A free kick with less than a minute to play gave St Kilda youngster David Armitage the winning goal against Essendon at Telstra Dome and put the Saints through to the pre-season grand final.

The Saints won 1.12.13 (94) to 1.12.10 (91) to book a spot in next Saturday night's grand final against either Adelaide or Hawthorn, who meet at AAMI Stadium on Saturday night.

With both sides showing great intensity in the final minutes, the Bombers led by three points when midfielder Angus Monfries dived on a loose ball in his defensive goal square, was claimed by Armitage and failed to dispose of it.

Armitage, who has played just three senior games for the club and was impressive, kicked truly to snatch the win.

Just as welcome for St Kilda was the successful return from injury of some of their biggest stars, Nick Riewoldt, Lenny Hayes and Luke Ball.

All three had limited game time, particularly Ball, who spent the entire first half on the bench.

But they still had an impact, with Riewoldt booting three first-half goals and Hayes the highest possession-winner on the ground in the first half, while Ball looked solid.

The Saints would also have been happy with the performance of ex-Sydney recruit Adam Schneider, who gathered plenty of touches running off half-back in his first game for the club.

Young speedster Clinton Jones, who has just six senior matches to his name, showed he could also make an impact this season, giving the Saints plenty of run, while ex-Geelong premiership player Steven King was solid in the ruck.

While a youthful Essendon side would have been disappointed to miss out on a grand final berth, they would have also had plenty to like about their performance.

As has been the trend throughout their pre-season campaign, the most pleasing aspect for new coach Matthew Knights would have been the strong performances from some of the Bombers' younger brigade.

Forward Jay Neagle kicked four goals in his first match for the year after playing just one senior game in his debut season last year.

Courtenay Dempsey and Jay Nash both showed plenty of dash out of defence, while Patrick Ryder kicked two goals in the final term after starting in defence.

Second-year player Alwyn Davey continued to excite with his dash both at half-forward and in the midfield, while Brent Stanton picked up plenty of possessions in the midfield.

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon described the victory as a "bonus" and said the main aim had been to get the right amount of game time into players, particularly the senior ones.

"We always want to compete, but it was a really strong objective to manage the game time and the minutes from a few of the obvious ones, but really everyone, and play as best we could within the 16 interchanges," Lyon said.

"In the end we sort of did that and all the way along that's been a really strong focus from our first intra club through to the rounds of the NAB Cup.

"... We spent a couple of hours planning the interchanges on Thursday, so it was all pre-ordained and we hardly sort of wavered from that at all."

Lyon said that approach would not change, despite next weekend's match being the NAB Cup grand final.

Knights said while the Bombers had now been relegated to the practice match circuit, they would put out their strongest team of the pre-season next weekend.

He said skipper Matthew Lloyd, key defender Dustin Fletcher and key position player Adam McPhee would all play their first matches of the year.

"We will go for virtually a full dress rehearsal, it will allow us to play our full 22 or 23 that will be earmarked for round one and then we've got a 16-day break between that game and our first game against the Kangaroos on the Monday," Knights said.

He said despite Friday night's loss, the quality and daring shown by the club's younger player over the pre-season so far should have given supporters plenty of cause for excitement.

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