ST KILDA defender James Gwilt says he is at a loss to explain why the team has only won one of its first seven games.

The Saints sit 15th on the ladder with a win and a draw, with their latest loss to Hawthorn, which turned around an early 33-point deficit on Sunday to win by 30 points.

Gwilt says there is no tangible reason why the Saints have had such a poor opening.

"We came back from pre-season in really good nick and we were running really good times around the tan. Pretty much as good as last year, if not better," he said after the game.

"We trained really hard in the off-season and we are still training hard during the week. I think it is match day. We can turn it on, we came out in the first quarter and we were doing really well.

"Then that second quarter hurt us a lot. We lost the contested ball by I think 20. We can turn it on when we want, but we're not getting that consistent effort."

Gwilt said it was difficult to pinpoint what the Saints were doing differently to the last two seasons, in which they contested the Grand Final.

"You can't put one finger on it. It's a lot of things, contested ball and I think a bit of over-use. There are a lot of things that have gone wrong. We're not getting our hands on the footy and it's just all adding up," he said.

Gwilt said the Saints could still get something out of 2011, even though they were a long way from where they were used to being on the ladder.

"I don't think we're struggling for motivation. Maybe a tiny bit because we're losing but we've got to get back on the horse and work twice as hard now to get something out of the season," he said.

"We've just got to get our contested ball and effort back up and do it consistently during the week so we can do it game day consistently."