LEIGH Montagna has acknowledged Sunday night’s performance against North Melbourne wasn’t good enough.

St Kilda trailed by eight goals at quarter-time, and ended up losing by 68 points, a result that needs to be rectified ahead of Sunday, according to Montagna.

“There will be a good chat with the leadership group this week and [we will] try and rebound for next week,” he said. “We need to start better and set the tone.”

There has been an influx of debutants and new players this season, with Montagna and a handful of other senior teammates required to guide the inexperienced players in the right direction.     

“We are still trying to develop the younger midfielders … We aren’t winning too many games so I need to take responsibility for that as one of the leaders of the club and continue to work hard to improve the team,” he said.

Seb Ross and Jack Newnes are two of these young ball-winners. Both have shown promising signs this year, but are still developing their minds and bodies for AFL football.

Playing alongside the likes of Hayes, Dal Santo and Montagna will undoubtedly fast-track this process, just as Robert Harvey’s and Andrew Thompson’s presence allowed Montagna himself to flourish as a youngster.

The 200-gamer dismissed the notion that North Melbourne surprised St Kilda, refusing to make excuses for the first quarter blitz.

“We expected North Melbourne to come out as hard as they did,” he said. “We knew they were going to play like that but we couldn’t match it. Our intensity and effort around the ball was no good.”

Individually, Montagna continued to impress, the midfielder collecting 23 disposals on dangerous Kangaroo Daniel Wells.

“Wells is a very good player and it was his 200^th also,” he said. “So I was just trying to nullify his influence and still play my game. Unfortunately this was pretty hard with the way the team went tonight.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do."

You can follow Tom Morris on Twitter: @tommorris32