Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley hailed his team's "mature response" on Saturday to being seriously challenged for the second straight week.
The Magpies rallied from behind late against Carlton a week ago, and this time they had to absorb St Kilda's flurry of first-half punches before slugging the Saints with a last-quarter sledgehammer.
The final 41-point margin – courtesy of a six-goals-to-one fourth term – will be of great disappointment to the St Kilda camp, but was the source of glee for Buckley and co.
Collingwood now boasts the competition's longest active winning streak at six matches.
"St Kilda's brand is high energy. They're quick, they're fit and the pressure they put on us was obvious to all," Buckley said.
"We weren't able to handle it throughout that first half, but I thought our maturity to be able to control the game through our ball use after half-time was as good as we've seen it.
"It was a really mature response to the situation and it was pretty sustained over that hour of footy, culminating in a pretty dominant last quarter."
The result came despite Collingwood stars Jordan De Goey (shin) and Darcy Moore (ankle) being late withdrawals and defender Tom Langdon (knee) sitting out the second half.
Langdon is in doubt for Friday night's clash with the Swans in Sydney, but another more welcome headache is emerging with the Pies' forward stocks.
Mason Cox (ankle) missed a third game in a row, and his replacement, Ben Reid, was one of Collingwood's best players with 16 disposals (10 contested), seven marks and three goals.
Reid was similarly impressive a fortnight ago, when he generated five shots at goal, while Brody Mihocek impressed again with four majors against the Saints.
Whether Buckley is prepared to play them in the same side remains to be seen.
"Reidy's played two good games out of three and 'Checkers' (Mihocek) just keeps producing, so it's a good problem to have," Buckley said.
"When we look at the opposition we face and what their strengths are and what we need to buffer (that will help us make the decision).
"We also need to understand and monitor the wellbeing of our players physically more than anything, but where they're at in terms of preparedness and readiness to play.
"If you get blokes competing for spots, it might give a bit more opportunity to rotate blokes through and make sure you maintain that hunger for positions and competitiveness for positions.
"You've also got fresher players when you get there (in that scenario), so it's a good problem to have if we have that capacity."
Buckley was non-committal about Travis Varcoe's chances of beating a rough conduct charge, saying he was yet to see a replay of the incident where he caught St Kilda's Ed Phillips high.
