The upset AFL loss to Essendon in round 18 meant school was suddenly back in for St Kilda.

As assistant coach Stephen Silvagni notes, those sorts of bad losses provide the most valuable lessons.

The Saints were terrible against Essendon and it meant an urgent late-season reassessment of how they were playing.

Richmond are likely to be the third team in as many weeks since that match to find that the Saints have been attentive students.

St Kilda will start strong favourites against the Tigers at Etihad Stadium as they try to continue building their momentum for the finals.

"You really do learn a lot out of your losses," said Saints assistant coach Stephen Silvagni.

"Sometimes you can win, but you don't win well and things can sort-of sneak through.

"Certainly we had to re-assess where we're at and what we needed to do to be able to compete - we're still doing that."

In the wake of the Essendon loss they have smashed Port Adelaide by 94 points and easily beaten North Melbourne by 52 points.

One obvious lesson from the Bombers loss was to take no opponent lightly.

St Kilda ends their home-and-away season next weekend against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium, meaning they will have not played a finalist since the round-17 draw with Hawthorn.

But the last thing the Saints want to do is coast into September on the back of lacklustre performances.

"We're building, we're pretty pleased with the way the last two weeks have gone, but certainly there's still a lot of improvement to have if we're going to go deep into the finals series," Silvagni said.

"If you're off your game by five to 10 per cent, you're in awful trouble.

"Richmond have won six of their last 10 games, they've been in reasonable form and we know Adelaide are always difficult to beat at home.

"It's about preparing the same each week and making sure that we go through the process as if we were playing any other side." St Kilda lost key midfielder Lenny Hayes with a back injury and Robert Eddy has a hand injury, while Rhys Stanley was dropped.

They brought in Luke Miles for his senior debut and recalled David Armitage and Adam Pattison.

The Tigers looked tired last weekend in the 89-point thumping from Carlton and they have made five changes.

Trent Cotchin, Robin Nahas, Will Thursfield, Alex Rance and Troy Taylor will return for Matt White (leg), Danny Jackson (leg), Ben Nason, Andrew Browne and Robert Hicks.

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