Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley says the Magpies have plenty of improving to do despite scraping home against St Kilda in Saturday night’s AFL clash at the MCG.

Collingwood won 12.19 (91) to 13.7 (85) but gave the Saints chances to snatch a win or draw, with two behinds as well as twice sending the ball out on the full in the dying minutes.

The Magpies were also helped by a fortunate free kick in a marking contest to Harry O’Brien deep in defence with seconds to play.

“I just felt like it was a bit of the Goodies, a bit of Benny Hill music could have been playing in the background,” Buckley said of the error-riddled final stages of the match.

“We just seemed to make every little error that we possibly could to (almost) lose the game of footy.

“We got away with it in many ways, because we did so much out of character towards the end there.

“Pressure can do funny things to individuals and it affects decision-making and we’re still honing that to make sure we are making the right decisions at the right time.”

Buckley said his side butchered the ball at times and while they defended with great intensity, they lacked precision when moving forward.

“We sort of carried that same manic intensity into our offence, which didn’t work for us early,” he said.

Collingwood face top-placed Sydney at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night and Buckley said they had some areas to work on before that clash.

“We had a narrow victory (over the Saints) that should have been a lot more substantial than that,” he said.

“We’ll take the lessons from it, we’ll take the positives from it and then we’ll go and attack the ladder leaders.”

The Saints now have only a faint hope of playing finals.

Coach Scott Watters said they wasted their chances with skill errors.

“There were probably half a dozen passages of play where if we’d taken a chest mark or delivered a handball under pressure the game was there to be taken,” Watters said.

“Good players and good sides do that.”