St Kilda overcame an early scare before turning on a second-half scoring avalanche to thrash Hawthorn by 66 points in tonight's round 13 AFL game at Telstra Dome.

Top-versus-bottom was meant to be a cakewalk for the Saints after two successive losses, but the Hawks fired a six-goal opening quarter to lead by 18 at the first change.

But unlike the Western Bulldogs last week, the battlers could not sustain the effort and St Kilda kicked 14 goals to three after quarter-time to win 19.13 (127) to 9.7 (61).

The Saints go into the mid-season break with an outstanding 11-2 record.

Nine goals in the last quarter bumped up the margin, but for a lot of the night it was a scrap.

Midfielder Stephen Powell regained the lead for the Saints when he fended off a couple of tacklers and goaled early in the third quarter.

From there it was academic as Stephen Milne and Fraser Gehrig kicked five goals each, the latter happy to be back in form and leading the league's goalkicking with 56 despite just one in the past fortnight.

But the win came at a big cost to St Kilda as forward Justin Koschitzke dislocated his right elbow.

With two goals, Koschitzke was one of the Saints' best in the first half but came off second-best against Hawk Matthew Ball in the third quarter.

Hawthorn started the night at long-odds after four straight losses, but early on its small forwards proved too nippy for St Kilda's defence.

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