While he is not quite an experiment in a laboratory, St Kilda key forward Josh Bruce says he has been Ben Dixon’s ‘guinea pig’ this pre-season, as the new goal kicking coach looks to improve the Saints' conversion in 2018.

Alan Richardson’s men were ranked equal last for conversion last season, losing a handful of games on the back of wayward kicking in front of goal that would ultimately contribute to St Kilda missing the finals for the sixth consecutive year.

In a season where inaccuracy infected the Saints, Bruce finished last season with a respectable 36.27 next to his name. Although he wasn’t immune, missing his fair share of gettable chances across the year.

Since arriving at Linen House Centre in December, Dixon has worked closely with St Kilda's forwards, drawing praise from Bruce for his ability to combine the technical aspect of goal kicking with the mental demands of executing the crucial skill.

“I'm his [Dixon] guinea pig at the moment, so he's grabbing me every day and we're doing lots of goal kicking,” Bruce told reporters at RSEA Park.

“He’s been working a lot with the forwards and some of the guys who were not necessarily that good in that area but are really good kicks, like Jack Billings and Mav Weller and these guys, they’re not missing at training.

“To get that confidence in that routine in their set shots from Ben and to know someone’s there working on it with them and getting that immediate feedback is really good and hopefully it translates on game day.

“I haven’t changed my routine much. There’s a few little mindset things and just a few tweaks ... it makes such a difference when you have an expert in his trade and we’re lucky enough to have him down here at St Kilda.

“Conversion was a massive issue (last year] and that’s based around technique, first of all. But then some of the shots we were getting, so we’ve had a focus this year on trying to get better shots on goal as well. You’re more likely to kick the shots on goal from a more central location.”

With champion forward Nick Riewoldt in the early stages of retirement, the Saints will unleash a new key forward setup this season, combining Bruce, Paddy McCartin and Tim Membrey inside 50.

“We’ve shown the capabilities of the three of us up there and if you look at teams like Adelaide, their forward set-up for the year, they were probably the most efficient team throughout the year,” Bruce said.

“With their three, or 3½, talls they were really, really strong and hard to defend so we’ll be looking to emulate something like that and getting the cohesion between the three of us.”

St Kilda will kick-start its 2018 campaign at Etihad Stadium this Friday night when they face Essendon and Hawthorn in the inaugural AFLX tournament.