St Kilda players and coaches to address big issues after being outworked consistently by North Melbourne

ST KILDA coach Alan Richardson says the players and coaches have asked each other some hard questions in the wake of the loss to North Melbourne and the analysis will go even deeper after his side was well beaten in the Good Friday game.

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson has some work to do.

ST KILDA coach Alan Richardson was on Friday night looking for answers after another contested ball surrender underpinned a thrashing at the hands of North Melbourne.

Richardson also labelled the Saints’ kicking as the worst he’d seen in a Good Friday horror show at Etihad Stadium.

St Kilda, who expect to play finals this year, were blasted by the rebuilding Roos 13.11 to 4.11 after quarter-time and smashed in contested ball 150-119.

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The inside 50m count after halftime was a staggering 41-16, prompting a heart-to-heart behind closed doors after the final siren.

“The biggest question that we spoke about as a group was ‘How can we get outworked so consistently across four quarters?” Richardson said.

“Given that’s a strength of ours; the ability to get across and support our mates, our ability to be able to outnumber at contests.

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson has some work to do.

“Why are we not prepared to roll our sleeves up and really dig in to either support your mate or get over and compete for the ball?

“We were absolutely smashed in contest and beaten badly on the outside. Their backs beat our forwards, their forwards beat our backs, our clearance was a little bit better, but it was the contest thereafter.”

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To make matters worse, Paddy McCartin was reported for a late hit to Trent Dumont and Billy Longer copped a blow to the groin and was severely limited from the third quarter onwards.

Yet the daunting reality for the misfiring Saints is that their next three weeks are as hard as it gets. Adelaide (home), Geelong (away) and GWS (home) are up next.

But Richardson said the journey to redemption had already started, hinting at a ferocious week ahead on the track.

The Saints were smashed by the Kangaroos in the Good Friday game. Picture: Michael Klein

“We spoke at length about, ‘what are we going to do about this result today?’ It’s not going to happen by talking about it, we look forward to the work required,” he said.

“When you get beaten so badly in contest we’ll have a really challenging week. There won’t be a lot of talk, the players know what happened. It will be about getting the hands dirty.”

Much-debated tall forward trio Josh Bruce, Tim Membrey and McCartin combined for 0.3, but Richardson said it was the wrong game to judge the make up of his attacking line-up.

“It’s an awkward game to assess from that perpesctive. Our use was so bad tonight, I’ve not seen us kick the ball as poorly as that,” he said.

“The Kangaroos were able to make it really challenging for us by getting back and filling holes. At their best they’re very hard to score against.

“It was incredibly disappointing. What’s really important is we do something about it. We’ve got eight days to make sure we get ourselves right against Adelaide, who we know had a terrific win and are a great team.”