St Kilda coach Ross Lyon says his team must regroup following a 'bitterly disappointing' loss to West Coast.

Lyon wasn't offering any excuses for a poor performance where the Saints gave up a 26-point lead over the Eagles in the second quarter, eventually falling by 17 points in a result that could have ended the club's chances of making the top four.

"That's the media's agenda, we haven't spoken about the four," Lyon said following the match.

"I think today highlights how difficult this competition is. You need to be on your game otherwise you're not going to get the result you desire."

"We'll recover, we'll drive ourselves again and we'll fight for where we want to be."

"We've got five really big games (and) the season's still well and truly alive ... it's a bitterly disappointing loss but we've got to analyse it and move on really quickly," he said.

Lyon said his team was outplayed by the Eagles but conceded the cause wasn't helped by a match-ending calf injury to key defender Max Hudghton or some poor kicking during the first half when the Eagles were on the ropes.

"We lost Hudghton in the first five minutes, which structurally put us under some pressure and change on what is a big ground," Lyon said,

"It really put us under pressure (with) the ability to manipulate the midfield ... (and) to use (Jason) Gram and Sam Fisher there and they had some talls coming in, but again I'm loathe to make excuses because at the end of the day I thought we had opportunities."

"I thought we slaughtered the footy (with) a lot of clanger kicks. We won the contested ball, we tackled pretty well, as did they (but we) gave them too much rope and they hung us."

"I thought some of their good players we controlled in (Matt) Priddis and (Andrew) Embley, and even (Dean) Cox wasn't enormous."

"But they had a few bob up that got away from us, Lynch and a few others. Staker's first half midfield (work) and goals, so they had a couple who got under the guard," he said.