St Kilda coach Alan Richardson says the Saints’ horror loss last Friday was an aberration and is not indicative of where they are at as a club.
After a round-one victory over Brisbane, St Kilda was expected to thrash wooden spoon fancy North Melbourne as they look to end a finals drought.
The Saints haven’t featured in the top-eight since 2011 and have rebuilt steadily under Richardson since he took over as coach in 2014.
But the Saints kicked just five goals on a perfect day with the roof open at Etihad Stadium as the Kangaroos ran out shock 52-point winners last Friday.
Richardson told Fox Footy the club couldn’t just brush off such a disastrous performance, but was confident they could respond ahead of a difficult next four games.
St Kilda have matches against beaten grand finalists Adelaide, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney and Hawthorn to come.
“We’re a far better team than we saw on the weekend,” Richardson said on AFL 360.
“We don’t want to ever be at that level.
“I’ve questioned how we as a collective prepared for this game and how we applied ourselves for the game. We weren’t there when it was time to be strong.
“There’s a chance the way we finished off last week (against the Lions) that… it would just roll on and that is quite an immature response.”