14/07/2007 2:40 PM
St Kilda co-captain Lenny Hayes believes the Saints have plenty of improvement in them and remain focused on another finals campaign in 2007.
Speaking at the club's Saturday morning recovery session at St Kilda beach, Hayes said he was 'very relieved' about the previous night's thrilling two-point win over Adelaide at Telstra Dome which keeps the club in touch, just, with the top eight.
The Saints 11th on the ladder, four points outside the eight and appear likely to need to win every one of their remaining seven home-and-away matches to be assured of extending their season into September.
"It's mathematically possible but we can't control what other teams do and I think if we are to make it we might need a couple of teams to slip up, but we need to keep continuing to play well as a team and since the break we've really started to play some good, consistent footy," said Hayes.
"If we keep doing that, it is the old cliché, but we are just thinking one week at a time.
Hayes credited a committed team effort by 22 contributors for the victory over the Crows and expects further improvement in the coming weeks.
"As a team we've been pretty up and down this year and no doubt that with Matty Maguire getting a few more games under his belt and getting almost a full complement out there we're feeling a lot more confident and we know that we can get better, for sure," he said.
"Over the last four or five weeks we've had a lot of guys buying into the way we want to play and we've got back to playing some good hard and tough footy.
"That's been the base for us and then there's a few other things that we've done quite well that have complemented that."