WITH its season on a "knife's edge", St Kilda will travel to Perth early this week referencing a recent away win over North Melbourne and confident in its ability to triumph again on the road to increase its run of wins to five.

After the Saints' upset 30-point defeat of Hawthorn on Saturday night — one that revived the club's season by catapulting it into the top eight — the in-form Nick Dal Santo said that a finals berth was theirs alone to seize.

"I think the best thing for the St Kilda footy club and our playing group at the moment is at least it's in our hands. I think in the past couple of years we've relied on other teams to maybe fall down a little bit or at least lose a few games for us to be half a chance to slip into the eight.

"I just feel we're gradually getting a little bit better each week. I don't think we're flying by any stretch of the imagination or getting too far ahead of ourselves, we're not in that sort of position. But I think we are improving slowly and we'll just see how far that can take us," Dal Santo said yesterday on ABC radio.

"We're sitting seventh at the moment — a nice position to go into the last six games of the year where it's in our hands. So if we perform well then we deserve to be there. On the flip side, if we're not playing well and we're losing games then it's probably our own fault."

St Kilda's football manager Matthew Drain said the team's impressive results in the last month correlated to a period of increased output on the training track.

"We've simply just got to get over to Perth, get ready, and try and beat West Coast because if we don't, we'll probably drop out of the eight. We're really on a knife's edge at the moment. It could go one of two ways for us, north or south very quickly," he said yesterday.

"Realistically, (Hawthorn) is the first team that we've beaten that's been in the top eight, outside of Sydney in round one. So for us, we're still a work in progress."

The Saints plan to travel on Wednesday, and train in Perth on Thursday, before the Saturday afternoon game against a West Coast team on a seven-match losing streak.

Three weeks after he was demoted from the seniors with Stephen Milne, Dal Santo — who had a season-high 32 possessions against the Hawks — said he was now appreciating the benefits of that unpleasant ordeal.

"It was actually almost a good experience. I don't know if I needed it, but it's obviously helped me. We're a month on and I feel like it's all behind us," he said.

"I think I might be one of those frustrating players where coaches feel like they're not getting a great deal out of me (at times) because of my style.

"I'm happy with the way things are going, but I can't be getting ahead of myself."

The Saints proved themselves capable of mixing it with the best by steamrolling third-placed Hawthorn in a second-half onslaught at Telstra Dome.

Trailing by 28 points at half-time when they were unable to pierce the Hawks' defensive set-up, the Saints were bold and brilliant after the major break, booting 12 of the next 14 goals in a 18.11 (119) to 13.11 (89) win.

The victory was St Kilda's fourth in succession and put it in a ruck of teams battling for spots in the lower half of the top eight.

Saints coach Ross Lyon said the win was pleasing, given the comeback against quality opposition, although the Saints had to continue their momentum.

"We're 9-7 (wins and losses), so we're in the hunt but if you stop winning you're in trouble."

St Kilda has a good run home, not due to play any teams currently in the top four and four others against sides outside the eight.

AAP