WITH St Kilda still coming to grips with its game style under coach Ross Lyon, the Saints were yesterday given an understanding critique by a player from Lyon's former club Sydney.

Swans forward Ryan O'Keefe, who is to play against the Saints tonight at Telstra Dome, said he could see similarities in the styles of the Saints and the Swans.

"Obviously it is going to cross over a bit," O'Keefe said yesterday. "It's something we see a little bit of (in) them and it's probably going to take the Saints a little while. Our game style didn't happen overnight, it took us a few years to get it going and master a bit.

"Obviously the Saints are going to have some of their new stuff but some old habits will creep in as well. We're prepared for everything."

St Kilda defender Jason Gram admitted the players had taken time in adapting to the more tempo-oriented game plan.

"Yeah, it's been pretty slow, we're six weeks in now and we're still probably not fully in there," he said. "Maybe after the break I'm sure we'll be fully adapted to what Rossy wants us to do."

Gram suggested the difficulty in coming to grips with Lyon's plans was "maybe because we're a very fast team and we want to play on as fast as we can". "Rossy probably (wants us) to play a bit of tempo footy at times and normally we're going as fast as we can and that's something he wants us to work on."

Gram suggested Lyon might be a little more excited about this match than any other so far this season.

"I don't think he's got any tricks. Most people know how Sydney play," he said. "He's given us a lot more (information) about the players but he hasn't changed his ways. We've still trained the same. I don't know if he's nervous yet — he hasn't shown it — but I'm sure he will be."

St Kilda midfielder Nick Dal Santo remains under an injury cloud with his hamstring, but Gram was confident the prolific ball-getter would be right to play.

"We had our team meeting this morning and the team was as is last night, so there's no truth to that at all. You can quote me on that," Gram said.

Defender Sam Fisher returns for the Saints and most likely will play on Barry Hall, who, along with Nick Davis, will be keen to atone for a quiet game last weekend.

Sydney will welcome back midfielder Amon Buchanan, who was sidelined for a month after injuring his knee against Adelaide at Football Park.

"Amon's great," O'Keefe said. "He's a real in and under (player) this year and he's been playing really well till he hurt his knee.

"He gives you that extra bite in the midfield that maybe we've lacked in the last couple of weeks without him, so he's a really important ingredient to our team. He's a good player and he's good at winning the ball and winning the stoppages."