Brett Ratten lamented his side's turnovers and emphasised that there is still a lot of 'work to do' in what was a damaging blow to St Kilda’s finals hopes.

St Kilda had its chances with returning ruckman Rowan Marshall and late inclusion Paul Hunter dominating hit outs after Carlton’s sole ruckman Tom De Koning went down in the first half with a pectoral injury.

The Saints midfield didn't take advantage of their dominance with Ratten once again conceding his side’s ball movement was a key factor.

"They scored four goals from centre bounce and it's an area we thought we had the upper hand and we didn’t,” he said.

"Our ball use really hurt us tonight but the other part to the game was that we thought we had a ruck advantage at stoppages. De Koning goes down and we win hit-outs by 57 and only win clearances by three.”

Max King, who kicked four goals after six last round, and Jack Steele (36 disposals and 14 tackles) once again showing their star power.

Despite King booting three in the opening quarter, St Kilda’s kicking efficiency let them down.

“This has been an ongoing subject around our inability to connect going forward,” he said.

“Tonight we took 17 marks which is fantastic but we only scored 12 goals and that doesn’t talk about other parts of the game.”

With only three games remaining of the home and away season and finals now a distant hope, Ratten signalled the work for 2022 was already underway.

“I think there will be some alterations to the game plan and how we go about it.

I think bringing in some of that personnel you spoke about will help us because of their skillset and what they can do and where they can play,” he said.

"We haven't moved the ball the way we'd want to, our goal accuracy is down, our clearance rate can be inconsistent.

“We’ve still got a bit of work to do and we’re doing this every week, its not ‘yeah we’ll wait park it and do it through pre-season’, it’s going to be important to make sure we’re trying to improve in an area and get our game right.”