The clash between the league's two unbeaten teams lived up to the hype yesterday, becoming a modern-day classic. In front of 54,444 fans, an AFL record for the Docklands stadium, St Kilda won by six points, 14.7 (91) to 13.7 (85).

Saints ruckman Michael Gardiner took a pack-splitting mark with the scores level and less than two minutes remaining. His crash-landing left Cats defender Harry Taylor concussed.

Gardiner then goaled after a delay while Taylor was stretchered from the field and the Saints scored an epic win.

But Saints coach Ross Lyon took his team into a post-match meeting immediately after they had celebrated with the club song, determined to keep their focus.

''It just fuels our belief that we're heading in the right direction, it builds trust within the group,'' Lyon said. ''But the bottom line is it's just banked another four points.

''I said 'enjoy your effort ... but by the time I see you tomorrow at recovery, you want to be firmly focussed on West Coast [next Sunday in Perth]'.''

Geelong coach Mark Thompson insisted the absence of star forward Steve Johnson was not the reason the Cats lost.

Hip soreness kept Geelong's leading scorer this season out of the round 14 clash, and at times he looked sorely missed given the Cats lacked spark in attack.

Thompson said Johnson, again in All-Australian form this year, had been carrying hip soreness for several weeks and was not risked.

''He just got to the point where what's the point in pushing him?'' he said.

''It's round 14, and I know it was a big game and we would have loved to have him out there, but you'd hate to think if he'd played today, he'd miss three or four weeks with an injury that took a long time to heal, so we didn't play him.''

Tom Hawkins' poor game five touches, no goals magnified Johnson's absence, but Thompson denied the injury had a major effect on his forward line.

''A little bit maybe, but it's not the reason we lost,'' he said. ''If he had played, he's not the reason we could have won. We still had a player out there and just as a whole, we didn't kick the ball well to our forwards, our forwards didn't play it right, and St Kilda defended really well. One of our aims was to have a lot of entries but also kick a lot of scores and that didn't happen.''

Thompson confirmed Taylor was sore and sorry.

''He's got a sore head and a sore jaw,'' he said.

''He doesn't really know who he is, or who I am, which is probably a good thing right now.''