JACK Steele has backed in St Kilda coach Ross Lyon's scathing assessment of his side, agreeing the Saints don't deserve to play finals based on their poor recent form.

Saints captain Steele was at a loss for what's gone wrong in their past five games, losing four times and scraping across the line to beat lowly West Coast.

They're still sixth on the ladder and well positioned if they can turn around their dismal form, but need to fix things quickly to avoid falling out of the top eight altogether.

Lyon publicly slammed his troops following an embarrassing 26-point loss to Gold Coast, suggesting they were a "stumbling, fumbling mess" while labelling their offence "confused and unpredictable".

"He was brutally honest, and he sort of needed to be I think," Steele said.

"Probably a number of things (went wrong), it's hard to put your thumb on what exactly went wrong, but I think that ball movement wasn't great, which we'll obviously look to train a little bit this week heading to North Melbourne.

07:08

Full post-match, R18: Saints

Watch St Kilda's press conference after round 18's match against Gold Coast

Published on Jul 15, 2023

"I can't pinpoint exactly what that might be, but I suppose throughout the whole AFL season teams ebb and flow, you win a few games on the trot and you lose a few and at the end of the day, we're still in a very good position with six games left."

Steele denied their form slump had coincided with the side running out of legs after a gruelling pre-season, pointing to a spirited effort against Melbourne a fortnight back despite being players down on the bench.

He did back in Lyon's call the team was too top-heavy, with the workload left to too few individuals who can't afford to have bad days.

"It's probably fair enough," Steele said.

Rowan Marshall looks dejected after St Kilda's round 18 loss to Gold Coast at Heritage Bank Stadium on July 15, 2023. Picture: Getty Images

"Our best performers probably need to just keep things going, keep driving the standards, but we also need that second tier and third tier to lift even more and we probably haven't had that in the last maybe six or seven weeks of football.

"We saw it earlier in the year, everyone was evenly contributing to our performances.

"It's definitely tapered off in the last couple of months of footy, we've just got to find a way to get that back."