Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has been making sure his Tigers don’t get punished off half-back by St Kilda in the same they did when the two AFL sides met in June.

The Saints set-up their run towards a first AFL finals appearance in nine years, stunning the reigning premiers by 26 points in round four.

After losing to the Brisbane Lions for the first time in 11 years, the Tigers need to bounce back in this Friday night’s semi-final at Metricon Stadium to avoid their premiership defence ending in a straight-sets exit.

Hardwick said his team learned plenty from the last time they played St Kilda.

“They were up and about, played a great brand of footy, very attacking,” he said.

“Their back-half transition we couldn’t stop, so we did a bit of work on that (on Wednesday).

“There’s a lot of things we didn’t do overly well that night, taking nothing away from St Kilda.

“We probably left a lot of goals on the table because we were just weren’t clean, some of that was as a result of St Kilda’s pressure, but other times we just mucked up with the ball.”

A huge factor in the Saints’ upset victory over Richmond last time was former Tiger Dan Butler, who booted three goals.

The 2017 premiership player was squeezed out of Punt Rd at the end of last year, but has enjoyed a spectacular first season with the Saints to be the club’s leading goal-kicker.

“We love Dan, we love his family and what he brought to our football club,” Hardwick said.

“It was one of the situations where he was out of contract at the wrong time.

“He’s been incredible for St Kilda and very unlucky not to make the All-Australian team, from my point of view.”