Chief Operating Officer Simon Lethlean says St Kilda is embracing Sunday’s opportunity to even up the ledger against Port Adelaide.
The Saints sit on 2-3 from their first five games of the season, but it’s been the manner of the losses – the most recent an 86-point defeat at the hands of Richmond – which have drawn widespread criticism.
“We need to respond,” Lethlean told SEN.
“We need to get back to playing a style of footy and a brand of footy that has us competitive throughout the whole course of a match.
“We found ourselves in this spot last year too after a couple of really, really poor losses to North Melbourne, Collingwood and Fremantle early on, and we had to dig deep and rally and get the confidence back.
Numerous aspects of the club have come into question in light of a series of subpar performances, with its list demographic one of the most discussed aspects.
St Kilda fielded the fourth-youngest side last season, with the signings of depth players James Frawley (32), Shaun McKernan (30), Paul Hunter (28) and Mason Wood bumping the average player age up to 27.
“There’s ways to skew it, but when our best team is fielded, it’s still on the younger side of most teams,” Lethlean said.
“Our best 25 is in that younger bracket, and nine of our top 11 last year in our Best & Fairest were under 25.
“We believe our best 25 is in the younger bracket, but we haven’t been active in the draft the last two years as we’ve been reorienting our list.
“We haven’t taken as many teenagers, so it certainly skews it to the older side of things when you take it into account.”
While the age of St Kilda's list can’t come into question in regards to its form, Lethlean says application – both physical and mental – has played into the current lapse.
“There’s never one answer for that stuff,” Lethlean said.
“We talked about (our form) post-Essendon and delivered (against) West Coast: a lot of it is the mental side of it, the effort side of things and bringing the pressure and physicality that’s required to then spark the rest of your game.
“There’s no ignoring the fact that we’re a few soldiers down, but so are other teams and they’re playing better or losing better – and in fact, winning games – so there’s lots of reasons, but you can’t work on plugging all the gaps.”
St Kilda will regain Rowan Marshall and Zak Jones for Sunday’s Anzac Day clash against Port Adelaide, while Paddy Ryder – who will play a full game for Sandringham this weekend – is expected to return for Round 7.
“It’s a tough assignment at Port, but one that we embraced twice in a week last year at Adelaide and did a good job at it,” Lethlean said.
“If we can get a result this week, we’re back to 3-3 and you start to reset and look forward.
“If you don’t, you start falling behind the ledger and that makes it tough. You can do it, but you’d rather stay on an even keel.”
