St Kilda Coach Alan Richardson believes the gulf in intensity and urgency between Sunday’s loss to Greater Western Sydney and the previous fortnight was gaping, with too many players not prepared to make an impact.

Following an impressive win over Collingwood in Round 3 and a gutsy effort against Hawthorn in Tasmania last weekend, the Saints were found wanting against an impressive Giants outfit who led from start to finish and looked far slicker on a quick deck, under the roof at Etihad Stadium.

“You look at the difference: the intensity, the urgency, the want to get over and support each other was not as strong. There was a little bit of ‘I’ll let someone else do it and I might be able to get on the end of it’,” Richardson said in his post-match press conference following the Saints’ 47-point loss.

“There was a bit too much of ‘I’m not going to be a player today that’s going to help us win, I might be a player that helps us win by more if someone else does the work’. So that was really disappointing.”

Despite recording only one less tackle than Leon Cameron’s side, Richardson lamented his side’s lack of contribution. Only ten players laid more than two tackles, including Seb Ross with nine and Darren Minchington and Jack Steven with seven each, but six players failed to register a single tackle, much to Richardson’s disappointment.

“We just had way too many passengers today. We had blokes who didn’t lay a tackle. We had blokes that laid one tackle who have been really positive for us,” Richardson said.

“We had some leaders not quite get it done, some of our younger leaders. So that was disappointing, but we have to respond. That’s the industry we’re in; we get the opportunity to bounce back, to do something about it against the Demons next week.”

St Kilda’s final kick inside 50 was also an area of concern Richardson focused on in his post-mortem, rueing the Saints’ wasteful disposal in the forward half of the ground, particularly given the number of inside 50s his side recorded. The Saints lost the inside 50 count 53-63, but had just 19 scoring shots to 31.

“Sloppy start – real sloppy early. We ended up having five more entries in the first quarter but just butchered the footy,” Richardson said.

“It’s probably as poor as we’ve used the ball, but that would get away from the biggest issue and that is when it was really tough we were found wanting.

“If you can park the entry work, which was poor, some of our offence was reasonable – up until three-quarter time. We had 52 entries – that’s pretty good numbers.”