Nick Riewoldt likes that his old coach Ross Lyon now has a couple of "gears".

And Lyon may well need to cycle through his personas when St Kilda play West Coast in an AFL danger game on Sunday in Perth.

Riewoldt, the former Saints captain, is encouraged by what his team is showing this season after returning to Australia from a couple of years in the United States.

While he was away, Lyon returned to Moorabbin as coach, pledging a little less of the hard-nosed coach Riewoldt knew all too well.

But as Saints youngster Hugo Garcia found out a couple of weeks ago, Lyon's angry side is still there.

"I like the gears. I like how Ross has gears now - so he can move," Riewoldt told AAP.

"The 'Old School Ross' that came out with Garcia, and then the response, it's clearly a coach who knows his player, right?

"I like seeing a bit of the Old School Ross come back, because to me it's the passion, it's the hard edge that you need to drive really high standards.

"The fact that he's been able to evolve with the game, with a young group, and what he's getting out of his young players at the moment, it bodes really well for the next few years."

St Kilda at their best are a solid team shown by their strangling of Fremantle a fortnight ago.

But the Eagles went within a kick of beating Richmond at the MCG on Sunday and their first win for the season is coming.

There is a sense of opponents playing "West Coast roulette" - no-one wants to be on the wrong end of them breaking the drought.

Riewoldt recalled hosting Melbourne captain Max Gawn on his radio show, ahead of the Demons travelling to Perth. Melbourne won, but had to fight back.

"Melbourne win a couple of games and he comes in, it's 'oh Max, you have West Coast next week'," Riewoldt said.

"He said they lost the corresponding game last year. The reality is, you're going over there, they're AFL players - they have premiership players in their side.

"The margins are so small ... with any team."