St Kilda midfielder Brad Crouch insists confidence remains high at Moorabbin and there are no lingering mental demons from falling away dramatically last year.
Since winning their opening four AFL games, the Saints have gone win-loss during the last 10 weeks to be precariously placed ahead of a vital clash with the Brisbane Lions at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.
St Kilda started strongly against Richmond last Saturday night, but were eventually taken down by a Tigers side inspired for Trent Cotchin in the three-time premiership captain's 300th game.
The Saints burst out of the blocks in 2022 with a 8-3 record but won just three matches in the second half of the season to miss out on finals.
The fade-out led to the club sacking Brett Ratten and bringing back prodigal son Ross Lyon as coach.
Crouch, who will line-up for his 150th AFL game this weekend, believed last year's results were irrelevant to what they could achieve this season.
"You've just got look across the competition and how even it is, how up and down performances can be," the former Adelaide player said on Tuesday.
"We feel that over the first 13 or 14 games, the effort's been there for probably 11 or 12, where we've been really up and close in games.
"We just want to make sure that we can do that for the rest of the year and touch up a few things with our game plan and the way we move the ball."
Crouch said St Kilda had addressed their inconsistency and inability to string together consecutive victories since the first month of the season.
"Obviously the last half (against Richmond) was pretty tough with the conditions but we've lost no confidence," Crouch said on Tuesday.
"We've spoken a little bit about it at different times; we find that we're responding well to when we lose and then we're not responding that well the next week when we win.
"We understand it's a long season, but we want to start putting together a real patch of footy; most teams want to be playing well in the second part of the year and that's what we want to do as well."
