ST KILDA's ability to carry out the fundamentals more consistently than Melbourne indicates the Saints have raced past the Demons in a number of key areas, according to Dees coach Paul Roos.
The Demons "slaughtered the footy" in a dismal 37-point loss to the Saints at the MCG on Sunday, surrendering 52 turnovers through the middle part of the ground.
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But Roos was more concerned about his side's effort around the contest, where it lost the contested possession count (133-140) and most glaringly the tackle count (57-83).
"We've clearly got a lot of work to do. Is it a week to whack them? We've still got to create our habits around the contest," Roos said post-match.
"That’s what we focus on more. Getting beaten around the contest and getting out-tackled.
"St Kilda, at the moment, as a similar age group, are doing it better and more consistently as a group."
WATCH: Paul Roos' full post-match press conference
Saints coach Alan Richardson also made mention of the similarity between the trajectory of both teams to his players in the lead-up to Sunday's game.
The Saints' tackling pressure made the Demons overpossess the ball and they often found themselves panicking.
Melbourne had 17 more handballs than kicks in the wet conditions, which Roos put down to his team's inability to possess the ball cleanly the first time.
"We slaughtered the footy," he said.
"When your skills are poor you open yourself up to turnovers the other way. We tried to generate scores, we tried to generate inside 50s. But if you can't execute simple skills, it's really hard."
Trailing by 20 points at quarter-time, Roos was as animated as you're ever likely to see him when addressing the team.
Roos said he was trying to reiterate some key points to his players, as he felt they had gone away from how the team wanted to play.
"It's probably just when you talk about how you want to play consistently," Roos said.
"We did that last week for the first half and we weren't able to come out and do that (on Sunday).
"So at (that) moment, you're just trying to drum into the players that we want them to be habits - we don't want them to be fleeting.
"Sometimes you can absorb the skill errors - probably not as many as we did today ... as you as you keep the habits we're talking about.
"Everyone makes skill errors, except for Hawthorn."
Midfielder Jack Viney was one player who earned special praise from his coach.
Viney was given the run-with role on Jack Steven, keeping the Saints' running machine to 16 disposals while racking up a game-high 31 disposals (20 contested) and seven clearances himself.
"Habits are playing on a man and beating him. That's what he does really well," Roos said.
"We don't see Jack as a tagger, we just say 'well, here's your man for the day.'
"He was certainly a shining light for us today in the things that we want to teach our players to do."
