ST KILDA took away the four premiership points on Sunday but the win was hard fought and came at a potential injury cost.

Impressive youngster Mitch Owens will miss at least one game after suffering concussion in a nasty 'friendly fire' incident during the second quarter of the win against Greater Western Sydney.

GIANTS v SAINTS Full match coverage and stats

Owens copped an accidental knee from teammate Anthony Caminiti and, having laid motionless on the ground for a few moments, was put in a neck brace and taken from the ground on a stretcher, forcing the game to be delayed for five minutes.

Thankfully, the 19-year-old returned to the Saints bench after the sickening clash and coach Ross Lyon is confident there was no severe damage done.

"I thought he was outstanding early on," Lyon said of Owens' performance before the clash.

"Theoretically, it might have come at the right time; he'll miss Hawthorn (next week), gets the bye and then he'll hopefully be OK.

"It could have been worse; at least it didn't get him frontal, it was more the back (of his head).

"We'll take every precaution and we won't push anything.

"Hopefully, in three weeks, if he's OK we'll play him. But we'll take no risks with a pretty special young player."

With Owens' missing, the return of Max King has come just when the Saints need him most.

The star full forward missed the first nine rounds as he worked his way back from pre-season shoulder surgery and a hamstring injury, with St Kilda choosing not to rush him back before the Giants game despite winning two of its past five games.

"He was unwavering in his approach (to his rehab) and he got due reward today, which was fantastic," Lyon said of King's road to recovery.

"I think he'll get better and better, and he really helps Caminiti play a bit better as well.

"He's really important. He's 200-odd centimetres and, even when he doesn't mark it, he brings it to ground generally."

King was strong in the air, finishing with eight marks, but his presence at the contest was just as important.

"It dovetails in - (the small forwards) need those talls to drop some crumbs to them," Lyon said.

"But I thought in the third quarter we weren't crumbing very well and were getting beaten at the fall of the ball, so we spoke about that at three-quarter time and tightened that up."

The Giants were not without their own injury concerns from the game, with tall defenders Harry Himmelberg and Nick Haynes both ruled out with concussion before half-time.

While the pair are expected to be OK after sitting out the prescribed time by the League's concussion protocols, their absence from the second half on Sunday was not ideal for GWS.

"It unsettled our backline a bit," coach Adam Kingsley said post match.

"We had to shift James Peatling from forward to cover Haynes to begin with ... we then shifted (Harry) Perryman back. I thought those boys both did OK but we didn't get the same rebound we get out of Haynes and Himmelberg."

Kingsley expects both to be back in two weeks' time, and also played down injury concerns to Toby Greene after the superstar got up gingerly from a tough contest.

"He's fine, he just got a whack in the chest, so it wasn't bad.

"It certainly wasn't (his) shoulder."

The coach lamented another close result where, unlike the stirring round seven win against Sydney, the Giants were unable to bridge the gap late in the match.

"We're always in the game towards the end, but we're not able to, yet, quite minimise the damage when the opposition has momentum," he said.

"That's clearly our 'work on', and until we get that right we'll continue to have honourable losses, which we're not all that happy about."