Ahead of St Kilda’s NAB Cup Semi-Final battle with Essendon on Friday night, midfielder Leigh Montagna has outlined that the Saints have a primary focus on moving the ball quickly and scoring more.

Speaking at a press conference today, Montagna said it was vital that the Saints midfield delivered the football quickly to give the key forwards every possible chance.

“If you get the opportunity, whether it is by hand or foot, where it’s possible we need to get the ball into our forwards as quick as we can and give them a chance one on one,” he said.

“We know these days that if you hold yourselves up it gives time for the opposition to get numbers behind the footy and clog our forward line, so moving the ball quickly is essential.”

“We’re trying to look to score more. We need to be able to kick more goals,” he added.

The 2010 All-Australian midfielder said his side was looking forward to the Semi-Final and outlined that Essendon are always a tough opponent.

“We’ve been found out a couple of times by their pace. They are a very quick unit through the midfield and in the past have been quite hard to stop.” Montagna said.

“It’ll be good to have a test against them tomorrow night.”