St Kilda Coach Alan Richardson is confident Friday night’s 23-point win over Greater Western Sydney will fuel the Saints’ belief, especially on the back of last weekend’s impressive performance against Hawthorn in Tasmania.
After a winless opening fortnight of 2017, St Kilda has now won four of their last five games and led Geelong at three-quarter time in Round 5, before fading in the last quarter.
But after claiming a giant scalp in the form of premiership fancies and last year’s preliminary finalists the Giants, Richardson believes St Kilda is marching in the right direction as they pursue a return to September for the first time since 2011.
“We’ve just got to keep going, it’s only Round 7. We’re really confident the group is heading the right way,” Richardson told reporters in his post-match press conference on Friday night.
“It might be one of those games where we gain much more belief but we’ve just to keep going to make sure that it doesn’t become an event.
“We rate GWS – as the whole industry does – really highly; they are a quality team. There was a lot more said about Hawthorn than us, given where Hawthorn have been in recent years that was understandable, but that was a pretty positive performance last week.
“Three pretty strong quarters against Geelong; that’s eleven quarters that have been positive out of our last three games. I think the guys have got a bit of belief and the last quarter would reflect that I reckon. There’s no doubt that’s [belief] growing.”
Richardson, who guided the Saints to 12-10 last year in his third season at the club, said the inclusion of key defenders Nathan Brown and Jake Carlisle has had a massive impact on the Saints.
After quelling West Coast’s Josh Kennedy, Collingwood’s Darcy Moore and Geelong’s Tom Hawkins, Brown nullified Giants full forward Jonathon Patton on Friday night, holding the powerhouse forward to just one goal and three marks.
“We think both Nathan and Jake have been really positive for us behind the ball,” Richardson said.
“Our defence has been pretty strong. We’ve had some reasonable scores kicked on us a couple of times this year, but our back six have been pretty positive.
“When Geelong kicked 19 goals I think Hawkins only kicked a couple and Menzel was only a couple. They’ve been strong additions.
"This time last year we’d already been to Perth and been beaten by 100-points, the Bulldogs had beaten us by 60. We’re much stronger with that now and those guys have been really positive for us.”
