St Kilda coach Scott Watters says young forward-ruckman Rhys Stanley’s terrible injury run this season hasn’t dulled his bright AFL future.

The 21-year-old 19-gamer was injured for the third time in as many matches in Friday night’s 18.15 (123) to 11.15 (81) loss to Geelong at Etihad Stadium, the previous two having resulted in long stints sidelined by hamstring complaints.

A heavy clash in a marking contest with Geelong defender Tom Lonergan resulted in Stanley being taken to hospital on Friday night with fears of rib and lung damage.

But the Saints on Saturday said scans had cleared the big man of structural damage, although doubt remains over whether he will face Greater Western Sydney on Saturday.

But Watters had no doubt about where Stanley was heading long-term.

“I’ve got a lot of faith in where Rhys is going as a player,” the first-year Saints coach said.

“I think he’s matured enormously. Even though he hasn’t played a lot of games this year, his self-belief and his self-esteem (have grown).

“He just has to keep persevering and he’ll get a run at it … he’ll come out the end of it a good player.”

The defeat hurt the Saints’ finals hopes and Watters said whether skipper Nick Riewoldt returned from a knee injury in the remaining two games might partly defend on what chance St Kilda still had.

“Obviously the priority is Nick’s got to get right,” Watters said.

“So we’ll assess him throughout this week.

“We’ll also have a look at results (of other games) over the weekend and just see where things sit, but if there’s any risk at all Nick won’t be playing.”

The Saints will also be awaiting the match review panel’s assessment of an incident involving 261-game midfield veteran Lenny Hayes.

Hayes arrived late at a marking contest and crashed into Geelong’s Taylor Hunt after the Cat had marked, the collision giving Hunt a bloodied nose.

Hayes felt he had not done much wrong.

“In hindsight and when you can look at the replay, it looks like there might have been another option,” he said.

“But I just saw the footy and accelerated at the footy and at the last second I saw Hunt out of the corner of my eye and by then it was probably too late to do anything else.

“It was just an unfortunate head clash I think and I’m just happy that he was okay and right to play on.”