KEY forward Jesse Hogan says a career-best seven goals loses its gloss when his team is beaten by 39 points.

Speaking after Melbourne went down to St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, Hogan, who was the red and blue’s stand out, said he’d “much rather kick goals when you’re winning”.

But after Melbourne led by 11 points at quarter-time, it was all St Kilda, which booted 17 goals to 10 and won by more than six goals.

“At quarter-time, it (Melbourne) was a very optimistic group. We hadn’t been playing our brand of footy, but we still had the lead and were in the game,” Hogan told Melbourne TV.

“We thought we could really turn the game into our style of play and the way we wanted to play.

“We thought we could really run away with the game, but we couldn’t adapt and St Kilda wanted it more and they were beating us at the contest and all around the ground.”

Hogan said the team still thought it could win at three quarter-time, despite trailing by 42 points – coincidentally the same margin it trailed by against North Melbourne at quarter-time, at Blundstone Arena in round three, before hitting the front in the second term.

“We had the belief [that we could still win], especially at Etihad [Stadium],” he said.

“Seven goals isn’t that much and we weren’t thinking about [kicking] seven goals. We were thinking about the process and getting back to the way we play. If we did that, we’d get the seven.

“We tried to turn it back around to our style, but we just weren’t playing the way we wanted to play and we’ll have to address that on Monday and Tuesday and then at training on Wednesday. Then we’ll fly up to Gold Coast and give it a crack.”