ROSS Lyon has described losing three players to injury in the first half as "a unique experience" as St Kilda sweats on the extent of spearhead Max King's re-injured shoulder.
Barely a minute into Saturday night's brave loss to Melbourne, King left the field nursing his left shoulder after an attempted spoil.
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The young forward missed the first nine rounds of the season after dislocating his shoulder in December, requiring reconstructive surgery of the joint.
"It doesn't look good. I'd be out of my lane if I hypothesised what it is, but it looks on the surface significant, but I'll hold fire until they come to me officially," Lyon said.
The coach admitted that he hadn't yet spoken to his forward, but briefly comforted him at half-time in the rooms.
"I live in the war space and the bodies that get dragged away I worry about later," Lyon said.
King was joined on the bench by veteran Seb Ross, who injured his hamstring, and Zaine Cordy who suffered a concussion.
Despite the lack of rotations, Lyon thought his side "coped" but didn't make the most of its opportunities in attack. The Saints finished the game plus-six for inside 50s but kicked just eight goals for the night.
"I thought the group showed good character and capacity to run and work," Lyon said.
"For us it's how we want to play footy. Contest, front-half football, I thought we controlled that compared to what we dished up in the first half last week. They responded to the education."
"In the context of the challenge I thought we stood up to a team of quality, but the message was there's no excuse for not taking that football forward."
Lyon praised senior players Jack Steele, Rowan Marshall and Jack Sinclair, but acknowledged just how much youth they had to lean on with King, Ross and Cordy out.
"[Anthony] Caminiti, [Mitch] Owens, [Marcus] Windhager, [Nasiah} Wanganeen-Milera, [Mattaes] Phillipou, for first- and second-year players I think what they're doing is pretty good," he said.
Without King to deal with, Melbourne's Steven May was able to take control of the defensive 50, finishing the game with 13 intercept possessions, eight of which were intercept marks.
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin said: "(St Kilda) played a role on Jake Lever all night, and that sort of freed up Maysie to do his thing, and obviously without Max King there that was an advantage we wanted to make sure we maximised.
"Steven's just a high-quality player, he impacts the ball aerially, and it wasn't just his marking, his ability to impact in other areas of the game was sensational."
At the other end of the ground, where the Demons have been breaking down in recent weeks, Christian Petracca's efficiency was on show, kicking four straight goals. The improved conversion brought a wry smile to Goodwin's face.
"We won the game on efficiency," he said.
Without Bayley Fritsch, who will miss an extended period with a broken foot, the forward mix of Petracca, Ben Brown and Jake Melksham showed promising signs as the trio kicked seven of the side's 12 goals.
"It was just a bit more experience in the forward half of the ground to increase our ability to hit the scoreboard and build some efficiency, and between the three of them I thought they worked well together," Goodwin said.
"It certainly wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a step forward, and Christian was a big part of that."
Defender Harrison Petty, who stood strong with seven intercept possessions, was subbed out in the last quarter due to a rib concern, but Goodwin is "pretty confident he should be OK".
