St Kilda coach Ross Lyon is playing down the cut-throat nature of Friday's night's clash with the Western Bulldogs, preferring instead to focus on process.

The Saints and Bulldogs sit outside the eight on percentage, equal on points with Sydney and Essendon, and for the loser it’s just about 'hasta la vista, baby'-time.

The high stakes, however, have not distracted Lyon from attending to the basics.

"It's another game of AFL footy that we have to plan and prepare for and execute the basics and focus on ourselves and the things that we need to do to play well," Lyon said.

"We won't talk about it's a mini-final. The players are aware and I'm aware that it's mathematically possible (to make the finals) and that we've got our destiny in our own hands but if you look (too far) ahead, you're just going to trip over."

"We'll just focus on the things we need to do - prepare well for the Bulldogs who are in the same position as us."

Lyon agreed that his key forwards - Nick Riewoldt, Justin Koschitzke and Fraser Gehrig - who have been such a significant factor in the club's four-game winning streak against the Bulldogs, will be potential trump cards yet again, but stressed they will be rendered vestigial without supply.

He said that while he's been generally pleased with his team's form since the mid-season break, he doesn't believe the Saints have put together a four-quarter performance yet, and he was grateful for a wake-up call against the Blues last Saturday.

"We're fumbling less, we're tackling better, we're hitting our targets, our accuracy's gone up a little bit - they're the main things we focus on," Lyon said.

"We're winning the ball pretty well but on the weekend we struggled in contested ball and uncontested ball and we were a little bit lucky at the end to get out of a tight spot."

Lyon said it would not be easy finding room for Koschitzke who returns from a one-match suspension, and noted that Brett Voss, Clinton Jones, Raph Clarke and Andrew Thompson are pushing hard for promotion.