A ROBUST meeting about St Kilda's direction after five rounds could have been the spark the Saints needed to ignite their season of rapid growth, coach Alan Richardson says. 

After surrendering a winning position against the Bombers in round five that left them 1-4 for the season, the Saints held a forthright post-match meeting about where they were heading.

Sunday's record 110-point win against Essendon, which saw Richardson's team showcase its exciting style at Etihad Stadium, took the Saints' record to 5-8 and underlined their improvement in the past two months.   

Click here to watch Alan Richardson's full post-match press conference

"The reality is we lost to the Bombers by two points [in round five] … we had the last four or five shots on goal and we didn't get over the line," Richardson said.

"We spoke about that. It was a meeting where there was some real honest and, at times, robust conversation about where we were heading.

"Since then we've gone 4-4 and in that period we've had an opportunity to win two [more] of those games.

"I'm not saying this result was coming in terms of the margin, but we were really confident this group was in good shape."

Five talking points: Essendon v St Kilda 

St Kilda has already exceeded its four wins from 2014 and, according to Richardson, showed its growing maturity by not taking the foot off the pedal when a match-winning lead had already been built in the first three quarters.

Instead, the Saints motored home with eight goals to one in the final term. 

"To see Farren Ray commit his body in the goalsquare with 30 seconds to play was symbolic of the commitment to keep playing strong footy, and defend hard and crack in," Richardson said.

"The numbers will suggest we had as dominant a win as we've had in my time here.

"I was just so pleased for the players that we played four quarters of strong, aggressive footy."

Richardson was keen to put the win in perspective, saying the Bombers were "off their game a little bit". 

To finish the match with an on-field tribute to Phil Walsh and bypass the singing of the club song also made it a different feeling post-match.  

"I didn't have a lot to do with Phil, (but) I had a lot to do with getting him to Port Adelaide," Richardson said.

"I met with Phil halfway through the year (2013) when he was with West Coast and it was pretty clear his wont was to get back to Adelaide to get closer to his son. 

"It's just an absolute tragedy. I think the AFL, kicked off by what 'Clarko' (Alastair Clarkson) and 'Bucks' (Nathan Buckley) did, has been brilliant."

Richardson praised key forward Josh Bruce, who kicked five goals against the Bombers but created many more opportunities with his enormous work rate and ability to present up the ground.

He said young midfielder Seb Ross had impressed when used in a run-with role on Essendon captain Jobe Watson, who finished with one kick and six handballs in his 200th game.  

"They happen to be cousins, but that wasn't the reason we did that," Richardson said. 

"We're certainly keen for Seb to play on the opposition's really good players.

"We rate Jobe Watson enormously and we think Seb is going to be a really good player. He's still learning his craft.

"We do like the opportunities for our young blokes to learn against the opposition's best."