Four of the past five encounters between the two teams have been decided by two goals or less but Goddard says that is irrelevant in the lead-up to Saturday night.
"History doesn't mean much. It's in your memory but it doesn't account for much with regards to the effort we're going to put in on the weekend," Goddard said.
"The battles we've had and the matches we've played in sits in your memory and this group and Geelong have got a lot of pride and character. That's where the heads meet. We butt heads because we have a solid core group and so do they."
The Saints had a slow start to the season but have won three of their past four matches, while the Cats sit undefeated at the top of the AFL ladder.
Goddard said he is not surprised the Cats have beaten all comers despite losing coach Mark Thompson and star Gary Ablett over the off-season.
"It's a credit to themselves and how much character they have shown. People had written them off at the start of the season but we knew they weren't going anywhere," he said.
"Their personnel may have changed by a couple of players but they definitely showed a lot of character. We've had a lot of battles with them in the past and I'm sure it will be the same on the weekend."
Goddard said his team's poor start had come as a surprise but they were slowly turning things around.
"Although you prepare a little bit for the chances of us losing a few on the trot or having the start we did, it's definitely been hard. Especially the standards we've set in the past couple of years. We all set out to be successful and win games and we haven't been doing that," he said.
"We've had areas we've needed to focus on and identified that we needed to improve. A little bit about changing our attitude and our mental approach to the game. It's a few things we have focused on but it's been nothing specific or one key area."
Luke Holmesby covers St Kilda news for afl.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_LHolmesby.
