 touches) and Lenny Hayes (31) were supreme in the first half when the Saints' comfortable win was set-up.

Goddard - who was directly involved in six of the Saints' seven first-quarter scores - received almost no attention as he launched many damaging plays with his exquisite skills from the defensive half and Hayes tore the Bulldogs' midfield to ribbons with 26 first-half disposals.

And the Saints received excellent output from Nick Riewoldt and Stephen Milne who both kicked five goals each.

But in the first 20 minutes of the match, the Bulldogs were matching the Saints at their own game and led by seven points close to quarter-time.

The Dogs applied enormous defensive pressure and their ferocious tackling forced St Kilda in to numerous skill errors.

However, St Kilda woke up to slam on eight of the next nine goals from that point to bust the game wide open and the Bulldogs never really looked like getting back into the contest.

Milne was the major beneficiary of his team's dominance in this period as he scored three second-quarter goals.

The Doggies' forwards, namely Scott Welsh, Will Minson, Josh Hill, Mitch Hahn and Brad Johnson, were rendered ineffectual as they were sucked too far up the ground, allowing St Kilda's damaging defenders, such as Goddard, Sam Fisher and Sam Gilbert to peel off and intercept the vast majority of the Bulldogs' entries inside forward 50.

The Dogs were not helped by their own careless disposal - too often they blazed away or turned it over under heavy pressure.

The Bulldogs managed to get to within 18 points at the final change as Ryan Hargrave and Ryan Griffen lifted their work rate but an incomprehensible interchange mistake which saw Welsh start the final quarter on the ground, handing his team an extra-man advantage, snuffed out any momentum they may have had taken into the final term.

The resulting free kick and 50m penalty gifted Riewoldt a goal from the goal line and the Saints booted six goals to two in the final term to emphatically douse the Dogs' mini resurgence.

The Saints won the disposal count 459-388, and with such damaging ball use, the Dogs never really stood a chance.

For the Dogs, Matthew Boyd was his usual industrious self with 39 touches (11 contested), while Daniel Cross and Griffen provided him with sound support in the middle of the ground.

ST KILDA: 4.3, 9.5, 10.7, 16.10 (106)
WESTERN BULLDOGS: 2.2, 4.4, 7.7, 9.7 (61)

GOALS: St Kilda: Milne 5, Riewoldt 5, Gwilt 2, Gram, Dempster, Eddy, Schneider
Western Bulldogs: Ward 2, Hahn 2, Boyd, Addison, Murphy, Griffen, Eagleton
BEST: St Kilda: Goddard, Hayes, Riewoldt, Milne, Dal Santo, Gilbert, Gram
Western Bulldogs: Boyd, Hargrave, Cross, Griffen, Cooney
INJURIES: St Kilda: Nil
Western Bulldogs: Higgins (hamstring), Murphy (hamstring)
REPORTS: Nil
CHANGES: Lindsay Gilbee (personal reasons) replaced in the Western Bulldogs' selected side by Dylan Addison
UMPIRES: Rosebury, Grun, Meredith
CROWD: 45,082 at Etihad Stadium