ST KILDA called an impromptu meeting on Saturday morning, when it originally planned for its players to have a break, in the wake of its shocking Good Friday loss to North Melbourne.

The Saints struggled to hit targets and lost the contested possession count 119-150 at Etihad Stadium to the Kangaroos, a team expected to finish close to the bottom of the ladder.

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson said his side needed to regroup when he spoke to Melbourne radio station SEN on Saturday morning.

"The guys were going to have a couple of days off. There's losses and there's losses. I'm not one to be overly reactive. I think it's important that the guys get a break, given that there was a big build-up into round one, then six days into the Kangaroos," Richardson said.

"From a planning perspective, it made sense to leave them alone, even though they all do their own recovery on Sunday morning, but it was important to get back together and make sure that we stick together and identify what happened and probably even more importantly, what we're going to do about it.

"It was something that we felt we needed to do."

Deplorable ball use hurt the Saints badly.

"(The meeting) was certainly driven by me and (captain) Jarryn (Geary). It was a continuation of the conversation we had post-game," Richardson said.

"You have the opportunity to get a bit more information, watch a bit more vision, not that I really needed that, to be honest. Nothing really changed. Certainly, the opinion of our performance didn't change. We couldn't have butchered the ball any more if we changed."

While Richardson was reluctant to delve into what was spoken about, he was circumspect about the situation St Kilda finds itself in.

"It's probably not something I really want to share, those conversations. What's important is we do something about it," Richardson said.

"We've got seven days from now. We got together as a group again this morning to really look at what it is we're going to do from here.

"It's round two. We're 1-1. It was an opportunity that we lost and we need to do something about it, and that will start on the training track."

Henry Playfair was brought in over the off-season as the club's new backline coach and the Saints have changed their defence, with the changes yet to be embedded.

In its four matches this year (including the JLT Community Series), St Kilda hasn't conceded fewer than 82 points, despite three of those games coming against teams from last year's bottom four.

Ben Brown booted six goals for North.

"We're definitely not where we want to be defensively but I'm really confident that our method is a strong one and will stack up," Richardson said.

"I think you'd probably be able to go through most teams at this stage of the year and identify certain parts of their play that haven't quite jelled yet.

"Our personnel is relatively similar back there. We'll look at (Nathan) Brown v (Ben) Brown –  that was a poor match-up.

"Our pressure was pretty strong for big parts of the game, it fell away late and certainly Brown was able to get going. We rely on pressure, as most teams do."

St Kilda is back at Etihad next Saturday night as it hosts Adelaide.