The much-admired 25-year-old, a former club captain and All Australian, had never been dropped in his career before spending several stints in the VFL this year.

He was reinstated for Sunday's qualifying final win over Collingwood and is hopeful of keeping his place for the rest of the finals series.

While Ball would not detail exactly why he was out of the team, he said it had been a challenging time and possibly a necessary motivational jolt.

"Hopefully it's been the kick up the arse that I needed, I suppose, and I won't look back from it from here, but there's still plenty of work to do in the next few weeks," he said.

Asked if he had been guilty of complacency as the Saints went through the first 19 rounds of the season undefeated, he said that might have happened.

"It's probably a combination of things and when the team is going so well, I probably like to think that I've always been a team-orientated player," he said.

"You can I guess become, I don't know if complacent is even the right word, but happy to let things roll along as they are.

"So hopefully it was a really good trigger for me to improve now." He said the Saints' coaching staff had strongly supported him through his battle to earn a recall.

"I've been in constant communication with the coaches, it certainly hasn't been like they've hung me out to dry or cut me off at the knees or anything like that," he said.

"We've been talking almost on a daily basis, they've been fantastic.

"You've got to be careful not to talk to too many people because it's more been an internal issue.

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