There's no getting away from it. Skipper Nick Riewoldt is THE man at St Kilda.

But now knowing that it doesn't have to be all about him every week will give the Saints a much better chance of breaking their 44-year premiership drought in Saturday's AFL grand final against Collingwood.

The Saints will start as clear underdogs against the red-hot Magpies, a status they will embrace.

Many felt St Kilda would crumble when their talismanic captain went down early in the year with a potentially season-ending hamstring injury.

Instead the team rallied, winning eight of 11 games in his absence to prove they are anything but a one-man band.

So while Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse will spend many hours this week devising plans to limit Riewoldt's influence, the man himself feels the pressure has lifted.

"I think last year going into most games there was a bit of a perception that I needed to play well for us to win," said Riewoldt after another best-on-ground performance in Saturday night's 24-point preliminary final win over the Western Bulldogs.

"But I wasn't there for a lot of the year this year and we managed to make the top four.

"The way the guys have performed throughout the whole year when certain players haven't been there has really dispelled that myth.

"We're not about any individuals.

"It's just about the guys who are in the team playing their role and we know that if we do that, regardless of who's out, we're going to be competitive."

One man likely to be absent next week is respected defender Steven Baker, who has been unable to break back into the St Kilda lineup since serving a nine-game suspension incurred in round 13.

Having been overlooked for the first two finals it would be a massive leap of faith for coach Ross Lyon to bring him back for the decider.

"We've got a pretty strong set of values we like to live by," said Riewoldt, who tallied 21 disposals, seven marks and three second-half goals against the Bulldogs.

"When you've got a guy like Steven Baker, the way he approaches his footy and he can't get back into the team, then the onus is really on the incumbents in the team to make sure they deliver on those actions."

Everyone at St Kilda seems to live - at least through their public utterances - by Henry Ford's famous adage that "history is bunk".

But this week there will be no way of avoiding talk of two previous grand final epics - last year's heart-breaking loss to Geelong and the 1966 classic, where St Kilda downed the Magpies by a single point to claim their only flag.

Riewoldt acknowledges the Saints can draw on their experiences of last year when things get tough against Collingwood - a club with plenty of September baggage of their own.

"The Geelong players talked about it last year, how at certain stages during the game they drew on the hurt from the year before (when they lost to Hawthorn) and that gave them an edge," he said.

"It's intangible, I'm not sure how you'd measure it."

And how about the emotional resonance of 1966?

"That's irrelevant," Riewoldt insisted, as he was bound to do, without sounding entirely convincing.

"Past results count for nothing."

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