VETERAN St Kilda defender Sam Fisher believes he has put his injury concerns behind him and can play on for another season.   

The out-of-contract 32-year-old has battled hamstring problems on and off this year, after being plagued by a degenerative toe joint for a number of seasons.

But after stringing together four matches and playing a solid game against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday, Fisher "absolutely" wants to keep playing in 2015.

"My body's fine now, so if I can just have an injury-free run for a while now, fingers crossed, it gives you your fitness and base and things go from there," Fisher told AFL.com.au.

“I’m all up for going around again and hopefully the club sees it that way too."

Dogs too strong for surging Saints

Fisher admitted it had been a hard road back to AFL football after repeated issues with his hamstring, as well as periodic back spasms, this year.

He had a limited pre-season and looked like playing his first game on Anzac Day when he travelled to New Zealand with the team.

But he didn't come up from training and didn't play, and broke down in the opening minutes of Sandringham's VFL game the following week.

Then, he suffered back spasms against Williamstown on June 22 before getting through a game on July 5 against Port Melbourne.

He then successfully returned in the AFL on July 12 against North Melbourne and had 15 disposals, nine of which were contested.

He had 21 against Fremantle a week later, then 12 against Gold Coast and 17 in the Saints' 23-point loss to the Dogs on Sunday.

Fisher said he wasn't concentrating on whether the club would want him to play on next year and was simply making sure his fitness improved each week.  

"It's always hard when you miss such a big chunk, it's hard to pick up your fitness and you're playing catch up a bit and it's not easy but I'm getting there," he said.

"I'm just focusing on what I have to do and see if my body holds up and at the moment, it is.

"I need to keep performing and keep improving as well.

"I've been out for such a long time I've got a lot of things I need to work on too; I was definitely not perfect out there today.

"There's a lot of things not only the young guys are working on, I need to improve on as well and get better, and get better by next week."

Having watched such a large part of the season from the grandstands, Fisher is in a good position to assess how far the Saints have come under new coach Alan Richardson.

He said there was "no doubt" in his mind the group had made positive inroads despite winning just four games for the year.

"Guys like Jack Newnes (and) Seb Ross are really starting to improve and be trusted among the group - it's really positive to see," he said.

"Probably mid-way through the year, those margins blew out to 80, 90 points whereas today we hung in there and played right to the end and never gave up.

"We were in the game with a few minutes to go so that was one positive to come out of it.

"But, we play to win. That's what we're all here for. And we lost.

"We've got a few things we need to work on as a team and as individuals so we'll work on that during the week and improve from it."