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St Kilda stars Leigh Montagna and Nick Dal Santo say the AFL club’s late season form slump has not prompted any change of approach.
Unbeaten after 19 rounds, the Saints admit their effort and intensity has dropped off in shock losses to Essendon and North Melbourne in the past two weeks.
With only Sunday’s clash with certain wooden spooners Melbourne to tune up for the finals, they need to quickly snap out of the malaise.
But Montagna said they were confident they could do so without having to alter the preparation that has served them well most of the season.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern, because we know that we’ve got it in us and we can produce it,” he said.
“That’s what we’re going to look to do this week.
“Maybe little things like where we were on the ladder and those sorts of things might affect the sort of style that we wanted to play.
“But this week we’re looking to get that performance back leading up to the finals.”
” … We’ve done it for the majority of the year, we’ve played 21 games and 18 or 19 times we’ve played how we want to.
“So we know we’ve got the ability, we just need to bring it out this week.”
Montagna said the drop-off seemed to be a bigger issue outside the club than within.
“Whether we win or lose, we still look at areas that we need to improve on and areas we did well, that’s been no different this week,” he said.
“Obviously there’s a few more areas we need to work on than previous weeks.
“But nothing’s changed with us, we’ve still got the belief that we’ve got the gameplan and the players that when we give the effort we can get the results.”
Dal Santo, who had just nine disposals against the Kangaroos, by far his season low, took a similar view about his own form.
“Probably exactly the same as the team, to be honest,” he said.
“I’m obviously not thrilled with my performance last weekend, but that’s football.
“I’ve been pretty consistent this season, obviously very disappointed on the weekend, but it gives you a good opportunity to bounce back.
“Footy’s a funny thing, you can’t enjoy wins for too long and once again you can’t dwell on a loss for too long.”
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