The Saints and Bulldogs remain the last of the Victorian AFL clubs to have won only one premiership. They've both endured moments when their very survival seemed doubtful, with St Kilda in financial crisis several times during the 1980s and '90s, and the Dogs a whisker away from merging in 1996.

While both have had periods of on-field success, they've fallen just short of the summit, cementing popular reputations as hard-luck stories, with even those near-misses coinciding.

Such as 1997, when the Dogs and Saints looked like clashing in the ultimate Cinderella grand final, only for a Johnny-come-lately in Adelaide to spoil the party, with the Crows famously pipping the Bulldogs at the post in the preliminary final and running over St Kilda the following week in the big one.

The symmetry was still going on at the end of the "noughties". St Kilda was arguably a toe-poke and an errant bounce away from back-to-back flags in 2009-10, having both years beaten the Western Bulldogs to get to the grand final. The second of those finals clashes was the Dogs' third straight preliminary final defeat.

And that was it for both clubs as far as meaningful success went. St Kilda scraped into the following year's finals in their last season under Ross Lyon. The Bulldogs would finish 2011 10th, two-and-a-half games out of the eight, having sacked coach Rodney Eade in-season. Both had plenty more bottoming out to do.

But the wheel is beginning to turn again, football's cycle of boom and bust reassuring evidence for the AFL chiefs that at least on field, equalisation measures are working.

Superficially, at least, right now there seems less common ground between St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs than usual. The Dogs are third on the ladder with a 4-1 record, St Kilda a mirror image of that in 16th spot. But is there really that big a gap?

Indeed, while the Saints will have been studying the Dogs closely, attempting to bring them unstuck in this round-six meeting, a longer-term view might have seen them cheering on with the rest of the football world. For the Dogs are an example to which St Kilda can realistically aspire.

Since the end of 2010, both clubs' win-loss records are almost identical, the only difference in how those victories were spread.

The Bulldogs have won 33 of their 93 games, the Saints 34 from as many. The first couple of seasons after that year saw St Kilda win 24 games to the Dogs' 14. Since then, the Saints have won just 10 and the Dogs 19. And that distribution isn't so surprising given how those seasons panned out.

In their last season under Lyon, the Saints started poorly but rallied strongly to win eight of their last 10 games and finish the premiership season sixth. The following year, under Scott Watters, the Saints were still thereabouts, finishing ninth.

Of course, the best clubs are able to compete and regenerate simultaneously. But playing the kids is easier said than done when finals are still a realistic goal. Which they obviously weren't going to be for the Bulldogs a long way out from September 2011, and even more so the following season when they won just five games and lost the last 11 straight.

It's why in recruiting, and now it seems performance terms, the Dogs are a year or two ahead of the Saints. They blooded no fewer than 18  players over those two seasons to St Kilda's 13.

Three in particular – Tom Liberatore, Luke Dahlhaus and Mitch Wallis – have become staples, all having racked up 60 games or more, and there's been other handy pick-ups in Tory Dickson, Jason Johannisen and Michael Talia. St Kilda's strike rate from those couple of years is lower, with Jack Newnes the only 50-gamer as yet.

The Bulldogs caught another decent-sized wave with the 2013 debuts of Jack Macrae, Jake Stringer, both already in the upper echelon of the Dogs' best 22, and added the class of Marcus Bontempelli last year.

But St Kilda can also see the next set of breaks coming. Jimmy Webster and Tom Curren in 2013. And a very classy pair in Luke Dunstan and Jack Billings, the latter pair perhaps the Saints' Bontempellis.

St Kilda have had 18 players debut since the start of 2013, all but one still on the books. Consider then the influx of recruits from other clubs still, in terms of experience, relative newcomers such as the impressive Josh Bruce, Tom Hickey, Billy Longer and Tim Membrey. It's left the Saints with an incredibly large group of young talent beginning to make their mark.

While veterans Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna, Adam Schneider, Sam Fisher, Farren Ray and Sean Dempster inflate the Saints' games average beyond rivals such as Gold Coast and GWS, the vast bulk of the list is green indeed, to the extent St Kilda have no fewer than 30 players who have played 33 games or less.

The Saints are coming along, and the signs are more encouraging than a 1-4 record would suggest, last week's narrow loss to Essendon a missed opportunity, ditto the opener against GWS, a bad second half against Carlton bringing undone the good work of the first, a thrashing at the hands of Collingwood the only complete bust.

There's more evenness and consistency about St Kilda already, the Saints having won more quarters  than even Geelong, the next step clearly converting those near-things to victories.

But Saturday's opponent should be the perfect case study in how to go about doing that. St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs have shared a lot of common ground over the years. It's a shorter path than many would believe to them both residing in the more desirable postcodes of the AFL ladder, too.