The outside noise and speculation regarding St Kilda’s chance of featuring in September has been present across the last month, and it will mount again this week, following Sunday’s big win over Carlton at the MCG.

But for Saints Coach Alan Richardson, the pressure and focus outside the four walls of the football club is not something that will distract St Kilda across the final three games of the home and away season.

St Kilda shifted north of the win-loss ledger after the 71-point win over the Blues, moving within just two games of eighth placed North Melbourne at 10-9 – the first time the Saints have won ten games since 2012.

“The group was disappointed (with last week’s result), there’s a chance that all that noise comes back again now given what’s happened over the weekend with other results,” Richardson told the media in his post-match press conference on Sunday.

“But what I reckon the group has been able to do from a leadership perspective is just focus on our method and our process and what we can control and that’s the way we play our footy.

“So yes we were disappointed, but we still wanted to finish off the year playing really strong footy. We just want to continue to grow as a team and continue to develop as a team.

“We went positive again today, so 10-9 is really good for our young team. They’re starting to believe that their method is really positive, as opposed to relying just on individual performance and brilliance.”

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The Saints are only a remote chance of qualifying for the finals, reliant on the Kangaroos losing their final three games and requiring a clean sweep of their remaining games against Sydney, Richmond and Brisbane.

16.4 per cent separates both sides, meaning if the Saints only win two games they will need to make up an enormous percentage gap, if North Melbourne win one of their last three.

Richardson admits the Saints would much rather be in control of their own destiny, but they will embrace the hype and deal with the pressure associated with chasing a spot in September.

“We’d much rather be in a position where we have control over whether we play finals or not. Having said that, it’s pleasing, I think it’s good for our guys,” he said.

“It was the Western Bulldogs game when all that noise started and we played really strong footy that night when there was pressure, expectation, potentially noise that was going to distract.

“So if that’s a lead in to what we’re going to get against Sydney then that’s a positive. We don’t make much noise about it really; we just acknowledge that it’s there.”

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