The faint waft of a return to September will fade unless St Kilda recaptures their bold, aggressive brand in the final month of the season, says Saints Coach Alan Richardson.

After winning four games for the first time since 2011 – the last time St Kilda played a final – including a stunning win over Richmond in Round 16, the Saints have fallen heavily to Essendon and Sydney in the last fortnight.

With Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval next weekend, then West Coast and Melbourne in Victoria, St Kilda haven’t been handed a favourable draw in the road to the finals.

“We won’t make the final eight unless we play strong, aggressive footy, particularly against these sort of teams – the good footy teams,” Richardson told reporters following Saturday night’s 42-point loss at the SCG.

“Sydney have won 10 out of their last 11 they’re playing good footy. Port Adelaide next week and the week after that is the Demons who are playing good footy, so that’s what’s ahead.

“What’s really important is we get back to playing really aggressive footy in the contest and we won’t get it done and we won’t get there if we play like we did today.”

With a second consecutive trip on the road next weekend, and a third in just over a month, Richardson indicated that Nick Riewoldt could miss the game against the Power in an attempt to keep the six-time Trevor Barker Award winner fresh at the tail end of the season.

Riewoldt, who turns 35 in October, has played the last six games after missing a game either side of the mid-season bye due to bone bruising in his knee.

“It was planned that ‘Rooey’ would either miss this one or next, given we’ve had a couple of six-dayers in a row; a trip to Perth, now a trip to here,” Richardson said.

“We had eight days between our last performance and this one and he’s been able to train pretty well.

“So there’s a chance that he’ll miss, but we’ll just have to wait and see how he pulls up and what our conditioning and our medical people think.”