St Kilda coach Ross Lyon expects his team to take the same approach into Saturday's MCG clash against Richmond regardless of whether or not the team can still make the finals come game time.

The Saints' hopes of playing in September for a club record equalling fourth successive season are out of their hands following last week's narrow loss to West Coast at Telstra Dome.

That result dropped Lyon's team to ninth on the ladder and if eighth-placed Adelaide beat sixth-placed Collingwood at Telstra Dome on Friday night, the Saints' finals hopes will be extinguished even before the opening bounce against the Tigers.

But Lyon said if the worst case scenario unfolded for the Saints on Friday night, he still expects his team to put in a professional performance against the bottom-placed Tigers - who will avoid the wooden spoon if they beat the Saints following two wins in their past three matches.

"The way we perform on Saturday isn't predicated on whether we can make finals or not," he said.

"It's about what we want to stand for as a team and where we are headed and whether we play finals or not we are still building to be a better team next year."

"We are human though and we are aware of the possibilities - positive and negative - but we have got to be mentally strong and focus on the job at hand."

Lyon said the team only had itself to blame for the fact its finals fate is not in its own hands going into the last game.

"We are in the business of winning and we have had plenty of opportunities in the second half of the year to secure our spot and for various reasons we didn’t quite do that," he said.

But Lyon said even if the Saints failed to make the finals he believed the club was in good shape going forward - despite admitting it would be viewed as a backward step if the club failed to make the finals in his first season in charge this year.

"(Brisbane coach) Leigh Matthews put it well when he said if you finish eighth then it's a pass but if you finish ninth it's a fail," Lyon said.

"But our form is up and since the break we have been in a winning position or close to it in every game."

"So there is a great foundation there and that has coincided with our consistency of player availability and tweaking of the game plan and understanding each other so regardless (of whether the Saints make the finals) we go forward with confidence whatever happens."