As he is almost every week, Gary Ablett was close to unstoppable in Gold Coast’s 38-point victory over St. Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

The two-time premiership midfielder was too hot to handle for the depleted Saints, running rings around tagger Clinton Jones in the first quarter when he nailed three goals from just eight disposals.  Former GC SUNS teammate Maverick Weller did a serviceable job for the rest of the match, but the skipper was still influential around the ground when he had to be as St Kilda showed plenty of fight after half-time.

Ultimately, the dual Brownlow Medal winner finished with a game-high 37 touches (22 of which were contested), eight clearances, seven inside-50s and a bag of four majors to match the efforts of forwards Brandon Matera and Tom Lynch.

After a clinical first half where they played with breakneck speed, at times, the SUNS dropped their intensity in the third quarter, allowing the Saints to build momentum as the home team kicked four of the first give goals following the long break.

But the SUNS’ polish and class proved too much for the 15^th ranked side in the competition, running out the game comfortably to secure their sixth win for the season.

Although pleased with his team’s performance, Ablett said his teammates could not afford to let opposition sides back into the contest after establishing sizeable scoreboard margins.

“We felt like we stuck to the structures in that first half, but I think we let ourselves down in the second half,” Ablett said.

“We’ll go back and review the tape and fix it up.

“… I think our combo, contest-balls and tackles, were down a bit. We were fumbling the ball as well as overusing the ball, so Bluey (McKenna) just said to get it inside forward-50 and give our tall forwards a chance.

“We didn’t do that a lot in the second half.”