It was a spirited showing from young Western Bulldogs defenders Jarrad Grant, Daniel Pearce and Jordan Roughead that resonated with injured forward Shaun Higgins in Sunday’s loss to St Kilda.

While restricted to the sidelines with a hamstring injury, Higgins believes the three players showed promising signs in defence in what was otherwise branded a disappointing loss.

“There was… a couple of positives in terms of just individual players - Jarrad Grant [after] an extended period out of the game and came back and played a really good role defensively for us and probably looking back on the game was one of our better players,” Higgins said.

“Daniel Pearce showed that he is going to be a really good player.

“Roughy was good at times down back and looks like he could be a key defender.”

While the Bulldogs eventually fell by 76 points, the margin was only eight points and 24 points the difference at the first two changes respectively.

A surge in the third quarter from St Kilda allowed them to break away and solidify the win but the Bulldogs regrouped at three quarter time and restricted the Saints to 29 points to the Bulldogs 13 in the final term.

“Obviously a reasonably first half and on the stats and our key indicators we were where we wanted to be,” he said.

“Pretty similar to the last five or six weeks, the third quarter really cost us and things went downhill after half time.

“We got away from things we were doing well in the first quarter and I think also St Kilda really stepped it up you saw their senior players take charge of the game and we weren’t able to do that.”

In a devastating blow to the Bulldogs midfield stocks, veteran Daniel Cross was a forced substitution early in the second term with a suspected ac joint injury in his shoulder.

Higgins said his loss was critical for the Bulldogs - but will give a number of younger pups an opportunity in the back end of the season.

“[Cross is] a guy that leads by example every time that he goes out there and every minute of the game and to lose him is going to be critical for us but it also gives us an opportunity for younger guys to stand up,” he said.