From 2003 to 2006 the teams both played home games in the city and although the Hawks have since turned UTas Stadium into a formidable fortress, the Saints retain good reasons to be optimistic.

While only Port Adelaide (5-3) and Sydney (1-0) join Hawthorn with winning records at the ground, St Kilda have an even split of five wins and five losses and came closest to ending the Hawks’ incredible run in the corresponding fixture last season.

A three-point loss wasn’t quite enough to stop a sequence which now stands at 19 consecutive Hawthorn wins and 26 from the last 27.

The memory remains fresh for Saints coach Alan Richardson.

“We were really close last time, just three points and had some opportunities to win the game,” he recalled.

“We’ve played some pretty good footy in the first five rounds and think we’re becoming much more consistent but there are still areas of games that are getting away from us.”

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson was also in reflective mood after his side put behind its winless start over the first four rounds by thrashing West Coast on Sunday.

“We’ve got a good record at the ground but the Saints have played a fair bit there too, particularly some of their older players like Nick [Riewoldt] and Joey [Leigh Montagna] back in the day when they were playing some home games at Launceston,” he said.

“Irrespective of the venue we’re going to have to play really well and hopefully if we show anything like we did against West Coast we’ll be hard to beat. But we’re going to have to play somewhere near that quality to get the job done.”

Both coaches conducted press conferences at Melbourne Airport before flying across Bass Strait and even though they were two hours apart, they appeared to be following similar scripts.

Clarkson spoke about the need for Hawthorn to play the game on their own terms.

"If St Kilda are allowed to play the way they want to play, they will cause trouble to any side in the competition," he said.

"Last week we got a solid contribution and we're going to need that again. If we've got 10 or 12 players below their best then we probably won't win the game."

Richardson returned the praise, saying the whole footy industry had expected the 2013-15 premiers to bounce back from their horror start.

“They are a really even team [and] well coached,” he said.

“There’s too much talent in the group [and] a lot of pride. We know that we’re going up against a really fierce opponent that has a lot of belief in this venue and we look forward to the challenge.”

Welcoming former Gold Coast midfielder Jaeger O’Meara back from bone bruising but losing goal sneak Cyril Rioli to a hip inflammation, Clarkson admitted confidence has been an issue in the first campaign since trading Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis.

“It comes and goes, we saw that in the first part of the year. You don’t lose two games by 86 points unless you are a little bit down.

“To a man we were just more even across the whole team last week and that makes a huge difference. We just didn’t have enough of our players playing well enough early in the season.

“If we are going to get ourselves back into the season we’ve got to try and win this game.”

Clarkson said Rioli may have been a victim of his own high-flying brilliance against the Eagles.

“Cyril took that speccy and maybe won mark of the year but misses the next week with a jarred hip which is a bit of a shame because he played really well and had his best game for the year last week. We spoke about continuity and it would have been great that he could have followed up, but sometimes that can’t be the case.

“[The] six-day break made it a bit difficult. We just don’t want to take a risk with a player of his quality. It will be more difficult to win without him but our view has always been to make sure we take fit players and hopefully he can return next week.”

The Saints have made two changes with Koby Stevens and Jack Sinclair replacing Luke Dunstan and Ben Long.

Richardson said Jack Steven will be better for a strong run against Geelong and admitted clubs are seeking to emulate the Hawks’ canny recruiting policy.

“I think a lot of clubs have looked at what Hawthorn have done in terms of going to the draft for a big period of their rebuild and then being able to add some experienced players like [James] Frawley.

“We’re probably not there yet in terms of adding the top-end experienced talent but we’re getting close to that. We think [Jake] Carlisle (from Essendon) is playing some good footy, Nathan Brown (Collingwood) has done some really good stuff, Koby Stevens (Western Bulldogs) comes in and is strong and aggressive. That’s a fairly similar model to what most clubs adopt.”