After breaking a decade-long finals drought last year, St Kilda has underachieved so far in 2021.
The Saints were trounced by Essendon by 75 points on Saturday night which was their second loss in a row on the back of a disappointing defeat at the hands of Melbourne in Round 2.
Brett Ratten’s side currently occupies 16th position on the ladder ahead of much sterner tests in the form of West Coast, Richmond and Port Adelaide across the remainder of April.
Their current predicament prompted Dermott Brereton, who has spent time at the club as a specialist coach, to draw comparisons between today’s Saints and the underachieving Demons side of 2019 who finished 17th on the back of a Preliminary Final appearance the year before.
“Are they like the Demons version of 2018/19?,” Brereton asked on SEN’s Bob and Andy.
“Who barnstormed home in 2018 and were quite brilliant. They had their game bettered down and then stuff just walked out the door. Their principles, their effort in certain situations which would affect the whole team.”
Hawthorn champion Brereton referred to some instances in the Bombers loss which set off alarm bells from a Saints perspective.
“If you lose a game, you can lose it to a structure, you can lose it through game style which doesn’t suit the opposition, but when it looks to be effort that’s not a great sign,” he added.
“There were so many signs of the replay I watched of the Saints that you would say, ‘These are just really bad warning signs’. It started at the first bounce. Big ‘Two-Metre’ Peter (Wright) hardly jumped in with full venom and broke the game apart.
“The captain (Jack Steele) is tying to set the standard, you know Brett Ratten is trying to set the standard.
“Is there a situation there? I hope they nip it in the bud because they’ve worked too hard to try and get themselves up to be an exceptionally competitive team.
“Are they showing signs similar to the slide between the 2018 Demons and the 2019 Demons?”
What generally comes with the territory of back-to-back defeats is the underperformance of senior players and Brereton says critical supporters must be careful what they wish for.
He added: “I think there is time to make an example of somebody but if you do, and drop them, is there somebody ready to take their spot?
“Don’t make an example of a Brad Hill if you can’t replace him and you’re replacing him with somebody who is just not ready. You have to take that into account.
“So what you do then is the coach, the coaching staff, the line coach - let’s make it Brad Hill, it could be Seb Ross, it could be anyone of those boys who are underperforming at the moment - you just have to reach them emotionally.
“The first thing that has to come back is effort.
“You can do it privately, it does work privately. It doesn’t have to be a public execution.”
The Saints will be eager to bounce back when they host the Eagles at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.