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Brett Ratten says St Kilda's 75-point loss to Essendon was a "wake-up call", after a horror display compounded by a season-ending injury for Jade Gresham.

Coach Brett Ratten says St Kilda were "embarrassed" by their AFL loss to Essendon, labelling the 75-point thumping a "wake-up call" for his side.

The Saints went into Saturday's clash as favourites but instead saw a listless effort compounded by Jade Gresham's season-ending achilles injury in a horror evening at Marvel Stadium.

Ratten described St Kilda's defensive efforts as "hard to watch" as they slipped to a 49-point halftime deficit and never recovered.

"Not just (the players) were embarrassed, this is us together - I was embarrassed too," Ratten said.

"I'm the leader of this team and I'm the coach so it comes back to me. Everybody was embarrassed - and everybody should (be).

"You feel for our supporters to dish up that here today - so the players are embarrassed.

"We know we've got a bit of work in front of us but (there) can be some easy fix(es), with a bit of mindset and the way we go about it."

Ratten lamented St Kilda's pressure as "way off" and said his side had "conceded goals at will".

"Defensively that's as bad as we've been," he said.

"We've leaked some goals at times but just the way that we did it - and by the end they were just kicking it in there and scoring.

"It was hard to watch."

The Saints scraped over the line against GWS in round one, then lost to Melbourne - and Ratten said they needed to quickly turn things around.

"This is a wake-up call for us as a team," he said.

"We've had two poor weeks - the first week probably could've gone either way as well.

"So we need to do some work and we need to do it quickly."

Ratten said he had warned his players they would be up for external criticism throughout the week, given the manner of their defeat.

He also lamented the loss of Gresham, who had to be assisted from the field by two trainers early in the second quarter.

"He'll be out for nine months. He's popped his achilles," Ratten said.

"So yeah it's pretty tough for him - he missed a lot of footy last year towards the back-end with a stress fracture which was very unusual for a player of his size.

"But then he's just starting to build and he cops an injury where he'll be out for the rest of the year."

Zak Jones limped off late with an ankle injury but Ratten was unsure of its severity.