Ross Lyon admits his St Kilda side goes into Sunday's clash against Richmond at Etihad Stadium not quite knowing what to expect from a Tigers side which has a new coach and has a week off to reflect on what has been a disappointing season.

While it would appear on face value that a team going into a match 12-0 against a team 3-9 would not have too many fears, Lyon said that there was a sense of the unknown about how the Tigers would perform in Jade Rawlings' second game in charge.

"There's some element of that. There's only scope for so much change over a short period. Their contested ball has been very good and they've scored quite well and Jade's publicly said that there's a strong focus on some defensive mechanisms to improve. So we saw a bit of that against West Coast, and it's something we are going to have to deal with," he said.

Lyon saw the impact a coaching change can have on a club first-hand in 1997, when he was assistant coach at the Tigers.

Richmond lost to Adelaide in Round 17 of that year by 137 points, prompting the departure of Robert Walls.

The Tigers then bounced back to win four of their final five games of the season under Jeff Gieschen but Lyon said that he wasn't a great believer that a coach can turn around a club's fortunes in the space of a few weeks.

"Certainly when Robert Walls finished at Richmond and Jeff Gieschen took over, I saw the effect of that. They came off a 20-goal loss and turned it around very quick. I think when you drill into it, it's about a 50-50 split," Lyon said.

"But they've had that result (against West Coast) and they are now into their realities of continuous preparation in the AFL, they've had that one week. It's a new challenge for them and us."

Lyon said his players have relished the mid-year break and have come back with a renewed enthusiasm and ready to take on the Tigers.

"They've come back revitalised in a sense. It's a luxury to have, and we were very appreciative of it. But we've had really strong preparation on the track and it's given us plenty of time to prepare for Richmond, who have got a new coach, and a new enthusiasm and hope, so it's going to be a big challenge," he said.

"Our focus is on ourselves and on improving our football, we certainly haven't been at the top of our game, but we've been winning."

The bubble is building around the Saints after their best-ever start to a season but Lyon is maintaining a firm focus on the processes rather than the outcomes at this stage of the year, and spoke to his players on Tuesday about not getting caught up in the hype.

"We certainly don't talk about wins and losses. We talk about our effort not being dictated by the scoreboard or our win or loss ratio. All that Tuesday was about was a reminder that this is what we are about," he said.

"This is the perception we want to build and clearly we (are) doing that internally, externally and again a trigger to refocus what we know stands up and what's important. It's certainly not about the scoreboard on matchday and it's not about our win-loss ratio. That doesn't determine how we go about it."

Lyon confirmed that Luke Ball and Sam Fisher were fit and ready to take on the Tigers despite missing a training session earlier in the week.