RICHMOND'S pre-season preparation has not suffered a setback according to coach Terry Wallace despite the Tigers experiencing a first-round NAB Cup defeat at the hands of St Kilda.

Wallace admitted it would have been nice to have continued in the AFL's pre-season competition, but was happy to focus on round one of the home-and-away series against Carlton following the 40-point loss at Telstra Dome on Friday night.

“We just didn’t play well,” Wallace said after the match.

“I think in any game of football, whether you’re talking about the Grand Final or a practice game, you need players in form. I spoke to my boys after the game and I said to them ‘who thought they did a middling to reasonable job?’ I think about four blokes put up their hand.

“We went in with a fit healthy side, but clearly didn’t play well on the evening. We’ve got four weeks to sort that out and work it out.

"Just our ability to hang onto the ball under more pressure, at this stage of the year you’re not hammering your blokes in pressure situations on the training track too often … but our guys just need a little bit more work on maintaining possession in a pressure situation.”

Wallace felt his players had been a little too predictable in their use of the ball, allowing the Saints to cut off too many forward forays, but vowed to continue to hone his game plan.

He denied worrying parallels could be drawn between last year’s first-round loss and this one, saying that the playing list was in far better shape leading into this premiership campaign.

“We went in quite comfortable with where we’re at,” he said.

“Obviously we were disappointed with our game, but it’s a practice-match series. We had some guys in some really nice form in the lead-up [intra-club] games who had awful matches [tonight].

“I know a week ago that they were actually playing pretty good footy, so at this stage of the year, you just work on what you need to work on. I said to those boys that there’s nothing that says in a week’s time they won’t be playing good footy again.”

Wallace was happy to see recruits Jordan McMahon and Mitch Morton get a game under their belts at their new club and felt they would be better for the experience.

“Jordy got a bit of the ball and ran the lines alright, but I didn’t think he used at well as he possibly can and Mitch was OK without being any more than that,” he said.