Dockers coach Mark Harvey is eyeing off Friday night's clash with St Kilda as an acid test to determine whether his side can sustain the impressive form it showed in beating the Kangaroos last weekend.

While threatening to win games during their eight-match losing streak, the Dockers never quite put it together for four quarters until they brushed aside a lethargic North Melbourne by 53 points.

However, Harvey knows his side has to maintain that level of intensity and composure if it is to achieve anything from a fairly dismal 2008 so far, with the coach saying there is no better place to show your mettle than the club's only Friday night appointment in Melbourne this season.

"(This is) fantastic for our group particularly some of our younger players (who) have never done it," said Harvey on Tuesday.

"It's the biggest stage from a televised game aspect beyond finals. We've got the derby of course but Friday night in Melbourne, a million people watch and then they judge you so make sure you're up to it and don't go out there and just think that on the back of winning against the Kangaroos it will just flow on."

"We're playing a determined side in St Kilda and right as we speak, they've been under a little bit of siege themselves. But they're just a foot from being in the top eight (so) it's going to be an interesting game, an enthralling game actually."

Harvey said there had been a definite change in the players' attitudes after recording their first win since beating West Coast in Round 3.

"You look at people's body language and it's always a little bit different and just the way people carry themselves around the footy club, so from that aspect it's been good but it's certainly not something we can get carried away with," he said.

"A lot of people will say this is something we should have done a lot earlier, win a game like that."

Harvey's mission to win back-to-back games won't be helped, however, by the club's second six-day break in a row.

"It (the short break) can certainly have an affect, particularly if you've got a couple of younger players in your team at the moment too," he said.

"It's mentally how you deal with it. Physically, we try and do as much as we can to keep sharp. Then it becomes a mental issue, and it's how the player then gets his preparation right in everything that he does."

"(It's) an interesting part of the game to get the players up every week now, because it's just more and more demanding, the intensity has gone up and were finding players take longer to recover."

Harvey said he would be reluctant to change a winning team too much, although the six-day break may force his hand. But the Dockers' coach does have players like Steven Dodd (calf) and Marcus Drum (ankle), who should be available to play, while Kepler Bradley and Scott Thornton played in the WAFL last weekend.