THE experience of taking on a near full-strength Fremantle in front of a packed Patersons Stadium will hold St Kilda's younger players in good stead according to coach Scott Watters.

The Saints took to the field without senior players Nick Riewoldt, Justin Koschitzke, Sam Fisher, Stephen Milne, Adam Schneider and Jason Blake - all of whom have more than 180 games to their name.

In their place were 11 players who had played fewer than 25 games.

"The level of energy this week, particularly given a lot of the players' experience was great. There were probably four, five or six guys who wouldn't even know where Subiaco Oval is," Watters said.

"You look at Josh Saunders today and Brodie Murdoch. Both of them did some terrific things. Josh's attack on his opponents, his tackling pressure when he has played maybe four games of football - is really exciting for us as a group. They will keep playing."

The youthful St Kilda team was coming up against a Fremantle team boasting the returns of Matthew Pavlich, Aaron Sandilands, David Mundy and Michael Barlow.

The Saints had a strong start and led at half-time before the home team surged back, thanks in no small part to Pavlich who once again showed his value as a key forward.

"There were elements of the game that we were relatively pleased with. You're never satisfied without getting the final result but for three and a bit quarters I thought the guys were pretty good. The tackle rate was up - there were just under 80 tackles," Watters said.

"We faded late in the game and stoppages and probably contested ball in the last quarter started to drop off. After that point with a few of our younger players coming off a pretty limited preparation, I thought they were pretty brave. It was a good effort."

Another impressive youngster for the Saints was West Australian native Tom Lee who relished being the main focal point in attack, booting three goals in what was clearly the best game of his brief AFL career so far.

"Tom Lee I thought was very good coming off limited preparation. We expected Tom Lee in two, three or four weeks to be fully match fit but we were desperate to get him out there," Watters said.

"It has probably been a bit frustrating this year with Tommy because every two or three weeks he has had minor injuries that have forced him to be on the sidelines. You want that type of player to get exposure so we have just got him fit enough where we have been able to get him out there without any risk.

"As I said earlier, with two, three or four weeks of match conditioning he is going to keep pushing forward as a player. He probably went for two and a half quarters today in all reality. But hopefully he can build on that and with another pre-season he can be a good player."