St Kilda's AFL wildcard hopes crushed by Carlton as Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera suffers injury

Alright, we've got two games remaining in the season.

Let's work our way from the bottom up of the ladder to see where things stand.

Season over: The Bombers, Tigers, Eagles, Power and Suns will all be looking to the trade period and the draft now. The Suns were the most recent domino to fall despite their stirring win over the Giants today.

North Melbourne: The Kangaroos are highly unlikely to play finals, two games behind Carlton in the wildcard position in 10th, with a poor percentage and games against Geelong and Sydney to come. Put a line through them, they're done.

GWS Giants: The close loss to the Suns today have absolutely devastated GWS hopes of making a wildcard spot. They're two games behind the Blues, and while they should account for the Eagles, they then face an away trip to Adelaide to face the Crows. They'd need to win both and hope the Blues drop both their games, and the Saints drop at least one.

St Kilda: Two games behind the Blues. That's bad. Winnable games against the Tigers and the Suns. That's good. Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera definitely out for both of those games. That's bad. On balance it looks unlikely the Saints will wedge their way into a wildcard spot, but ...

Carlton: The Blues face tough matches against the Bulldogs and the Dockers to finish the season. They drop both of those, and the Saints win both of theirs, and St Kilda would leapfrog Carlton on percentage.

The rest: All other teams are locked into finals, but it's tight around which teams play in the wildcards, and which teams can force their way into the top four. The Dockers will have a home qualifying final, and it's unlikely the Swans will be moved out of second with a strong percentage and a soft finish against the Kangaroos and the Bombers.

Brisbane and Melbourne look like the likeliest teams to round out the top four with Adelaide facing a tough trip to Perth against Fremantle next week, but don't rule out the Cats, who face the Kangaroos and Tigers in their final two weeks.

It's going to be a belter of a finish and after all this talk of the wildcard spots being the exciting part of the ladder, the old top-eight would be an incredible watch right now if it still existed.

By Anna Harrington/AAP

Superstar Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera has suffered a likely season-ending left hamstring injury in St Kilda's 44-point loss to resurgent Carlton on a crushing night for the Saints' AFL wildcard hopes.

Early in the first quarter of Sunday night's clash at Docklands, Wanganeen-Milera handballed to teammate Max Hall, attempted to burst away then grabbed at his hamstring as he tried to receive the ball back.

A dejected Wanganeen-Milera limped straight down to St Kilda's rooms and the deflated Saints never looked in the match, losing 15.10 (106) to 8.14 (62) as Carlton tightened its grip on a wildcard berth and the head coach role became Josh Fraser's to lose.

The 23-year-old re-emerged but shuffled to the bench and sat in the back row, banging the glass behind him in frustration, before later having an ice bag strapped to his thigh.

Even a standard hamstring injury would rule Wanganeen-Milera out of St Kilda's remaining games against Richmond and Gold Coast.

Veteran Mason Wood was ruled out with a calf injury late in the second quarter, which could finish his season too.

Ahead of the game, 10th-placed Carlton were just one win clear of Ross Lyon's 11th-placed Saints.

The victory takes Carlton (44 points) to 10 wins from 12 matches under interim coach Fraser, eight points clear of the chasing pack of St Kilda, GWS and North Melbourne (all 36).

Fraser is expected to throw his hat into the ring for the fulltime role this week, ahead of Carlton's clashes with the Western Bulldogs (48 points) and leaders Fremantle, and appears an almost unbackable favourite.

Carlton fans chanted "we want Fraser" in the final minutes of the match.

Wanganeen-Milera was under an injury cloud all week, missing Thursday's training as he battled a hip issue suffered in last week's loss to Sydney — but was ultimately cleared to play.

The 23-year-old averaged 30 disposals, a goal and a direct goal assist this season, but has been red hot recently, including kicking four goals and notching 46 disposals against North Melbourne.

Apart from Wanganeen-Milera and Hill, the Saints had more injury scares.

Liam Ryan (left shoulder), former Blue Tom De Koning (right shoulder) and Bradley Hill (left knee) went down to the rooms but returned to play.

Carlton led a deflated St Kilda by 25 points at halftime and 35 at three-quarter time.

Harry McKay kicked three goals while dominant ruck Marc Pittonet, Will Hayward, Mitch McGovern, Brodie Kemp and Ben Ainsworth kicked two apiece.

Francis Evans (21 disposals, nine score involvements) was superb, Patrick Cripps (26 disposals), George Hewett (26) and Sam Walsh (26) got the grunt work done and Adam Cerra and Ollie Florent provided class.

Hall (30 disposals, 10 clearances, two goals) and Hill (31 disposals) were the most influential Saints, while Mitch Owens kicked 2.2 and Jack Higgins finished with 1.4 on a tough night.

Former Blues Jack Silvagni and De Koning were booed early in the match by Carlton fans.

It's a game high 35-point lead and the broadcasters don't want you to stop watching by saying it, but there's no way back for St Kilda here.

Two down on the bench with Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and Mason Wood both done for the night, and their forward line just isn't functioning for anyone over 190cm, with Jack Higgins and Liam Ryan looking like their only avenues to goal.

For Carlton, Francis Evans has played the game of his life across half-forward, dominating around 60-70m mark as the final kick before the shot at goal. I'm not sure I've ever seen Evans play a better game.

George Hewett (22) and Adam Cerra (21) are the leading disposal winners for the Blues while it's Bradley Hill (25) leading the field for St Kilda.

This will make it 10 wins from 12 games for the Blues under Josh Fraser, and I'm going to dare to say it - they win this and the top 10 is locked in. I can't see any other team sneaking in after the Giants dropped their game to the Suns today.

Please feel free to send your complaints to Chris De Silva if I'm wrong.