The death of 2006 premiership Eagle Selwood at the age of 41 on Saturday sent shock waves through West Coast, and a minute's silence was held before Sunday's match in front of 42,860 fans.
West Coast players, fuelled by the emotion of the previous 24 hours, unleashed their best pressure display of the season to lead from the outset on the way to the 16.12 (108) to 12.8 (80) win, despite five goals from Jack Higgins.
"It's been a tough 48 hours. We lost one of the greats of our footy club. It's heartbreaking," an emotional Allen told AAP.
"I just want to send all the love and support we can to the Selwood family. No one should have to go through what they're going through right now.
"It's been really tough, and not just on the players, but a lot of our coaching staff and members of the footy club who've been here for a long period of time.
"Adam is one of the most loved sons, and you'll always be loved by the footy club.
"I'm really proud that we could come out and play a good brand of footy, and I like to think he's up there somewhere, smiling, happy that we got a win."
The result marked West Coast's first victory of the season, snapping an 11-match losing run that stretched back to last year.
It also gave Andrew McQualter his first win as West Coast coach.
The victory came against Ross Lyon, who coached McQualter at St Kilda for the bulk of the tagger's 94-game playing career.
For St Kilda, the loss leaves them with a 4-6 record and huge question marks about their finals credentials.
Brady Hough was influential for West Coast with 24 disposals and the first goal of his AFL career, while Harley Reid (15 disposals, two goals, four clearances) took a mark-of-the-year contender when he sat on skipper Allen to reel in a ripper grab.
Rowan Marshall (27 disposals, 40 hitouts, one goal) stood tall in the ruck for St Kilda, while Higgins kicked 5.1 in an exceptional display
West Coast made a strong start to the match, with contested marks in attack to Jake Waterman and Matt Flynn leading to early goals.
Jamie Cripps paid tribute to Selwood by tapping his black arm band after sidestepping an opponent to kick a clever snap.
Alarm bells were ringing for St Kilda when Reid nailed two 50m bombs to extend the margin to 25 points by the 18-minute mark of the second term.
The lead ballooned to 34 points midway through the term when Allen kicked his second goal, and the Eagles still held a 70-42 edge heading into the final quarter.
Higgins kicked two goals in the last term to close the margin to 17 points with nine minutes remaining.
But a settling goal from Bailey Williams, followed by two majors in the space of a minute to Liam Ryan, ensured West Coast would snare the win.
"We knew it'd be an emotional day for a very sensitive reason," St Kilda coach Ross Lyon said.
"So it was going to be fierce coming at us, and the pressure numbers indicate they're above their averages and we just didn't handle it."
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