Less so for those who've watched the Saints closely, as they've fought back from a slow start to the 2011 season to become a challenger once again.
"If you try and stop everything, you gain nothing," Lyon said after St Kilda's 19-point loss to Collingwood on Friday night.
Never is that philosophy truer than against the Magpies.
Lock down on Dane Swan, and Scott Pendlebury will cut you apart. Shut him out and it'll be Dale Thomas. Or any one of five or six others.
But while the Saints have tried to take games on more over the second half of the season, a run-with role has usually been found for Clinton Jones.
Last week he shut dangerous Fremantle playmaker Stephen Hill completely out of the match, still gathering 29 possessions while doing it.
But against Collingwood's deeply talented midfield group, Lyon decided not to tag anyone.
Jones was set free.
He responded with another impressive performance, picking up 26 touches, while still doing the hard defensive and inside work - eight tackles and four clearances.
"It was good to have a little bit more freedom tonight, not having the strong lockdown tag that I've had the last couple of weeks," Jones told afl.com.au after the loss.
"They've got such a talented midfield that if you try and lock down on one player, another one or two get off the chain.
"And they do a lot of rotations, so it can be quite hard to try and find the right match-up."
Unfortunately for Jones and his Saints, the take-the-game-on approach fell just short.
St Kilda's midfield matched the Magpies in many areas, breaking almost level in contested possessions and clearances and generating six more forward 50 entries, but the Pies had a bit more polish.
Jones felt the result showed that his team has improved - they were thrashed by 57 points by Collingwood in round 11 - but he lamented costly mistakes.
"We definitely had some opportunities, but some basic errors in defence cost us," the 27 year-old said.
"I suppose it shows that we were right in the game up to a certain point, and we kept fighting on.
"We have to keep working on our ball movement out of defence and into our forward 50.
"If we keep working and keep improving, we're not that far away."
