St Kilda's top five players is the reason why anyone who writes Ross Lyon's men off for 2011, would be doing so at their peril.

Nick Riewoldt, Brendon Goddard, Lenny Hayes, Leigh Montagna and Sam Fisher are top-shelf footballers. At any club, they would be among the first picked. Riewoldt is among the three best in the competition.

They should be premiership players. If not for a fluky toe-poke in the 2009 Grand Final, or a bad bounce of the ball the following year, we would be celebrating the Saints as back-to-back premiers.

Instead, we look at a side that has blown three chances to win a flag in the last two years and wonder whether there is the mental resolve to get to the Grand Final again.

We also have to wonder whether the troubled off-season experienced by the club will have a part to play in their fortunes for 2011.

The "Saints Bubble" will have to be nigh on impregnable for that to happen, although with Lyon at the helm, you would imagine the Saints will turn up to the MCG on Friday ready to go and without any excuses to be made.

Lyon is an outstanding coach - well-prepared and unflappable. He clearly is a hard taskmaster and almost his entire coaching staff took the opportunity to move on at the end of last season such are the demands he makes of them, but he has taken a list with plenty of cream, but a few duds as well, to three Grand Finals in two years.

They got there without much of an attack to speak of and he has recognised the need to shape things up closer to goal. Riewoldt and Steven Milne can't be relied on to kick all the goals, so Lyon has flagged Sam Gilbert to move forward, and has brought Ryan Gamble across from Geelong also to play as a presenting forward.

Doubtless, he would like a bit more pace at his disposal and if there were concerns out of the NAB Cup, it was that the Saints again looked susceptible to a side like Essendon when it ran the ball quickly into the forward line.

St Kilda's draw is interesting this year, with just 10 games at Etihad and six at the MCG. They play the Docklands well, the MCG not so well and this might bring them back to the field a touch.

We also think that a couple of teams may have gone past them - Collingwood and Hawthorn - are the obvious examples, while they asppear only evenly matched with sides such as Geelong and the Western Bulldogs.

So for us at BPL, the Saints are still very good, but perhaps not among the elite, no matter how well they are coached. And we think there might be just a few lingering demons.

Good things for fourth we believe.

The story so far

5. Geelong

6. Adelaide

7. Sydney

8. Fremantle

9. Carlton

10. Essendon

11. Melbourne

12. North Melbourne

13. West Coast

14. Richmond

15. Gold Coast

16. Port Adelaide

17. Brisbane Lions