ST KILDA’S emerging youth has been a plus in what has admittedly been a frustrating season so far for defender James Gwilt.

Gwilt, who plays his 100^th senior match this week is one of the team’s relative veterans.

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So far this season, five debutants have been rolled out for the Saints with Nathan Wright, Josh Saunders, Brodie Murdoch, Tom Lee and Jimmy Webster all showing promise, as have a few players with slightly more experience under their belts.

Gwilt says he has been impressed by what he has seen from his younger teammates.

“Their training throughout the pre-season has been solid. Josh and Brodie weren’t playing on the weekend but they have had a couple of games in them,” Gwilt said.

“Seb Ross and Jack Newnes have played really well, Jack Steven has taken a good step forward so there is a lot of promising young talent.”

The Saints have won two of their eight games so far, but Gwilt said the team was intent on getting its third victory in Saturday’s clash with the Western Bulldogs.

“It has been a bit of a frustrating year,” he said.

“We played Carlton and had a good win and had a really good effort but we couldn’t back it up last week so again, we’re trying to recover and learn from our mistakes the previous week and try to beat the Bulldogs.”

Several of St Kilda’s losses have been by slim margins and Gwilt said it was a matter of maintaining a high level of performance, while focusing on the basics of the game.

“We have just been a bit inconsistent in quarters, especially on the weekend the second half let us down. We have to put in a four-quarter effort this week,” he said.

“We try to give our best effort and concentrate on the contest, the contested ball and tackling. That is what we try to judge ourselves on.”